The Blade of Shattered Hope

Chapter
62

I can’t believe my own eyes.”

Tick barely heard the words. A man. His voice was soft, but slightly… menacing, like small, sharp-nosed worms, slowly working their way into Tick’s brain, needling and hurting. The world around Tick was still dark.

The stranger spoke again. “Atticus Higginbottom and Mistress Jane. Together, with me, at last.”

Tick felt himself blinking, felt tears in his eyes, felt pain coursing through every inch of his body. But still nothing-blackness.

The man wouldn’t be quiet, and his every word throbbed in Tick’s skull. “I have no idea how it happened, but I can’t say I’m not pleased. It’ll be nice to have some help. I’m sure between the three of us, we can get out of here.”

Tick kept blinking and finally saw a faint smudge of light against the darkness.

“Where… where are we?”

Jane. It was Jane. She sounded even worse than usual.

The man chuckled, a horribly unpleasant sound. “You’re safe and sound, Mistress. No worries. Plenty to eat around here. Plenty of everything.”

The light grew in Tick’s vision. Increased its pace of brightening. Shapes began to form.

“I… warned him,” Jane said, her voice filled with resignation, as if she’d just accepted a horrible truth. “I…” She didn’t finish.

Something clicked, and suddenly Tick could see everything. Gasping, he sat up, ignoring the bolts of pain that shot through his body. He sat on a beach with a perfect blue sky hanging overhead and crystal-clear water lapping against the white sand. An enormous and endless ocean stretched to his right, a forest of palm trees to his left. Mistress Jane lay flat on the ground, several feet away, her mask cracked and tilted.

And sitting cross-legged next to Tick was Reginald Chu. The man who’d once ruled the Fourth Reality. The man who’d tried to rule all Thirteen with his Dark Infinity. The man who’d been sent to “Welcome to the Nonex, Atticus,” Chu said. “I hope you’re ready to help me get the heck out of here.”