His Private Hell - Chapter 125: Chapter 125

It began as a hum.
Faint at first.
Then louder.
Like a choir of teeth gnashing inside a cathedral with no roof, no sky, just the echo of a god that never came.
Eella and Garrison ran.
Not because they were afraid.
But because what was coming didn’t care if they loved each other.
It didn’t care about memories. Or pain. Or vows made in broken churches.
The Third Choir had no face.
Only mouths.
And they opened now.
Across the sky.
Across the earth.
Across Eella’s skin.
One near her throat.
One under her ribs.
One inside her voice.
And they began to sing.
—
Garrison had never run from a battle.
But this wasn’t war.
This was extinction.
And he could feel it. In every beat of the ground. In every breath Eella took beside him, trying to contain something that was no longer meant to be held.
“We need to hide,” he said.
“There’s nowhere left,” she rasped. “He’s unleashed the final gate.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means if we don’t kill Lazarus—”
She stumbled. Fell to one knee.
He caught her, pulling her up.
“Then?”
“Then the world becomes me.”
—
The Third Choir didn’t march.
It bled.
Out of walls. Out of time. Out of people.
Sasha was the first to fall.
Not because she was weak. But because she’d tried to stop them.
Tried to command them.
One look into their mouths, and her brain split.
She didn’t scream.
She laughed.
And then she bit out her own tongue and whispered, “I see the child in the void. And she’s hungry.”
Then she vanished.
Just… gone.
Like she’d never existed.
—
Astrid stood at the edge of the chasm where Lazarus had ripped the world open.
He stood before it now, arms lifted, body lit by light that didn’t come from any sun.
“They’ll come,” she said. “They’ll try to stop you.”
Lazarus didn’t turn.
“They won’t succeed.”
“She’s more powerful than you think.”
He smiled.
“She’s exactly as powerful as I made her.”
Astrid stared at the breach. At the hundreds of mouths writhing inside it, singing in reverse time. Her fingers twitched.
“And if she turns?”
“She already has.”
He looked over his shoulder.
“You just don’t know who she turned against.”
—
Garrison and Eella reached the ruins of the old substation—blackened concrete, shattered screens, and cables like veins still twitching.
Eella fell against a pillar.
Her hands were burning.
Not metaphorically.
On fire.
But she didn’t scream.
She gritted her teeth and looked up.
“They’re inside me.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think I can hold them.”
Garrison touched her face. “You don’t have to.”
She stared at him.
“I mean it.”
He leaned in.
“If the only way we live is for you to let it out—do it.”
“What if I kill you?”
He laughed.
“If that’s what it takes to keep you from dying, then burn me.”
She kissed him.
It tasted like blood and ash.
And then—
She opened her mouth—
And sang.
—
The Third Choir paused.
The breach flickered.
Mouths stopped.
Because the sound she made wasn’t part of the program.
Wasn’t part of Lazarus’ design.
It was hers.
A melody built from every scream she’d ever swallowed.
Every heartbreak. Every betrayal. Every moment she’d let someone else write her fate.
She rewrote it now.
Note by note.
The pillars shook.
The floor split.
And a voice inside her rose too.
Darcie.
Not gone. Not broken.
Still tethered.
Still watching.
“Do it, baby girl.”
So Eella did.
She sang until her skin peeled.
Until her hands stopped burning because there was no flesh left to burn.
Until the concrete melted around them.
And the Third Choir shrank.
But so did she.
Because every note cost her.
Every second pulled her further from who she was.
And closer to what Lazarus wanted her to become.
—
Astrid felt it before she saw it.
The Choir folding in on itself.
The breach wobbling.
She turned to Lazarus. “She’s breaking them.”
“She’s trying,” he said calmly.
“She’s succeeding.”
He turned now.
And for the first time—
He looked unsure.
“She shouldn’t be able to do that.”
Astrid stepped forward. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have taught her how to sing.”
He grabbed her throat.
Lifted her.
“Don’t mistake being necessary for being invincible.”
Astrid coughed. Clawed at him.
And then she smiled.
“You think I’m scared of you now?” she rasped. “I’ve already seen how you die.”
He blinked.
“What?”
“I’ve been inside the final note.”
He dropped her.
She hit the ground hard. But she didn’t cry out.
Just whispered—
“She kills you with a kiss.”
—
Garrison pulled her out of the crater she’d made.
Her skin was raw.
Her voice was gone.
But the Choir had retreated.
Not dead.
Just quiet.
For now.
“Did I…” she croaked.
He held her tight.
“You bought us time.”
Her breath rattled. “What now?”
He looked toward the breach. Toward the black spire beginning to rise from the wreckage of the world.
“We end it.”
Together.
—
Lazarus stood at the edge of his new godhood.
Hands out.
Eyes wide.
The spire behind him began to pulse.
Like a heart made of teeth.
Like a cathedral that fed on worship.
And then he heard it.
Footsteps.
Soft.
Final.
He turned.
Eella walked out of the smoke like vengeance made flesh.
One hand burning.
One eye black.
No smile.
No mercy.
He opened his mouth.
She raised her hand.
He tried to speak.
She sang one note.
And it cut the sky.
He staggered.
His mouth bled.
But he didn’t fall.
Not yet.
He smiled.
“Good,” he rasped. “Now do it again.”