Melinda Halliwell, Daughter, Witch, & Pain In The [redacted]

As the woman and the End spoke, Ka had been left unattended to. The End was offguard, the quarry concentrating on him; it was the perfect opportunity. Ka was back on mission mode and he had to destroy the gate. The Gate of Worlds. Ka shifted to bent knee to rise, but before even he could react of his own accord, the air shifted. The chamber had already been almost completely devoid of light, but now the darkness itself began to pulse and pull across its edges.

The Maledict stood to his feet, then fell back into the darkness only to shift out of it next to the Gate. Void seeped from the figure of the Maledict and pulsed around him, enshrouding him as armor and an extension of himself, and his focus was on the Gate mechanism.

The End felt the shift but at a tone too late as the Maledict reached within and without hesitation towards the mechanism. The turning point was now, the pitch had now shifted into the hands of the Maledict, and he knew the end was in grasp.

Elsewhere, the Fenns were feeling the flux. Dori, Kain, Olkoth. Dori felt a great all consuming fear, Kain felt the hole left from his greatest loss now tug and tear itself impossibly wider. Olkoth near collapsed from the crush of absence.

But, before the Maledict could finish it, the darkness appeared to hold its breath for the End. The End of Everything, the ultimate finality of the Entropy Death of this Multiverse point, now looked toward the Maledict and knew his time was come. "Melinda…I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

The air stilled, and the light Maledict seemed to swallow by being present now fell bright. Brighter, warmer than summer, welcome at first until it too began consumption of its own. Brighter, brighter, warmer, hotter. Maledict gave loose a convex howl as this brightness melted him away. And Melinda would know no more, other than it felt as though the very core of the Sun burst dead center of the chamber and bathed it in white hot fire.

When she awoke, it was strange. She stood as she did before this Entropy. No gate, just scorched earth and cool dampness of a cavern chamber, and on her own. Silence. No breaths, no heartbeat, stillness. That was until she could catch a shifting motion in her peripheral. Where the End had ended, and the Maledict had been burned away, two still bodies. Black masses of Void that were vaguely shaped into humanoid shapes, one getting to its feet as the other could rise no farther but to bent knee. Melinda knew the one who stood, though his appearance now shifted like the darkness in the still room. This much taller, dark haired man turned to her with the softest gaze of crystalline light blue eyes. He sighed as he approached her wearing a gentle expression. "It's over now, breathe Mels. Today, you saved without sacrifice needed of you. Quite the glow up."

--

Melinda had been having visions for some time, a blast of energy, an ending followed by darkness. Her vision had been repeating for weeks before she had been trapped in this time loop. She couldn't have known what she was trying to fight, what was going to be destroyed, and reborn.

Melinda clutched her chest as she felt the pulse that seemed to pulse here and she couldn't explain the tears as they began to fall from her eyes. She looked upon someone that she couldn't understand now. Not yet, she felt an overwhelming emotion that was more than anything she had had ever experienced.

It surprised her to hear the man that looked so much like the Demon of Fear but not him at the same time apologize to her. Before, she could utter a word, the air seemed to still and light engulfed the room and Melinda knew nothing. It was as if this was the very end. She saw nothing and heard nothing--everything warmed and burned and yet…

Melinda opened her eyes she was on soft ground, the entire area around her was grass but not normal grass. This grass was not green, it was red orange in color.

Around her were also massive tea roses that were blue purple. She rubbed her eyes and muttered, "What the hell?" She sat up with a start.