The three of us gaze down into the black abyss, our toes barely hanging over the edge. It goes down further than any of us can make out; we might as well call it eternal. 

But we know it isn’t. 

“You’re certain he’s down there?” Lorelei asks, picking a small pebble up from the ground and tossing it in, waiting to hear a sound. Silence fills the air, the expectation palpable between us.  

The pebble never makes a sound. 

“I’m certain,” I breathe, forcing myself to step away from the edge, wiping my sweaty palms against the fabric of my jacket. “Everything we’ve found points to this place.” 

“I don’t know if ‘dark and silent’ necessarily means a void of nothing,” Charles said, stepping away to join me. “Maybe we’ve been misled.” 

“I’m certain,” I snap back at him, taking my backpack off and setting it down, kneeling to rifle through the contents. I pull out sheets of paper, one after the other. I pull out drawings, maps, audio logs, hologram recordings, everything we’ve collected over the past seventeen years of searching, and spread them out across the stone ground. “Look at all of this, and tell me that he’s somewhere else.” 

Charles sighed, closing his eyes. “I’ve seen it all. What if we missed something? What if there’s a piece of this puzzle that, when found, sends us in a completely different direction?” 

“There isn’t!” I yelled, and he took a step back. “I’ve searched long enough.” 

“Sadie,” Lorelei said, kneeling next to me and putting a hand on my shoulder. “What if… What if we get down there, and discover They got to him?” 

“They haven’t.” 

“And if They have?” 

I clench my jaw. “Then we know what we have to do.” I match her gaze, her features solemn and hopeless, and stand, leaving the pack and its contents sprawled across the ground. I walk back to the abyss, standing over it and not looking down. “Today, this ends. I’m bringing him home.” 

My two companions join me at the edge. “If this kills us, it’s on you,” warned Charles. 

“I’ll take that chance,” I retort, taking a step forward and plunging into the darkness. I try to keep myself upright as I fall faster and faster, losing sight of Charles and Lorelei very quickly. My heart beats faster, adrenaline pumping through me, but whether out of fear or out of hope, I can’t tell. 

It feels like I’m falling for hours, but beneath me, a dim light starts to glow, getting brighter by the second. My eyes widen as the floor rushes up to meet me, and I brace myself for impact, but to my shock, I land on my feet with so little effort that it’s as if I only jumped off the bottom stair of a staircase. A cloud of dust is disturbed by my landing, puffing up to signal my arrival and making me sneeze. 

I hear a scream behind me and spin around to find Charles, a look of pure fear on his face, about to fall over. Lorelei landed soon after, with far less screaming. 

“Wasn’t as bad as I expected,” she said, brushing herself down. 

“Speak for yourself!” Charles shouted. 

I take a proper look around the place we landed. It’s a flat surface, but it goes on seemingly forever in all directions. The entire area is illuminated by the glow of iridescent swords, stabbed into the ground all around us. A cold horror starts to seep into my heart. 

“They’ve been here,” I whisper, scanning the area for something other than a shining blade. My eyes settle on a figure in the distance, seated and hunched over. 

It’s him. 

“Reece!” I shout, praying to whatever God is listening that he’s okay, that he was strong enough to fend Them off. I sprint towards him, and as I get closer, he raises his head. My heart jumps, a smile touching my lips for the first time in a while. 

He turns around, and I falter. His once-blue eyes have become a glowing, solid white. There are golden, luminescent swords embedded in his chest. My smile fades before it even had the chance to fully form. 

“No,” I whisper, stopping just ten paces from the man who once was Reece. He slowly stands, his unnatural white eyes fixed on me constantly, and he pulls two of the golden swords from his chest, holding them ready. His expression doesn’t change and blood doesn’t seep from his wounds, and all the hope that I had kept within me for seventeen long years vanishes in the blink of an eye. 

I grit my teeth, my face growing hot. I pull my sword from my sheath, gripping it tightly with both hands, and pointing it at my former partner. 

“Seventeen years,” I mutter as Lorelei and Charles finally catch up to me, both drawing their own weapons. “I searched for seventeen fucking years. When this is over, I’m going to find Them. Do you hear me?” I shout, the words vanishing into the void. 

“I know You can.”