The Obsidian Covenant #1: The Rejected Mate's Ruin
I was the root system of the Dead City, feeling every rusted pipe and ancient carcass of metal buried in the dirt.
I am dying, the thought sat in my brain, detached and clinical.
My heart had stopped. The absence of the beat pressed against my eardrums like a physical weight. This was the burnout. This was the limit.
Then, the vibration died. Not gradually—cut off.
The roaring heat vanished. The pain evaporated into a terrifying, hollow emptiness.
I was floating in a white, infinite space. Everything was leached of color, reduced to a blinding, sterile grey. It was silent here. Too quiet. Wrong. My own non-existent breathing should have sounded deafening, but there was nothing.