The perfect moment was rudely shattered by a loud crash beside us, and a flood of water suddenly rushed across my feet. I looked over at the tub and saw it had been knocked over by thick chunks of broken ceiling beams. Another crash on our other side rendered the podium to splinters. I tilted my head back to look up. I screamed. The catwalk was swinging precariously above. Two of the cables supporting it snapped and it swung toward us.

Faster than I could comprehend, Riley pulled me away to the far side of the stage by the marble columns. A second later, the structure plummeted down to smithereens. We looked to the theatre’s ceiling, to where the chandelier used to be. The swirling black abyss was even larger and more tumultuous than it had been before.

“What’s going on?” I cried.

Riley’s grip on my arms tightened painfully. “Azathoth yet comes!”

“But how?” I exclaimed, looking from Riley to the cultists who were scattered around us. They all seemed oblivious, twitching mindlessly where they sprawled about the stage.

“She was right,” I heard Riley mutter. “I was too late.”

“Do something!” I gasped.

“Stay here.” He pressed me against the safety of the column, and my heart twisted as he pulled away from me. In a dazzling cascade of light, I watched him grow and change again, and his magnificent true form filled the theatre, his shape stretching up to disappear into the black abyss. The wind began to pick up the shattered debris, swirling the dangerous objects in a violent tornado. I ducked down, turning my face against the column, shielding my head.

Thunder filled the air above me accompanied by a sound like screaming, but the voice was unlike anything I’d ever heard before.

“Riley!” I gasped.

As if in instantaneous response, his arms came around me, and he pulled me into the protection of his embrace. He was his human self again, but as I looked up at him, I was shocked by the haggard appearance of his chiseled face. He looked exhausted… drained.

“It has become too strong,” he whispered raggedly at my ear. The nightmare sounds continued to swarm around us with the wind and destruction, but nothing touched us, as if his strength provided a protective bubble over the place where we stood. “There is nothing I can do. I do not have the power to lock the gate. And even if I did, it is too far open now.”

“So…?” I whimpered.

“The Nuclear Chaos will awaken.”

“No!” I sobbed, and clutched desperately at his shirt, burying my face against his muscled chest. “No, it’s not fair!” Finally, for the first time in my pathetic existence, I had a reason to live! And so soon it would all be torn away.