“Y’hah! Azathoth! Nog! Y’hah! Y’hah!”

As the cultists shouted their chorus of amens, Epistola scraped the knife along my skin. My eyes were glued to the horror of the lines she scratched into me, but my vision clouded with pain and I could barely discern the shape of the bloody Seal she carved.

When she was done, she threw back her head with a cry of ecstasy. I wanted to scream too, but my throat only made idiotic choking sounds. Shock came over me, shaking my body so hard the heavy chains around me clattered. Blood was running down my chest, past the burning welt on my stomach.

Epistola turned back to the fire and thrust the bloody knife into it. At the same moment, another downpour of frigid water assaulted me, drenching me further, flowing into the open wound over my heart. Now not even my innards were safe from that terrible liquid’s reach. I could feel it clawing its way through my body, seeping into my bloodstream, consuming every fiber of my being. It seemed to go on eternally, and when it was done, stars filled my vision as I sputtered and wheezed, too shattered to cry anymore.

When my surroundings finally swam back into focus, the fire consumed my attention. There, in the heart of the inferno, where the knife burned, the flame had turned a very distinct shade of green…

Oh god, no!

How could it be? I didn’t have Riley’s heart. I didn’t!

“AZATHOTH COMES!” the witch exclaimed ecstatically.

No… It was working. But it couldn’t be working! Riley didn’t love me. They were wrong about everything. I wasn’t the Heart of Cthulhu! Unless—

Unless he did still have some sort of feelings for me and that was why he was letting all this happen. If I did possess his heart, he must hate me for it! He did not want to love me. He’d made that indubitably clear. Maybe he had started to care for me a tiny bit after our time together, but once he’d made up his mind about how worthless I was, he needed to find a way to end it. End it definitely. Allowing Epistola to sacrifice me to awaken Azathoth was the surest means of eliminating the loathsome feelings he could not rid himself of. If the universe ceased to be, then so would I, and Riley would be free, as he longed to be. Free of the burden of caring at all for an ant like me.

“Uln Azathoth! Spurg’scnduim! Uln Azathoth! Spurg’scnduim!”

The green-hued flame shot upward, upward, upward, until it chomped at the chandelier. With a whistling scream, the whole thing came crashing down, slamming into the front of the stage. Crystal shards flew in all directions.

“Uln Azathoth!”