His Private Hell - Chapter 124: Chapter 124

The blast had flattened everything.
No sirens. No fire. Not even screams.
Just glass in lungs and silence behind the eyes.
When Eella woke, she wasn’t in the city anymore. She was lying in water. Not wet. Not cold. Just there. A surface too still to ripple and too deep to see through. The sky above was black with no stars, no moon, no sound.
But she could hear her breath.
Could feel it echoing back from something that was breathing with her. Or against her.
Then—
A light.
No, not light.
A presence.
Something ancient. Familiar. Like waking up in someone else’s memory.
Darcie’s voice slid across the black like a blade across skin.
“You’re not lost, baby girl. You’re chosen.”
Eella didn’t answer.
Because she couldn’t move.
Couldn’t think.
Couldn’t remember if she was still herself.
All she could feel was the choir screaming inside her blood, trying to claw its way out. Trying to finish what had begun.
And somewhere, not far enough away, Garrison was screaming too.
Only his was real.
He was alive.
And that terrified her more than anything else.
Because if he was alive, he’d come for her.
And if he came for her—
She’d kill him.
—
Garrison stumbled through ash.
Half the bridge was gone. The sky looked burned. Not red. Not orange. Just scorched. Like someone had painted it with the last breath of a dead god.
But he could still feel her.
Still hear the hum in his bones.
Still smell her blood under his nails.
“Eella,” he whispered.
It wasn’t a prayer.
It was a promise.
Behind him, Sasha limped into view.
One arm gone. One eye blacked out. Her voice just a thread. “You think you can reach her now?”
He didn’t turn. “I have to.”
“She’s gone.”
“No.”
“She’s ascended.”
“I don’t care if she’s god herself,” Garrison growled. “I’m going to bring her home.”
Sasha coughed blood. “Then you’re already damned.”
Garrison turned then. Slowly.
“She was never the monster.”
“She is now.”
He smiled.
“Then I’ll love the monster.”
He walked toward the ruins, alone.
—
Astrid was the only one still standing inside the chamber when it cracked.
She stood beneath the crucible of strings, her fingers bleeding, her dress torn, her mouth open in a note so long it broke bones.
But she didn’t care.
Because Lazarus was smiling.
Not kindly.
Not proudly.
But in the way a god does when his favorite creation decides to betray him properly.
“She’s near the apex,” he murmured. “But still fighting.”
Astrid’s voice shattered another string.
“I’ll finish her.”
“No,” Lazarus said.
He turned toward the wall where the Second Choir was beginning to emerge from liquid void.
“You’ll prepare the third.”
Astrid froze.
“Third?”
“You didn’t think this ended at two, did you?”
His voice deepened. “The third Choir was never meant to sing.”
Astrid stared. “Then why—”
“Because if Eella survives this?” Lazarus said, placing one hand over the nearest Choir body’s mouth. “She’ll need to.”
—
Eella opened her eyes again.
This time, it was real.
A hospital? No.
A chapel?
Maybe.
The floor was marble. The windows were broken. And a single stained-glass panel lay on her chest.
She sat up, bleeding from her nose.
Darcie stood across from her, arms folded.
“You’re resisting again.”
Eella breathed hard. “He’s still alive.”
Darcie rolled her eyes. “He shouldn’t be.”
“I can feel him.”
Darcie walked toward her. “Then kill the feeling.”
“I can’t.”
“You will.”
“No,” Eella whispered. “I won’t.”
And then—
Darcie slapped her.
Hard.
Hard enough to make the room ripple.
“You think love will save you?” Darcie hissed. “You think love is your weapon?”
Eella didn’t move.
Darcie leaned closer.
“Love is why you were broken in the first place.”
Eella looked up slowly.
“Then let me be broken.”
—
Garrison found her in the chapel.
Not because he knew where she was.
But because his heart refused to stop dragging him.
And when he opened the cracked wooden doors, she didn’t run.
She turned.
She saw him.
And something inside her eyes cracked.
He took one step forward.
And she screamed.
Not in fear.
Not in hate.
But in need.
The chapel shattered.
The air convulsed.
Darcie launched toward him like a blade of black sound.
And Garrison caught her by the throat.
“No,” he growled. “Not this time.”
He slammed her into the marble. The floor cracked. She vanished.
He turned back to Eella.
Her hands were trembling.
Her voice was thick.
“I don’t want to kill you.”
“Then don’t.”
“I’m not safe.”
“I don’t care.”
“I’ll tear the world in half if I touch you.”
He walked to her.
“Tear it.”
And he kissed her.
Hard.
Like death.
Like hope.
Like the end.
And the moment their lips met, the Choir inside her screamed.
But not in rage.
In reverence.
Because he was the key.
Because this was the song she was never allowed to hear until now.
Her hands clawed into his shirt.
His fingers dug into her back.
Their blood mixed on the floor like a sacrament.
And when they broke apart, they were both crying.
“I can’t hold it back anymore,” she whispered.
“Then let me hold it with you.”
—
Darcie appeared in the shadows, broken and bleeding.
She didn’t speak.
She only watched as the girl she’d tried to possess chose love over power.
And she laughed.
But not cruelly.
Not bitterly.
She laughed like a mother who’d just watched her daughter survive something impossible.
And then she whispered one word.
“Run.”
Eella turned sharply.
“What?”
But Darcie was already gone.
And in her place—
Lazarus.
Whole.
Awake.
And smiling.
“Now,” he said.
“The Third Choir rises.”