Chapter 1052
It wasn’t a normal shattering. The glass became a million razor-sharp diamonds, propelled by a hurricane-force wind that roared through the room. The frozen guests shrieked as it tore through them—but they didn’t bleed. Their bodies dissolved into thick grey smoke and were sucked out into the night sky.
The dream was under siege. Alistair’s frantic, violent attempts to wake her in the real world were tearing the simulation apart.
Skye was thrown backward by the blast of air. She hit the marble floor hard, her hands flying out to break her fall.
Her right palm slammed down onto a jagged shard of window glass.
It sliced deep into her flesh.
“Ah!” Skye screamed, pulling her hand back.
Blood—real, hot, bright red blood—welled up from the gash and dripped onto the pristine white marble. The pain was blinding, sharp, and entirely physical. Not the dull ache of the tight shoes. The visceral agony of torn tissue.
“Skye!”
Liam materialized from the chaos. He wasn’t the robotic figure anymore. His face was twisted in genuine terror. He lunged toward her, his hand outstretched.
But before his fingers could brush hers, a massive chunk of ornate plaster broke loose from the ceiling.
It plummeted downward, crushing him instantly.
Skye screamed his name and scrambled forward. But there was no body under the rubble. The moment the plaster hit him, Liam shattered into a cascade of glowing green data streams that dissolved into nothingness.
The fake Liam was gone.
The wind howled louder, tearing the tapestries from the walls. The floor began to tilt.
Skye huddled on the ground, clutching her bleeding hand to her chest. Through the chaos, she found Julian.
He was standing perfectly still in the center of the collapsing room. The hurricane winds didn’t touch him. His hair didn’t move. He was an anchor in the storm.
He walked slowly toward her and crouched down to her level.
From the gaping hole where the ceiling had been, a voice boomed through—not a sound from inside the dream, but a distorted, desperate roar bleeding through from reality.
“Skye! Wake up! Damn it, don’t you die on me!”
Alistair.
Beneath his shouting, Skye heard a rhythmic, high-pitched sound. Beep. Beep. Beep.
A heart monitor.
Skye squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her hands over her ears. “It’s too loud! Make it stop!”
“I can’t,” Julian said calmly, his voice cutting cleanly through the noise. “That is reality calling you home, Phoenix.”
He reached out and took her bleeding hand. He didn’t flinch at the blood. It stained his pristine white cuffs.
“I don’t want to go back,” Skye sobbed, the pain in her hand throbbing in time with the phantom heart monitor. “It hurts too much out there. Everyone is dying. Bastian… the vault… I just want to stay here. With Ethan. With you.”
Julian shook his head slowly. “That wasn’t Ethan. And this isn’t me.”
He pointed toward the shattered windows. “Look closely, Skye. Look at what this place really is.”
Skye turned her head.
The walls of the ballroom were peeling away like burnt paper. Beyond them, there were no manicured gardens. No starry night sky.
Only a vast, infinite void of blackness.