A distraction is only as good as the element of surprise and the flaw with that technique is that it stops working the moment it gets pulled out of the sleeve. Twenty-one people had their heads blown open surgically accurate by Marc's first gun, which locked, and blindly lucky by Clara, aiming only to cause chaos.

Twenty-one pools of blood stained the courtyard of El Hachim Resort and it was all it took for Arthur's guests to either scramble in a swarm of screams or start doing something about it. Members of the Hand present were going to be a close-up threat, while Anchor representatives had a wide range of danger to pose to the duo. It was hard to tell them apart, but since they had the shield of the bar's shelves of bottles, Marc and Clara were able to focus the fire on the biggest cluster of people.

Corpses broke plates, turned tables, just as fast as the live people trying to hide.

The chaos raged on like a true war zone and finally the enemy started firing back.

The bottles behind the bar began shattering and both Marc and Clara lowered their stance, wordlessly, because there was no time for talking. She gave her second gun to the one more qualified to actually hit his targets and he tossed the empty one aside. Their calculated ammo should have lasted them ten minutes, so there was no need to carry around any dead weight.

They had lowered down so now the shards from the bottles flew over their heads, hit the bar's surface above and rained only in a sprinkling deadly rain over their head. They were still facing the lobby restaurant though, and that meant that their aim remained focused, attempting only to stun this conglomeration of people so they didn't immediately strike back and force them to move from the central position.

It was, however, the stairs area to the left of the bar which started getting swarmed with a response then. Civilians were trying to get away while the people with significance to this event, who got caught in the havoc while on the other side of the bar, made advancements to get clearer shots at the lucky, crazy bastards who started blasting the wrong gathering.

Marc was feeling the brief adrenaline of what he had forgotten he was damn good at.

Guns felt at home in his hands, either from the phantom of the army, or from the peppered shadow of his mercenary duties, those times long before Khonshu stepped in.

He hadn't missed a single shot he took and no matter what fighting style he had adopted as Khonshu's high priest, Marc didn't forget the right posture for this combat either. It all came back to him clearly and defied the fact that he was supposed to be weaker around the New Moon. He wasn't weak. Moon Knight was just missing.

Clara was truly concentrating however, even while Venom was having the time of his life. They weren't exactly as efficient as the ex-marine next to them, but they did damage, at least for fear induction, because when their bullets did not hit anyone's head, they dismembered, took out organs or mutilated glasses, plates and everything in their path.

"We should do the gun thing more often," Venom laughed, far more relaxed now with the idea of not stepping out to protect Clara.

It lasted for only as long as the ones from behind the bar advanced towards the stairs, because then bullets began flying far too close to them, splintering the bottom of the bar and bruising them both with the wood jumping from its place in tiny pieces.

Without any debate of thought, Clara blocked the clear path to Marc in time. Her teeth clanked, gritted and she took valiantly three rounds. Though he could not block her pain sensors, Venom knew what to do, that single duty he had for the night: he slowed down the bullets, so they wouldn't get out through Clara's back, and then tossed them back out, as discreetly as possible for no security cameras to actually notice him. Then, he started sealing up each wound.

That was also the only moment in which Marc sniffed the feeling of missing Moon Knight at all, getting a taste of vulnerability as well as utter helplessness.

No emotion was more important in that moment than making it to their ten minute mark and then getting out of the resort in one piece, more or less. So feelings didn't linger. Marc's mind went on autopilot, shifting the gear as soon as Clara took the damage for them both.

He tapped Clara's shoulder. She turned around and her shoulders became the leaning point of his elbows. He needed the support to get his aim to be accurate from distance too. Five of the people next to the stairs were dead within the first few seconds, and even though the sounds irritated her and Venom, Clara remained unmoved so as to not disturb his calculated attack.

One of the guns in his hands locked.

Still lowered to the ground was no longer a beneficial place for them to linger, because the restaurant was waking up with a handful of survivors, due to their attention gifting to the other group, now halved.

Clara heard a commotion from the restaurant, yet did not understand what she was seeing. It was Marc who placed two and two together, seeing through the eyes of a God's favorite. He heard a clearly animalistic roar accompanied by the destructive thud of a jackal landing from a jump from the second floor onto the wreckage of some tables. The second he saw it, his body reacted on his own and grabbed Clara's shoulders, pulling her behind him. This was a danger which she didn't see and he had seen those things rip people apart in ways he doubted Venom could be fast enough to heal. He couldn't risk it.

