Chapter 78: Ouroboros

Chapter 78: Chapter 78: Ouroboros

Sebastian tried to move.

The dark red liquid resisted him with a strange, almost viscous pressure, clinging to his clothes as he pushed himself upright and attempted to determine whether he was standing, floating, or somehow suspended inside an ocean that had no apparent bottom.

He looked down.

Blood.

It had to be blood.

The color was too deep, the smell too familiar, and every movement sent sluggish ripples across the surface before they disappeared into the unnatural stillness surrounding him.

Sebastian clenched his jaw.

Not this place again.

He had been here enough times to recognize the colorless sky, the distant sound of falling drops, and the peculiar sensation of existing somewhere that did not entirely obey the rules of the physical world.

Usually, he could do nothing.

The visions came, the blood appeared, and Sebastian remained trapped until whatever horror waited for him finally unfolded.

This time, however, something had moved beneath the surface.

Something enormous.

Sebastian turned slowly, searching the dark liquid around him.

A ripple appeared several meters away.

Then another.

He tried to take a step toward it, but the blood pulled against his legs, making the movement feel as though he were walking through water deep enough to reach his waist.

Except the surface remained level with his abdomen no matter how he moved.

Sebastian stopped.

Calm down.

He had spent years training himself to maintain control under pressure, and although none of that training had prepared him for navigating an impossible ocean of blood, panicking would accomplish absolutely nothing.

He inhaled slowly.

The air tasted metallic.

His breathing steadied.

Then something passed beneath the surface directly in front of him.

Sebastian froze.

For one brief moment, the liquid became translucent enough to reveal a broad, curved shape moving through the red.

Black. Almost completely black. But as it passed beneath the pale light, something along its surface caught a faint violet gleam.

Sebastian narrowed his eyes.

Scales?

The shape disappeared.

He waited.

Several seconds later, another section moved behind him.

Sebastian turned sharply.

The blood rippled around his waist as a dark shape surfaced just far enough for him to see overlapping scales, each one larger than his palm, their edges catching dark purple reflections beneath the colorless sky.

His throat tightened.

Whatever this thing was, it was enormous.

The visible section continued moving, disappearing beneath the blood without producing anything resembling a normal wave.

Sebastian backed away.

The liquid resisted him.

Another scaled section appeared to his left.

Then behind him.

He turned again, trying to understand how something that large could move through the blood without disturbing the entire surface.

The answer came several moments later.

It was not moving past him.

It was moving around him.

Sebastian went still.

The dark shape appeared again, following the same curved path he had seen moments earlier, and he realized that every glimpse of scales had belonged to the same continuous body.

A circle.

The creature was circling him.

What the fuck?

Sebastian looked toward the distant surface, searching for a head, a tail, anything that would tell him where the creature began or ended.

Nothing.

Only black scales and the occasional violet gleam moving through the blood.

Then, far beyond him, something rose.

A massive head emerged from the red liquid, its movement so slow that Sebastian initially mistook it for another curved section of the creature’s body.

Its scales were black, the raised edges reflecting dark purple beneath the pale sky, while two enormous eyes opened above a mouth already closed around something.

Sebastian stared.

The creature was biting its own tail.

Its body formed an immense ring around him, disappearing beneath the blood before curving back toward its head in a shape so vast that Sebastian could not determine its actual length.

He had seen snakes before.

He had never seen anything remotely like this.

The enormous head remained motionless, jaws locked around its tail while the rest of its body continued moving in a slow, deliberate circle.

Sebastian felt the blood shift against his waist.

The circle was becoming smaller.

He looked down.

The liquid had begun moving with the creature, pulling gently against his legs as the enormous body passed somewhere beneath the surface.

His breathing quickened.

He tried to move toward the center of the circle, but every step seemed to carry him nowhere, the distance between himself and the black scales remaining almost unchanged.

Then the creature moved closer.

A section of its body surfaced several meters away, rising high enough that Sebastian could see the overlapping scales stretching across a width greater than the corridor outside his medical suite.

The dark purple gleam intensified.

Something inside his chest responded.

Sebastian stopped moving.

A sharp pressure spread beneath his sternum, followed by the familiar burning sensation around his pheromonal glands.

His eyes widened.

No.

The pain was not part of the dream.

He recognized it.

He had felt the same pressure before Nero stabilized him, when his pheromonal system had begun collapsing under the strain of approaching berserk.

Sebastian pressed one hand against his chest.

The burning intensified.

His dominant-alpha instincts stirred beneath the unstable receptors, violent and disorganized, pushing against a secondary-gender system that had not finished restructuring.

He knew that sensation.

He knew what came after it.

Wake up!

Sebastian closed his eyes.

Nothing happened.

The blood continued moving around him.

He forced himself to breathe slowly, trying to suppress the rising pressure while the enormous creature continued circling beneath the surface.

Wake up, Sebastian!

His heart hammered against his ribs.

Nero.

The thought of him produced a sudden, desperate need for the familiar warmth of his pheromones.

Sebastian opened his eyes.

The snake was closer.

Its enormous body moved through the blood with the same terrible patience, and somewhere beyond his sight, another drop struck the surface.

Then another.

Sebastian’s breathing faltered.

He needed to wake up.

He needed to warn someone.

The physicians had spent weeks monitoring every fluctuation in his receptors because nobody knew exactly what could happen during an enigma-induced transition.

They had celebrated the stabilization.

Sebastian had celebrated it too. But the pressure building beneath his sternum felt horribly familiar.

He could not afford to ignore it.

For one instinctive moment, he almost reached for the answer he had given everyone throughout his recovery.

I’m fine.

The words formed automatically.

A familiar defense.

A convenient lie.

Then Sebastian remembered Nero sitting beside his hospital bed, holding his hand while asking him for one thing.

Never lie to me.

Nero would rather hear it than be given another reassuring answer that concealed something dangerous.

Sebastian swallowed.

He was not fine.

He was standing inside an impossible ocean of blood while an enormous black snake circled him, and his body was producing the same warning signs that had preceded his collapse.

He had promised Nero.

I am not fine.

The admission seemed to change something.

The creature stopped moving.

Sebastian lifted his head.

Its enormous eyes were fixed on him.

The blood around his waist became perfectly still.

Then, somewhere beneath the surface, something pulled.

Sebastian gasped.

The pain in his chest sharpened, spreading toward his throat as the unstable pheromonal pressure surged beneath his skin.

His knees buckled.

The red liquid swallowed him to the shoulders.

He tried to shout.

No sound came.

The creature’s massive body began moving again, the circle tightening around him while its dark scales disappeared beneath the blood.

Sebastian fought to remain upright.

He could no longer feel the bottom beneath his feet.

WAKE UP.

He needed Claude.

Roberta.

Anyone.

He needed to tell them what was happening before his body reached the point where his instincts took over and the medical team found themselves facing an unstable dominant alpha without Nero there to contain him.

The thought terrified him.

Not because he was afraid of dying.

He had spent years making peace with that possibility.

He was afraid of what might happen to everyone around him if he lost control.

Sebastian forced his mouth open.

"Nero!"

The name tore out of him.

The enormous snake lifted its head.

For one terrible second, Sebastian saw its jaws tighten around its own tail.

Then the red ocean rose.

And Sebastian began to drown.