The darkness wasn't empty anymore.
It crawled. It whispered. It pulsed in colors his eyes couldn't name, blooming like wet flowers behind his eyelids, throbbing in time with the sluggish beat of his heart. He floated in it—no, he was sunk in it, weighed down by silken chains that weren't just wrapped around his limbs now, but threaded through his veins, his breath, his thoughts. Every inhale tasted like resin and musk, thick and sweet and alive, filling him with something that burned hotter than blood.
Voices coiled through the dark like smoke. Soft at first, then sharper, then everywhere, echoing from inside his skull as much as outside. They didn't speak words, not all the time—sometimes they hissed, sometimes they purred, sometimes they simply laughed, the sound dripping with hunger and promise. But when they did speak, the venom in their tones curled around his mind like silk tightening at the throat.
Ours. Ours. Ours forever.