She had no issue with taking damage from bullets, because she trusted her symbiote to not let them die, but to have Marc -the person she expected least, with or without the developments of their connection- try and do the same self-sacrificial move for her...

"What are we fighting and why are there suddenly so many things I cannot see?" Venom mumbled. "Do I need to get my eyes checked? I should be protecting you, not the hallucinations guys."

A second jackal dropped from the upper floors -Clara only saw the crack appearing on the floor while Marc got the terrifying sight of the whole being, as tall as the great statues, preserved through time in tombs, but alive, and furred, with bones and bandages, not made of stone- and started tearing through the people nearest to the stairs.

A third one blocked the exit to the yard.

"Why are they killing their own guys?" Clara asked the question which was also in Marc's mind from the moment he noticed the behavior of those same jackalas which not too long ago would have held a true grudge against him, carried out a true vendetta.

It wasn't the only significantly different detail he had noticed though. Unlike before, jackals weren't trying to take advantage of their unseen state by keeping it sanctified. No, they acted as if the Hand and Anchor, all those philanthropists Arthur invited, were the true enemy and did not care to make a mess, make their presence felt.

Heck, they saved Clara and Marc a whole bunch of bullets in a suspiciously fast execution.

The lobby turned deadly silent for Clara's ears. Marc stepped forward, away from her. With his own eyes, he saw that the jackals were not planning on attacking them now. Something was way off.

"We should leave," he blurted out immediately.

A notch too late.

By stepping forward, the sole of his right foot cracked on a piece of broken glass. From it, a posh British accent cried, "What have you done?"

"Steven?" Marc whispered, fearful to step away from the glass and see his reflection.

The tap of steps conjoined with the tip of a cane poking the ground came from the stairs and both Marc and Clara flinched to point their guns at the newcomer, however only Clara pulled the trigger. She was completely off target

Marc wanted to shoot too, but out of his control, his hands had frozen, dropping down and almost letting go of the gun too. His behavior didn't catch Clara's attention yet, because her gaze narrowed on their true person target, finally joining the crime scene of the lobby.

Arthur Harrow looked thinner and less alive than how Clara remembered him and they haven't really met ages ago for the change to be so drastic so soon. But half his face was distorted into a constant flinch, his long blonde hair, dirtier than usual, was caught back so it hid the way it was falling off and his long sleeves... they tried to look tidy, but they hid the shackle marks around his wrists.

"No need for weapons from here on," Arthur sighed. He raised his free hand in a sign of peace, but that just gave Marc and Clara a glimpse at the signs he's been held captive. She was ready to shoot again anyhow -mercy was not her strong suit when anger was associated with a face- and that's why Harrow looked at her when he spoke, right before turning around and beginning to limp slowly up the stairs. "You'll want to hear what I have to say before you end my suffering."

With one glance at each other, even if Marc's eyes were slightly unfocused, they decided to follow Arthur up the stairs. After all, they still had five minutes to go, in order to follow Paul's plan. Five minutes and Clara would raise the gun to Harrow's head and end this madness.

"Send my thanks to the detective for bringing you both here ahead of schedule and helping me rid of the filth which they forced me to get surrounded by," Arthur's voice was quivering with the struggle to his lungs to keep up with ascending on the stairs. He openly already let them know they were set up and on top of Marc's dizziness from having Steven directly interrupt him so strongly, came the confusion of nothing adding up. He grasped the railing a bit tighter while climbing after Arthur.

"Never said he was my friend...," Clara mumbled under her breath, letting Venom do the cursing on Paul's name on her behalf. Alas, her voice raised, "It doesn't matter if you want us here, I will kill you."

"Don't get ahead of herself, Miss Carita," Arthur sighed, finally turning towards the open office he had on the first floor, "I am already dead."

"This ominous bastard speaks in riddles," Venom's complaint spit its tonality into her mind which compared to Marc's in that very moment, suddenly would have seemed quiet.

Arthur led them into a large room, decorated in Moroccan details and hiding all the artifacts and coffers he had chased and gathered in his life since the discovery of the wonder through Egyptians Gods. That discovery, decades ago, had laid the foundation to a life-long obsession which to the day, hadn't left him. Unlike his life force.

