His Private Hell - Chapter 105: Chapter 105

She woke up to screams.
Not her own.
Not Garrison’s.
But distant ones, guttural and wet, like a choir crying underwater.
She bolted upright, the sheets soaked in sweat, her hand already reaching beneath the mattress for the knife she kept there like a lullaby.
The mirror across the room was shattered.
Again.
And this time, the glass was missing.
Not broken—taken.
“Garrison,” she whispered.
But he wasn’t in bed.
He wasn’t anywhere.
She grabbed her gun and stalked barefoot down the hallway.
The walls were humming.
No. Breathing.
Like they did in the house.
She turned a corner—
And there he was.
Standing still.
Facing the wall.
Bleeding from the ears.
“Garrison?” Her voice cracked.
He turned slowly.
Smiled.
Not his smile.
A Lazarus smile.
“You drank it, didn’t you?” she asked.
He didn’t answer.
Just blinked—once.
And whispered, “Do you still hear them, Eella?”
She backed up. “Where is the real you?”
Another voice echoed behind her. “What if this is the real him?”
Darcie stepped out of the shadows, her dress soaked in ash and blood.
“You drugged him?” Eella snapped.
Darcie didn’t blink. “No, baby. He asked for it. He wanted to feel what you felt. What you were too cowardly to swallow.”
“I kept the vial sealed.”
“Then who gave him the second?”
Eella’s heart dropped.
Darcie giggled. “Oh. He didn’t tell you? Lazarus made hundreds.”
“Liar.”
“Look at your lover, Eella. He chose evolution.”
Garrison stepped closer. His pupils were blown wide, but something inside still flickered—him.
“I had to,” he said. “To keep up with you.”
She raised the gun.
“You think you’re protecting me,” he whispered. “But you’re becoming just like him. And I want to follow.”
“Not like this.”
“You’ll understand soon.” He smiled. “When the Choir comes.”
—
They came at night.
A low rumble from the sea tunnels. A vibration that split the floorboards and shorted every screen.
Dozens of them.
Naked.
Shaved heads.
Scarred bodies.
All ages.
All marked with the sigil Lazarus carved into Eella’s back years ago.
They stood at the gates of the compound.
And they sang.
A high-pitched wail that shattered glass and made blood leak from eyes.
Eella’s men—mercenaries, ex-spies, ex-lovers—fell to their knees one by one.
Some bled out from their ears.
Others clawed at their own throats until they tore their voices from them.
She watched it all from the rooftop.
Garrison beside her.
Still smiling.
Still bleeding.
“They only want you,” he said.
“Then they’ll get fire.”
She pressed the detonation code.
The walls of the compound exploded outward.
But the Choir didn’t die.
They didn’t even flinch.
They fed.
On the heat. On the ash. On the pain.
They laughed as they burned.
And when the smoke cleared, they were still singing.
—
Inside, in the vault, Eella dragged Garrison to the med table.
He didn’t fight her.
He just kept whispering her name like it was a hymn.
“I’m still me,” he said as she strapped him down. “I just… see more now.”
“You’re hallucinating.”
“No,” he whispered. “I’m ascending.”
She slapped him.
Hard.
He blinked.
And the flicker of humanity returned—for a moment.
“Help me,” he whispered.
Then his back arched, and something cracked beneath his skin.
Darcie stood in the doorway, arms crossed.
“You can’t fix him,” she said.
“Why are you here?”
“To say goodbye.”
“To who?”
“You.”
Eella froze.
Darcie tossed a match to the floor. The room erupted in fire.
“You’ll survive,” she said. “You always do.”
“Why do this?”
“Because I’m tired of being the second monster.”
And then she vanished.
—
Eella dragged Garrison through the flames, his screams mixing with the walls’ groaning collapse.
By the time she got outside, the sky was raining ash.
The Choir was gone.
And a note was stapled to the gate.
Are you ready to meet yourself?
She stared at it.
Her legs buckled.
And she collapsed.
—
When she woke again, she was in a stranger’s bed.
Linen sheets. Oak walls. Sunlight.
A woman sat across the room, nursing a cigarette like it was sacred.
“Who are you?” Eella asked, sitting up.
The woman turned.
She had her face.
Not similar.
Identical.
“You’re not dreaming,” the woman said. “You’re waking up.”
“What is this?”
“I’m the version of you that drank the vial,” the double said. “The one that said yes to him. That stayed in the house.”
Eella’s breath caught. “This isn’t real.”
“You’re in Lazarus’s mind now. He’s drawing you in. Piece by piece.”
Eella shook her head. “No. I left him. I burned him.”
The double smiled. “You burned a vessel. But the god inside crawled out. And it’s building a new temple.”
Eella stared. “Why show me this?”
“Because the next time you close your eyes… you won’t be you anymore.”
The room began to dissolve.
The skin on her arms peeled back like paper.
And Eella screamed—
Until everything went black.
—
In the waking world, her body spasmed.
Garrison held her down, whispering through cracked lips.
“You’re almost there.”
His voice was bleeding.
His hands were trembling.
He was smiling.
Because inside her veins, the transformation had begun.
She hadn’t drunk the vial.
But the air was tainted now.
Lazarus had infected everything.
And soon, Eella would become the very thing she feared.
Not his slave.
Not his lover.
But his mirror.
And mirrors?
They cut both ways.