His eyes implode in its sockets. His head whips behind him, the torn flesh of a creature ropes its tendril around his ankle. He looks back at me frantically, with nothing but mounting horror within his eyes. He reaches out to me pleadingly like the desperate, dying gasp of a sinner seeking salvation.
"Aurora, I beg of you!"
Instantaneously, his body is ripped away from me, rapidly drawn into the darkness. His harrowing holler echoes until silence sunders its length. I cast a look behind me and I see Solaris gaping at me like he doesn't recognise me, like I myself am a desert demon.
"Just as I said."
I sneak a look off my shoulder to glimpse the eidolon of Rimnick.
"A darkness within."
"Get out of my head," I hiss through clenched teeth. My vision shudders—then clears as something releases its grip on my mind. I gasp, the breath sharp and cold, as if I've just surfaced from drowning.
Solaris is still frozen, his face a mask of horror. Then, a flicker movement behind him.
