...agony roars from every direction, all at once. Continuous, they twist and morph into demonic laughs and back to horrid screams. Hundreds, thousands, millions of them stacked on top of each other repeating this monstrous loop.

And then a child phases into view. He stands before Isaiah terrified, shook to his core.

Isaiah’s profusely amused at the petrified child. “Hey,” he says, “kid!”

Sabastian fights to look away and loses the battle. His neurons are firing panic signals left and right. Trembling hands, sweaty forehead, wide eyes and Isaiah is watching the kid conclude the worst in his mind.

“Are you okay?” Isaiah asks, now getting worried the child hasn’t yet reacted.

The Sabastian goes to speak, but pauses. Profound confusion mixed with fear...

...child in the gate!” he explains.

“Wait… It’s been like half a day…” she says, eyebrow raise high.

“EXACTLY!” Isaiah shouts.

“You’re serious?” Sarah asks.

“No, I’m fucking joking. Of course I’m serious! What would even be the point of a lie like that?”

Isaiah explains what’s going on to Sarah on the way out of the woods. He tells her how the boy ate the fruit of knowledge and was led to the gate for his own protection. He explain how he needs her help to track the passage the boy used to cross the gate.

Agreeing to help, they...

...out of the other still focused on the black hole. This copy is distorted. Somehow different. Subtle deformities. The eyes aren’t quite right. The nose isn’t quite right. It’s a monster. He spreads his arms out and a glowing yellow field of light divides him from Isaiah and Sarah. They stare at each other, as if communicating a telepathic message they both face the field and fire, but nothing happens.

“Can you move us through...

...what the hell is going on?” Isaiah asks.

“Seth has spoken your name…” Ref says from within Isaiah’s mind.

“THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE!” his heart races. Isaiah’s palms are instantly sweaty. The hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand on end. Suspended midair, he turns to the church. Sarah visibly sees the fear crawling on the surface of Isaiah’s skin, that’s enough to send her into a panic, and to also look where he...

...You kill us? He won’t even do his own dirty work. Has his little bitch doing it?” Isaiah look away from him. “Brainwashed jackass,” he says.

“Watch your mouth fool! It is you who is brainwashed!” the priest says. “Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Abe-“

“HOV!” Isaiah yells out, interrupting the priest.

Sarah giggles quietly in her spot.

The priest takes a moment of silence before saying, “Abraham.”

“Is it now?” Isaiah asks. “Thought that name was for those following the light.”

“I suppose now is as good a time as any to exercise sin and rid the earth of evils such as yourselves,” Abraham says.

“Forgive me, Designer, for what I must do,” Sarah says.

“No need to bluff girl. Your shackles...

... continues to ask. Hopeful. But as the hours gather and all that exists is this place within the ring of fire, separate from the rest of the universe, hope withers and he goes catatonic.

Curled into the fetal position he stays in the center of the ring for hours and hours. And then a day. And then two days. And then three.

A week in this prison of emptiness, this most awful of places, Sebastian gets up. He’s still trapped. The screams are infinite. Everywhere. Everything.

And two weeks go by. Sebastian has not yet seen or heard anything but the screams and the roars and the gargling and the tortured pain.

And three weeks go by. Sebastian screams in agony. In hate. In anger for being aware of being in this place. Stuck in this hell. He’s attempted...

...and out the room, through an apartment littered with books and loose pages, documentations of transistor like himself and their ability of transmutation. “Don’t have to do shit!”

“I led him to the gate.”

“Whwhat?! What the fuck, Ref? What’s wrong with you, then?” he stops in front of the build. “Do you know where it is at least? If that’s even possible!”

“No.”

“Great! Thanks. Shit! I’m on it, FUCK!” Isaiah complains his way down the Queens’ sidewalk.

“Thank you.”

“Fuck you! Go away!” He walks into a liquor store and walks out with a cigarette hanging from his lips, a Newport pack in his shirt pocket and an open beer in his hand.

The store owner runs out with a gun. “STOP! Give me my shit!” he yells at Isaiah.

Isaiah raises his right hand and flips him the bird. The transmutation lines on his upper body and arms glow gold through his shirt and he sinks into the sidewalk vanishing. He’s gone as far as the store owner knows. Isaiah walks out of the window of a bodega...

...unaware of the oddity occurring. The room fuzzes out and Sebastian topples over. His head slams into the floor and he immediately begins to seize. His body shakes and rattles. His eyes are focused on the brightly lit wall before him.

He feels trapped inside his head, unable to move or speak. Unable to anything.

And then it stops.
And the wall comes into focus.

“What just happened?” he asks, checking his arms and hands. He’s not glowing anymore. And he sort of remembers a man forcing him to eat a fruit before passing out. And the man on the floor.

Sebastian turns to the man, startled he backs into a wall and just stares.

There’s a hole in the man’s...

...radiate their orange flame against the walls of the lobby. They twirl and spin, flickering when Finn walks by.

A nearly inaudible hum echoes through, never ending, but always faint. Finn slows his pace when he hears it. “They’re definitely here,” he says. At the end of the lobby a door leads to a final chamber. The closer he is the louder the hum. “It’s definitely coming through there.” Clearing up it reveals to be chanting. They’re opening a gate. “No! This needs to stop before more come through!” Finn yells, lunging to the chamber and down its spiral staircase.

Bottom level, a celestial is bridging a gap to his dimension. Finn walks in to hands held high, reaching for the ceiling. A tall toothpick in a suit. White feathery wings tucked in against his back. He’s facing a large blue floating orb. The wormhole to their world.

From the corner of his eye the celestial sees Finn walk into the room. His focus is taken away from the orb. The orb shrinks and...

...Seraphial retracts her wings, appearing just human. A yellow aura begins to surround her. Her bare feet lift from the street. She raises her hands high above her head and makes fists. As she drags those fists down against the air a large bolt of lightning pierces through the heavens, then the atmosphere and land right on Sebastian. Where it lands it explodes and launches him half a block down right into the 20th story of a sky scraper. A hovering start, she releases her wings and takes off after Sebastian while he’s still midair, catching up with him as he slams through the building. She grabs him by the ankles and tosses him further into the building. Then repeats this until they’re on the other side and she flings him through a window right down to the street below...