From the dream hazing state he was into, Marc looked back, feeling the puncturing gaze on his neck from the jackals climbing the stairs quietly with them. They looked tense, but not as dangerous as he remembered them from back when Arthur tried to end him and Khonshu. Now, the jackals marched one last stand, slowly, about to remain outside of the room, close the door for them so the silence built up.

"I see you're tense, Marc, so I will lift a burden off your heavy scales and let you know that I was not going to try and summon Ammit again," Arthur dropped his tired body into the single remotely comfortable-looking armchair. "You and Khonshu successfully stopped my initial attempt and after that... They didn't let me continue anything. My followers have been eliminated one by one and they thought I wouldn't notice how they turned good souls corrupted right before my eyes."

Though his head was buzzing from Steven's constant try to take over, something which came unexpectedly and felt like slowly drowning in a room filled to the brim with water when second ago it had been beautifully dry, Marc was holding on decently enough to reality to know he was borderline intrigued by what Arthur was speaking of, and especially how he was speaking of it too. It sounded like a last speech, his last words crammed in the very final moments of his miserable life.

However, Venom called from the inside that the five minutes were up and Clara raised her gun again, oblivious to the nuances of a bad man. "Time's up-" Marc reached out to lean his hand on her shoulder.

"He's at gunpoint," he mumbled and for the first time, Clara noticed the paleness which overtook him. It wasn't a good time to ask if he was feeling sick, but she sure wished she could do more than bite her tongue. "Let's hear him out about O.M.N.I.U.M. while we got the chance." However once Marc turned his gaze towards Arthur, years worth of hatred between them made him glare the deadly look back on and force a harsher snarl to take over his tone, "You've got two more minutes, make them count."

Clara allowed Marc just this one to call the shots and she lowered her gun, once more.

Arthur noticed their closeness, looked at them in longing, but bit back any comments which would cut from his time. Time was very short. "Let's start with the beginning," he chewed into his words like a tired old man, then gestured towards Clara. "O.M.N.I.U.M. has been financing my research since before the Nobel Prize controversy which made me reprofile and turn towards the wisdom of Ammit. But I've always had my discrepancies with them in terms of causes and moral codes."

"You have a moral code?" Clara raised her eyebrows. "Was that something you used while indoctrinating your followers or rather while you sent your people after Steven who wouldn't hurt a fucking fly?" Bitterness was not shy behind her voice.

"I admit, I wanted Moon Knight dead. Call it... revenge, for stopping my resurrection of Ammit and making them lose their faith in me and my ability to fix the human race's greatest flaw: the inclination for darkness. This," Arthur paused to gesture now at the room, while alluding the whole of the hotel, "much like that attack on Steven Grant were part of their orchestra not mine. And you know that, Marc... that I could have long defeated you. It is not that hard to tell that personality is your weakest and best moment for any of your enemies to bring you down. But where is the satisfaction if I don't get to see Khonshu's blessing leave your eyes into darkness? No... I didn't send those soldiers. But I did find out about the attack and about the person who saved you."

Finally, his eyes returned to Clara and an ironic smile huffed its way onto his lips, "Have you any clue, child, just how much they want you back?" A pause left chills crawling up her spine. "And I am talking to the alien now, not the host."

Clara rolled her eyes, "So you tracked me down for them."

She jumped to conclusions far faster than Marc, Arthur was certain of that now, but with a hint of patience, he shook his head, "I wanted to see for myself what sort of person you are. If you are really the successful symbiote match O.M.N.I.U.M. has been praising as the ultimate human state. From a world of mutants, Gods and super soldiers, I didn't think it would be possible for someone with such a mediocre background to stand out."

"Did he just call us mediocre?"

"Not you, buddy," Clara answered Venom despite it looking like she talked with herself, "just me." And on that note of bitterness, she sighed out the inquiry she truly needed then, after blooming enough rage to poison the Amazonian rainforest with her outburst, "Paul helped O.M.N.I.U.M. tonight?" Her jaw was creaking from its tightness.

"Paul helped me in exchange for the rites," Harrow corrected her. "I, shamefully, did help O.M.N.I.U.M. though. It's hard to escape that which is omnipresent and they wanted Marc Spector dead and you returned to their care."

"Their end goal," Marc's voice was a whispering ghost, clinging to a strength which was leaving him by the second, "is it really the world destruction Khonshu spoke to me about?" Harrow nodded along.

"So to say, you should have let me save the world with Ammit when you got the chance, because now, they're going to get Apophis and the population won't be halved, it will be-"

"What did you just call Venom?" Marc seemed to have awakened at the mention of Apophis.

