Protect Your Energy

Odilia: "Freeloader, don't listen to her, she speaks only lies."

Mother: "Finish the job with this liar, we have the vessel now."

Odilia: "I told you to get out of here, why didn't you listen?"

Mother: "Malkor, I invoke thy name! Spill the blood, open thy gates."

The reality of the room began to unravel as the floorboards groaned, splitting open along a slow, wet pulse that felt like a throat expanding beneath the wood. An impossible weight hit the air, a sudden, crushing pressure that violently tore the cultists' grip from my skin and hurled me across the room. My body collided hard against the far wall, the back of my head slamming into the solid timber with a sickening crack that flashed white-hot pain behind my eyes and blurred my vision into jagged streaks of red. Yet even through the blinding ache, I could see the foundations of the room tear themselves apart, welcoming Malkor's ascent.

Malkor: "Again, you bleed to wake me, my children…I know the hole in your hearts. I know the boy you scream for."

Pinned by fingers bruising my arms, I watched Odilia's upside-down body give a final, choking gasp as the blade tore deeper into her throat. Before me stood the monster who killed the very son they're now trying to resurrect. Through their eyes, I'm just a vacant husk to be gutted, choked by their sickly stench of rotting blood.

Cultists: Mother Malkor, the blood is being lost; if we don't bind it now, the vessel won't take. It has to be consumed through direct ingestion, from his own connection, there's no time!"

Malkor: "We mustn't keep my weeping children waiting; their grief is far too delicious."

The blinding ache in my skull surrendered to a suffocating weight as the world dissolved around me, the sulphur pouring into my lungs like liquid ash until the screams of the cultists vanished entirely. The solid timber of the wall gave way to a sudden, sickening drop, and when my hands finally slammed down to break my fall, it wasn't wood beneath my fingers, but the baking, scorching earth of a massive, fire-filled burial site.

Quentin: "What the actual fuck is wrong with you guys?"

???: "Is that really how you greet someone you love? A simple hello would have been nice, don't you think…my meadow?

Malkor: I've missed you so much, don't make this harder than it needs to be."

This isn't real

Quentin: Get the fuck off me, stand up, I'm going to kill you."