In his interruption, a bullet went through the single window of the office, passed him and punctured Arthur's skull right through the forehead.

The fraction of second was elongated into a whole domino of repercussions: Marc's heart skipped a beat, Steven took over, stumbling back, while Clara flinched; outside their door, the jackals disappeared, Ammit's last connection to the surface and the living being cut; downstairs, what they were trying to defend against advanced forward. Soldiers wearing black, faceless due to their masks, with no visible signs on their clothes, kicked the door open.

The element of surprise made a victim out of those who used it to their advantage and so it showed its second and harshest perk: it was a reversible asset, as versatile and untrustworthy as the toss of a coin and a blind bet.

Steven knelt on the ground, his forehead immediately trying to lower itself fearfully, while his hands reached somewhat upwards. He was not a danger, but the one in danger.

Whether or not Arthur stalled to keep Clara and Marc in the resort until O.M.N.I.U.M. got there no longer matter, not even the fact that he knew he was going to meet his end.

Steven woke up from an out of body experience he understood nothing out of despite experiencing for what felt like an eternity. He didn't know what was happening and with no actual time for explanations, Clara could offer no voice of comfort, but rather just action.

It should have felt like the first time she protected Steven from people wanting to hurt him, but it didn't. That stupid element of surprise made Clara realize she had a true bad feeling about this.

Yet she rarely ever listened to bad feelings unless they came from Venom and even then she'd be skeptical, so why start worrying now?

She stepped between Steven and the soldiers, the emergency compelling her to let Venom take over. Fiber by fiber, the symbiote got out of her body and covered it in thickly built muscles, making her taller, stronger. He shielded his host in the best armor there was. Any bullets that struck were mere tickles into Venom's skin and while his tongue laid lowly through his sharp teeth, he listened to the loud desire in Clara's mind and picked Steven up, in an attempt to get him back on his feet.

"Bloody Hell!" Steven shouted.

The sight before him was terror made flesh and the dripping saliva from Venom's mouth made him try to squirm away and hug himself at the same time. Between whatever this monster was and the bullets, he suddenly preferred having to diplomatically talk his way out of a gunfight. And yet, his memory did not fail him: he remembered the monster... third day with Clara, the picture from the newspaper.

Seeing as bullets were not harming Venom and the beast was going to protect the target to be eliminated while still capable, the soldiers activated the devices they have been aided by this mission, round portable speakers, attached to their belts, and playing on command a continuous 6000 Hz sound.

Venom screamed, though his voice was buried under the high pitch of the sound. He dropped Steven and bent forward, back arching in pain and skin rising in the dispersion that frequency caused to his molecular structure. Distorted shapes were made out of his skin until he crawled back inside of Clara's fragile, shivering body. She felt the torture they were putting her symbiote through like they were drilling through her brain.

"C-Clara...?" Steven couldn't believe his eyes that he just watched her change from that monstrous thing back into the woman whom he loved from the very first moment they met. Though memories were hazy, he started recalling: her being late to the date at the restaurant, seeing her comfort that man living in Steven's head while he was trapped in a mirror.

Clara, on the other hand, couldn't believe that this was the moment at which Marc decided to ditch her. And with Steven too!

The pain forced her to turn her back on Steven though and fortunately for them the first wave was made only out of three soldiers she may or may not have started seeing double already. They shot in the arm and Steven flinched at the loud sound.

But Clara couldn't care less about a fleeting pain while the true attack was soundly making Venom twist and turn under her skin. Her organs were going to get butchered from the inside if she didn't do something about it, so upon finally facing these soldiers, she kicked her heel into the gun on the ground, caught it from the air and shot the closest speaker, from the closest soldier to her.

The next bullet, she fired at the soldier's head. It didn't crack his helmet.

A second bullet, almost in the same spot. The helmet cracked but the soldier was not wounded. He was advancing.

"Fuck it," Clara puffed.

Close combat was what she was better at after all, even with Venom suffering inside of her. She gripped the gun backwards, left hand wrapping around the first soldier's neck. Using all the symbiote strength in her muscles, she hit the gun through the helmet, broke through it, leant her hand just slightly backwards to flip the weapon once more, as in some twisted cowboy trick, while the soldier was still hoping to regain composure over what was happening. She shot him right in the face.

Steven turned around.

He couldn't watch this.

His stomach couldn't handle it and he felt like crying for being trapped in such a situation and for what? Because the love of his life seemed to have conspired with the demon living in him?

Clara successfully distracted the first wave of soldiers so he managed to run to the back door of the office. It was locked, no matter how much his trembling hands hoped to shake it open.

"Steven," Marc called from the nearest reflection Steven barely glimpsed into, that being trapped into the polished vase next to the door, "give me the body. You're going to get us all killed."

At the mention of death, Steven looked back and terror rewrote itself on his face, a thousand times over.

Clara removed her skirt and had the whole material twisted and wrapped like a rope, strangling the second soldier. Her elbow was hitting into his helmet strong enough that in two hits, it cracked open and she started butchering his nose with mercilessness to him and carelessness to the blood whis spurred and stained her soft skin in violence.

All the while her heels kicked off the third's gun, tossing it across the room.

Only once the guns were off the table of instruments, for she too had seemingly lost hers while Steven wasn't looking, Clara ducked down and lifted the man she was strangling by that material, throwing him into the third. Their frequency weapons were still going on, but she had no time to destroy them, not while the sound of more enemies coming for them was obvious. She ran to Steven and he tried to distance himself from her in the way which it hurt her most to see.

She had to get them out, not just herself, but Venom and Steven too. All of them. Fuck.

Clara bumped her arm into the door and forced it open, then, without any of the pleasantries and kindness with which Steven fell in love with, she grabbed his collar and pulled him out onto the hallway with her.

"If Marc's in there, tell him that I hate his timing," she raspily sighed out, not yet out of breath, but definitely desperate to get away from those dreadful frequencies which made her sweat far more than killing people.

Steven's gaze flickered to his reflection into the glass cases with artifacts on the right side of the hallway they've exited to. This was the side of the hotel roamed usually by the long term residents, those who deserved to see collections of true beauty on a long hallway with a view, like a balcony, to the back yard. Clara leant towards the railing, looked down and cursed silently that the drop was too abrupt for her and Steven to both make it down without something broken.

"She needs me right now, you've got to give me back the body."

"I don't even know who you are," Steven whimpered. This wounded sound he let out accentuated itself in properly slapping Clara's hand away from him, "And I don't know who the hell you are either- Oi!"

Clara slapped him. "I'm still Clara and right now you're Steven. For the record, I'm still trying to save your ass. Do us both a favor and let me get us out of here and after that, you can have your talk with Marc and can hate us as much as you want."

"He... hates us?" Venom recovered briefly just to hear that.

Holding the side of his face, still burning, Steven couldn't find his words anymore. His gaze shot towards his reflection to the right though, because his other self was being vocal. "Thanks for that, Clara, he really needed it. Now can you just let me take over...? Don't you dare ignore me!" His voice did not stop Steven from looking away and actually nodding towards Clara that they should get out.

Unfortunately, the break they took to settle this cost them precious time. Five more soldiers followed them onto the hallway and before Clara could even think about it, she had to start running, side by side with Steven. It came as a true shock that since the frequencies behind them were bugging her and she wanted to stay behind anyhow to get shot first if need be, he ran much faster than her. The only exit out of the hallway was straight ahead and no matter how clear it was for both of them that running in any way but a straight line was the way to deal with things, Clara still got shot three times and now Venom simply couldn't heal her timely.

The exit off the hallway was a second office, which they entered with a stumble. Clara bent forward and her hands caught her knees. Finally, her breathing pattern became ragged. Steven found it nearly impossible to completely erase every ounce of care he held for the woman and seeing her in such deep pain brought him no pleasure. In fact, it hurt him. He rushed and closed the doors behind them, pulling a single chair to blood that door.

Across the office was the door which led to the main hotel, from there, they could run out.

"We're not going to make it," Clara breathed out exactly the words Steven didn't want to hear. His steps halted and he turned around.

"Don't say that," his quiet voice dismissed her in hopes of keeping his illusion that somehow he was going to make it back home, back to his tiny apartment and his silly sleep problems, like this has never happened. For that dream he continued walking towards the exit of the office.

Clara glanced behind at the blocked door though. One look was enough to appreciate the soldiers will get there. They'll break their way through the door in no longer than two minutes. With the guns they had and the way she was weakened and Steven was acting... No, they wouldn't make it, no matter how optimistic she would have wished to be.

"Steven," she called and once he turned around, right before stepping out of the office, the man realized she got up, came closer. Clara was right in front of him. She was close enough for him to see the blood drops staining her chin, her neck. "I know this is a very tough time for you, dear, and I'm really sorry I have to do this... But we can't outrun them, we need to fight. They have weapons that can kill my symbiote, Venom, and me with him. I need help."

She hesitated in a gulp. Asking for help was not like her, because ever since she got Venom in her life, she couldn't count on other humans. But hope.. Oh, hope was a dangerous thing to give the person who avoids watering flowers in fear of their demise.

Clara did not look away from his eyes, "I need Marc."

"It's okay, Steven," Marc's voice sounded impatient from above and when Steven followed the sound, he stared into a reflective ceiling, covered in a metal polished to a shine. Marc walked around there. "Just give me the body. Let me help us and her."

Steven, frightened, looked back at Clara who was also desperately searching his face for any signs of change. "I'm... I'm sorry, I can't."

Clara opened her mouth, but closed it just as quickly as she realized... She stared at a scared man, at someone who didn't deserve none of what was happening to him. No matter how cruel she may seem in the eyes of many, she couldn't force Steven Grant to do anything. Stupid love. Stupid care.

While the man shook his head, she finally began to understand the cruel irony of things and that in the end, she really shouldn't have ever counted on anyone but herself. A bang on the door far behind her echoed inside her heart, hinged in the truth which murmured into her mind. There was no way they were going to make it, but if he was alone, there might still be a chance that he made it out alive.

The last smile Steven saw on her face was the sad smile of someone who accepted their fate. That final laugh in the face of death.

Clara grabbed a handful of Steven's collar one last time and pulled him in for a quick kiss. She stole it off his lips while his wide eyes barely grasped the reality of what was happening to him. A short lived connection which she needed perhaps more than him.

"I love you," Clara nodded.

"No...," Marc understood what she was up to before Steven. The one in control of the body cluelessly looked up and peeked at the pure terror with which Marc reacted, a second before Clara acted on that absent smile and pushed Steven out of the office, into this hallway. She stepped back instead, allowing Venom to help her close the tall doors shut and quickly block them with anything he could bring down from the side, be it a whole couch or the shelves of books.

"Clara...?" Venom asked weakly and with hesitation from inside her mind. "Are you alright?"

"You can still make it out, buddy. I wouldn't judge you if you left through a vent, you could probably make it to a new host-" She was trying not to cry, but little did she know that empty feeling in her chest was in fact the flared warning that she was all out of tears. Her head bowed nevertheless.

"If I leave you, we both die and you know it."

"I guess it's just the two of us, huh?" The forced smile no longer found its way back on her lips, not until she sharply inhaled onto this suffocating reality and raised her gaze. Clara turned around and looked at the other door, the one through which the enemy would break through in... twelve seconds. "Let's go out with a fight."

"I can't form the suit," Venom announced, apologetically.

"The old fashioned way it is then."

He was screaming, because he would have been kicking if he wasn't trapped inside his own head, helpless and useless. Marc was living the nightmare, finally understanding what Khonshu meant with his final words in that bathroom, before he let him go... "That stupid God still got his way. You," he threw the blame on Steven with an accusatory pointing finger, "you would let her die?"

Steven's breathing hitched, he found it hard to even move away an inch from the wall he wished to become one with. He stared at his reflection in a mirror decorating the wall next to the doors not closed, doors from behind which, a commotion was soundly starting.

"Take it easy," from behind Marc, a second reflection separated, stepping beside him. "You're the one who pissed off Khonshu and scaring Steven won't gain us access back to the body now, will it?"

"She's dying, Jake!"

Those two argued in the mirror, loud enough to bring tears to Steven's wide eyes, which forgot to blink while his back slid down the wall. He crunched down, making himself small while fixated, his gaze moved and remained on the doors. Though he didn't want Clara gone, no single thought was clear anymore. He was feeling guilt and lost at the same time and the only thing he knew how to do just then was to bring his hands up and cover his ears.

He closed his eyes and prayed that this was all the sandstorm of a bad dream.

author's note:    before you throw hands with me, three things i must say

1) this is my best act ever written. 53 pages which i am 100% proud of, for every single metaphor, every single plot line colliding, every easter egg of the og comics, everythinggg. i am actually soo proud of every character development step taken 😭

2) keep in mind that this book has two more acts to go so this ain't the ending okayyyy (just a wee bit cliffhanger hehe)

3) just this: