Father’s Choice
Marcus didn’t go downstairs for breakfast. He stayed in his room with the door locked and his laptop open, desperately searching for something he’d missed.
There had to be a pattern. A way out. Nobody builds a trap without a door.
He made a timeline of all the cycles, marking deaths, survivors, and locations. He drew connections between names and dates and looked for anything that didn’t fit.
Around 9 AM, his dad knocked on the door.
“Marcus? The funeral home called. We need to go at eleven.”
“Okay,” Marcus said, not looking up from his screen.
“Are you coming?”
“Yeah. I’ll be ready.”
His dad’s footsteps went back down the hallway.
Marcus kept working. The thread had been quiet since his mom almost died at 3 AM. It sat on his finger, dormant, pointing toward downtown. Waiting.
He’d been awake for over twenty-four hours now. His eyes burned. His hands shook when he typed. But he couldn’t sleep. Wouldn’t sleep.
At 10:30, he finally gave up on finding answers and got dressed. Black pants, white shirt. Funeral clothes, even though the funeral wasn’t until next week.
He went downstairs and found his dad waiting by the door, wearing a suit that looked too big on him now. Dad had lost weight in just two days. His face was gray and hollow.
“Where’s Mom?” Marcus asked.
“Still sleeping. The doctor gave her stronger sedatives. She’ll be out most of the day.” His dad’s voice was flat, mechanical. “Let’s go.”
They drove to the funeral home in silence. Marcus watched the thread pointing forward, always forward. It pointed downtown, past the funeral home, toward the industrial district. Toward the basement.
“Here,” his dad said, pulling into the parking lot.
The funeral home was an old Victorian house painted white, with a sign that said “Riverside Memorial Services” in gold letters. It looked like the kind of place that had been there forever, handling the town’s dead for generations.
Marcus wondered how many of the bodies they’d buried over the years had red fibers in their bloodstreams.
Inside, a man in an expensive suit greeted them. It was Mr. Carlisle, the funeral director. He had the kind voice and sad smile that people in his job learn to perfect.
“Mr. Price, I’m so sorry for your loss. And you must be Marcus.” He shook both their hands. “Please, follow me.”
He led them to a small office filled with catalogs and price lists. Coffins, urns, flower arrangements, and memorial cards. Everything you need to dispose of a body properly.
“Now,” Mr. Carlisle said gently, “I know this is difficult, but we need to make some decisions about the service.”
Marcus’s dad just stared at the catalog of coffins. His hands trembled.
“We have several options for children,” Mr. Carlisle continued. “This white one is popular for young girls. It has...”
“She’s eight years old,” Marcus’s dad said suddenly. “Was eight years old. She liked unicorns and drawing and those stupid videos on YouTube where people just talk about nothing for hours. And now I have to pick a box to bury her in.”
Mr. Carlisle’s professional sympathy didn’t waver. “I understand this is overwhelming. Take your time.”
Marcus looked down at his hands. The thread was glowing brighter now, pulsing faster. Something was wrong.
“Dad,” Marcus said quietly. “Are you okay?”
His father didn’t answer. He was still staring at the coffin catalog, but his eyes had gone distant. Empty.
“Mr. Price?” Mr. Carlisle leaned forward. “Would you like some water?”
“I should have protected her,” Marcus’s dad said. “That’s what fathers do. They protect their children.”
“Dad...”
“I failed.” His dad looked up, and Marcus saw something terrible in his eyes. Something broken. “I let my little girl die, and I didn’t even know how.
Didn’t see it coming. What kind of father does that make me?”
The thread detached from Marcus’s finger. He watched it snake across the floor, invisible to everyone else, and wrap around his father’s wrist.
“No,” Marcus whispered.
Mr. Carlisle didn’t notice anything. “Mr. Price, grief affects everyone differently. Perhaps we should reschedule this meeting.”
Marcus’s dad stood up suddenly. “I need to use the restroom.”
“Of course. Just down the hall, second door on the left.”
His father walked out of the office. Marcus started to follow, but Mr. Carlisle touched his arm.
“Give him a moment, son. Sometimes people need space to process.”
But Marcus yanked his arm away and ran after his dad.
He found him in the bathroom, standing at the sink, staring at his reflection in the mirror. The thread pulsed around his wrist, red veins spreading up his arm.
“Dad, we need to leave. Right now.”
His father didn’t seem to hear him. “It showed me,” he whispered.
“What?”
“The thread. It showed me things. Future things. Terrible things.” His dad’s eyes met Marcus’s in the mirror. “I saw you three days from now.
Covered in blood. You were in our kitchen, and you’d just killed your mother. Then you went next door and killed the Chens. Then you walked to the school, and...” His voice broke. “You killed so many people, Marcus. And you were crying the whole time, but you couldn’t stop. Like something was using your hands.”
Marcus felt cold all over. “That’s not real. That’s not going to happen.”
“The thread doesn’t lie.” His dad turned around. “I saw what you become. Saw the thing you turn into after it’s done feeding. And I can’t... I can’t watch that happen. Can’t watch you become a monster.”
“I’m not going to become a monster. I’m going to stop this.”
“You can’t stop it.” His dad’s face was pale and sweating. “I saw the cycles. Saw all the other versions of you, stretching back centuries. They all tried to stop it. They all failed. They all became killers.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because the thread showed me everything. Every loop. Every death. Every version of you standing in that basement with your jaw torn open.” His dad looked down at his wrist. “It wants me to understand. Wants me to see the future so I’ll make the right choice.”
The thread tightened around his wrist. More red veins spread up his arm and into his shoulder.
Marcus grabbed his father’s arm. “Fight it, Dad. Don’t let it in.”
“I’m not fighting it, Marcus. I’m accepting it.” His dad pulled away and walked to the door. “I need to go to the garage.”
“What? Why?”
But his father was already leaving, walking down the hallway with jerky, determined steps. The thread pulsed brighter with each movement.
Marcus chased after him. “Mr. Carlisle! Call 911!”
The funeral director came out of his office, looking confused. “What’s wrong?”
“Just call them! Now!”
Marcus caught up with his dad in the parking lot. His father was getting into the car, moving fast even though the thread was now wrapping around his entire arm.
“Dad, stop!”
His father started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot. Marcus barely managed to jump into the passenger seat before the car sped up.
“What are you doing?”
“Stopping it,” his dad said. His voice sounded wrong now, hollow. “If I die, the thread can’t use me to hurt you. Can’t make you watch me suffer.
That’s what it wants. It wants you to feel every death, to carry that weight. But if I die quick, on my own terms, maybe it won’t get what it needs.”
“That’s not how it works!”
“You don’t know how it works!” His dad’s hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel. “Nobody knows. But I’m not going to let this thing turn me into one of your victims. I’m not going to give it the satisfaction.”
They pulled into their driveway. His father got out and headed straight for the garage.
Marcus ran after him. “Dad, please...”
The garage door was already open. His father went to the workbench where he kept his tools. The table saw was there, unplugged, its blade still and silent.
His dad plugged it in. The blade spun to life with a high whine.
“You don’t have to watch this,” his father said, not looking at Marcus. “Go inside. Tell your mother I loved her.”
“I’m not leaving you!”
His dad’s arm, the one wrapped in thread, moved toward the spinning blade. He was shaking, fighting it, but the arm kept moving.
“It’s not me doing this,” his father said through gritted teeth. “It’s the thread. It wants me to kill myself slowly. Wants you to watch. Wants to feed on both our pain.”
The thread pulsed brighter, and his dad’s hand was an inch from the blade now.
Marcus grabbed his father’s arm and tried to pull it back. “Fight it! You’re stronger than this!”
“I’m not strong, Marcus. I’m tired. I’m broken. My daughter just died and I don’t know why and I can’t save my son from whatever’s coming.” Tears ran down his face. “At least I can save you from having to kill me yourself.”
“I don’t want to kill you! I don’t want to kill anyone!”
“You won’t have a choice!” His father’s hand touched the blade.
Blood sprayed across the garage.
Marcus screamed and yanked his father’s arm away, but it was too late. The blade had taken two fingers, the pinky and ring finger, cut clean off at the second knuckle.
His dad collapsed, holding his hand, blood pumping between his fingers. But he wasn’t screaming. His face was calm, almost peaceful.
“Not enough,” he whispered. “Needs to be more. Needs to be permanent.”
He lunged forward and shoved his entire hand into the spinning blade.
This time Marcus couldn’t stop him. He watched in horror as the saw chewed through flesh and bone, through the wrist, blood spraying in arcs across the floor, the walls, Marcus’s face.
His father screamed now, but he didn’t pull away. He pushed harder, feeding his arm into the machine.
Marcus ran to the wall and yanked the plug out of the outlet. The blade spun down with a dying whine.
His dad fell backward, clutching the stump where his hand used to be. Blood pulsed from the cut arteries. So much blood. Too much.
“Dad!” Marcus grabbed a rag from the workbench and tried to make a tourniquet, wrapping it around his father’s arm above the elbow and pulling it tight. “Don’t move! I’m calling 911!”
But his father’s eyes were already unfocused. Going dim.
“Don’t become that thing I saw,” he whispered. “Please, son. Find another way.”
“I will. I promise. Just hold on.”
Marcus called 911, screaming their address into the phone. The operator told him to keep pressure on the wound and keep his father talking.
But his dad wasn’t talking anymore. He was looking at something Marcus couldn’t see. Something in the corner of the garage. His eyes went wide with terror.
“It’s here,” he said. “Oh god, it’s here. It’s so much bigger than I thought. Marcus, run. Run before it...”
His eyes went still. The life went out of them like a switch flipping off.
Marcus pressed his fingers to his father’s neck, searching for a pulse. Nothing. He started chest compressions, counting them out loud, doing what he’d learned in health class.
But he knew it was pointless. His father was gone.
And in that moment of death, Marcus felt it again. The same thing he’d felt when Emma died. Through the thread, he experienced his father’s last moments. He felt the blade cutting through bone. Felt the weakness as the blood poured out. Felt the terror of seeing something waiting in the shadows, something huge and hungry that Marcus couldn’t see.
And worst of all, he inherited his father’s last thoughts: I failed them both. Failed my little girl. Failed my son. This is all I can do. All I can give him. A quick death instead of a slow one.
The thread snapped back to Marcus’s finger.
It was thicker now. Almost as thick as his actual finger. And it felt satisfied. Fed.
Two people dead. Twenty-three more to go.
The ambulance came too late. The paramedics did their job anyway, checking vitals and trying to revive him, but everyone knew it was over.
The police came too. They asked Marcus questions while he sat on the front lawn, covered in his father’s blood. What happened? Was his father depressed? Had he threatened suicide before? Why was Marcus in the garage with him?
Marcus answered on autopilot. He didn’t remember what he said. He just knew they finally left him alone when Mr. Carlisle from the funeral home confirmed that Marcus’s dad had been acting strange at their meeting.
A female officer drove Marcus to the hospital. They had to wake his mother up and tell her. The sedatives made her reactions slow and confused. She didn’t understand at first.
Then she understood, and she screamed so loud the nurses came running.
Marcus sat in another plastic chair in another waiting room while his mother fell apart in a hospital bed. While doctors talked about trauma, sedation, and psychiatric evaluation.
His phone buzzed. It was a text from Jake: Dude seriously answer me. What’s going on? People are saying your whole family is dying.
Marcus looked at his contacts. Thirty-seven people in his phone. Friends, classmates, teachers, neighbors. All of them potential victims.
He deleted Jake’s number. Then he deleted all of them. If they couldn’t contact him, maybe the thread couldn’t find them.
But he knew that wouldn’t work. The thread didn’t need phone numbers. It would find whoever it wanted.
A nurse came over to him. “Marcus? Your mother is asking for you.”
He followed her to his mom’s room. She was sitting up in bed, eyes red and swollen, hair a mess. When she saw him, she started crying again.
“Come here, baby.”
Marcus went to her, and she pulled him into a fierce hug. He could feel her whole body shaking.
“I can’t lose you too,” she sobbed. “You’re all I have left. Promise me you won’t leave me. Promise me.”
Marcus couldn’t promise that. In five days, he’d be dead in that basement with his jaw torn open. Or he’d be a monster who’d killed twenty-three more people. Either way, he was going to leave her.
“I love you, Mom,” he said instead.
She held him tighter. “The doctors want to keep me here for observation. They think I’m going to hurt myself. But you need to go home and get some rest. Can you do that for me?”
“Yeah.”
“Officer Chen said he’d give you a ride. Is that okay?”
Marcus nodded.
His mom pulled back and looked at his face. Really looked at him. “Something’s wrong. Something more than... than what happened. What is it?”
“Nothing. I’m just tired.”
“Marcus...”
“I’m fine, Mom. I promise.”
But she wasn’t convinced. He could see it in her eyes. She knew he was lying, knew something was terribly wrong beyond the obvious tragedy. But she was too medicated, too broken, to push harder.
“Okay,” she said finally. “Go home. Try to sleep. We’ll figure everything out tomorrow.”
There wouldn’t be a tomorrow. Not a normal one. But Marcus nodded and left.
Officer Chen drove him home in silence. When they pulled up to the house, the officer turned to him.
“Listen, Marcus. I know this is the worst day of your life. But I need you to be honest with me about something.”
Marcus waited.
“Your sister dies mysteriously. Your father kills himself in a gruesome way less than forty-eight hours later. That’s not normal. That’s not grief. That’s something else.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’ve been a cop for eight years, and I’ve seen a lot of bad things. But this feels different. Wrong.” Officer Chen’s eyes were serious. “Is there something you’re not telling me? Something going on in your family? Drugs? Abuse?”
“No.”
“Because if you’re in danger, if someone is hurting you...”
“Nobody’s hurting me.”
“Then what the hell is happening?”
Marcus looked at the thread on his finger. Officer Chen couldn’t see it. Nobody could see it but him.
“I don’t know,” Marcus said. And that was true enough. He didn’t know what the thread really was, where it came from, or why it chose him.
Officer Chen studied his face for a long moment. “Okay. But I’m going to be keeping an eye on things. And if anything else happens, anything at all, I want you to call me right away.”
He handed Marcus a business card with his number on it.
Marcus took it and got out of the car. He walked to his front door while Officer Chen watched from the driveway, went inside, and closed the door.
The house was empty. Silent. It smelled like coffee and his mom’s lavender air freshener, and something else underneath it all: the copper smell of blood from the garage.
Marcus locked the door and went upstairs to his room.
He’d been awake for over thirty hours now. His body was screaming for sleep. His eyes kept trying to close on their own. But he couldn’t sleep. If he slept, the thread would detach and hunt on its own.
He grabbed another energy drink from his mini-fridge. It was warm and tasted like chemicals, but he drank it anyway. Then he went to his computer and kept researching.
There had to be something. Some detail he’d missed. Some way to break the cycle.
The survivors. That was the key. They’d all been touched by the thread but lived. If he could figure out why, maybe he could use that knowledge.
He made a list of every survivor across all the cycles:
1775: Unknown (records incomplete)
1825: None
1875: Unknown (records incomplete)
1925: Margaret Price, survived to 102; David Lowell, survived to 78; Mary Patterson, survived to 81
1975: Jennifer Watson, David Kim, Sarah Martinez, all still alive
Marcus looked at the ages. The ones who survived lived long lives. Longer than average. And they all left town right after the cycle ended.
Why?
He thought about what Jennifer Watson had said on the phone: I died. I drowned. The thread went inside me and filled my lungs with itself. I was dead for three days.
Dead for three days.
Marcus searched for information about the other survivors. He found an old newspaper article about David Lowell from 1925:
LOWELL BOY FOUND ALIVE AFTER DROWNING — March 15, 1925
David Lowell, 16, was discovered on the banks of Miller Creek early this morning, alive and conscious despite having been pronounced dead by Dr. Matthews three days prior. The boy claims no memory of the intervening days. His family has declared it a miracle.
The same pattern. Declared dead. Found alive days later with no memory.
And Mary Patterson from the same cycle:
PATTERSON GIRL RISES FROM MORGUE — March 16, 1925
In an incident that has shocked our community, Mary Patterson, 17, awoke in the town morgue two days after being pronounced dead from unknown causes. The girl appeared disoriented but otherwise healthy. Town physician Dr. Matthews has no explanation for this unprecedented event.
They all died. They all came back.
Marcus’s heart was racing now. This was it. This was the pattern he’d been looking for. The thread killed them. But somehow, they came back to life after the cycle ended.
Why?
He thought about what Thomas had said in the cemetery: The thread needs twenty-five. That’s the number. If you feed it exactly twenty-five, you become part of it. Become the next lure.
Twenty-five deaths to complete the hand.
But what if some of those deaths didn’t stick? What if the thread needed permanent deaths, and some people’s deaths were only temporary?
Marcus looked at his list again. In every cycle with survivors, the total number of permanent deaths was less than twenty-five. In 1925, Thomas had killed twelve people, but three came back. Net total: nine deaths.
In 1975, Michael had killed six, but three came back. Net total: three deaths.
Neither of them had fed the thread enough.
But in 1825, there had been twenty-five deaths and no survivors. That was the cycle a girl named Cassidy had completed. She had become part of the thread.
The pattern was clear now. The thread needed exactly twenty-five permanent deaths. If it got fewer, the cycle failed and some victims came back to life. If it got exactly twenty-five, the cycle was complete, and the thread-bearer became the next lure.
Which meant there might be a third option.
What if someone fed it more than twenty-five?
Marcus sat back in his chair, his mind racing.
The thread wanted twenty-five fingers to build a hand. But hands can be damaged. Destroyed. What if you gave it too many fingers? What if you overloaded it?
Or what if you gave it zero? What if you starved it instead of feeding it?
Thomas had said fighting just made it last longer. Jennifer had said the same thing. But maybe they’d been fighting wrong. Maybe the key wasn’t to fight the thread itself, but to fight the hunger.
If Marcus refused to kill anyone else, if he kept the thread from feeding, what would happen?
It would eat him on day seven. He knew that much. It would take him the way it took all the others who didn’t feed it enough.
But maybe that was okay. Maybe his death was the price for breaking the cycle.
If he died without feeding it, without giving it the twenty-five it needed, then the hand would stay incomplete. The cycle would fail. And maybe, just maybe, it would end for good.
Marcus looked at the thread on his finger. It pulsed gently, waiting.
Two people dead. Twenty-three to go.
He’d already failed. He’d already let it feed twice. But he wouldn’t let it feed again. Even if it meant dying slowly. Even if it meant suffering the way Thomas said he would.
He wouldn’t kill anyone else. He wouldn’t become the monster his father had seen in that vision.
Marcus’s phone rang, making him jump. Unknown number.
He almost didn’t answer, but something made him pick up.
“Hello?”
“Marcus Price?” It was a woman’s voice. Not one he recognized.
“Yeah.”
“This is Sarah Martinez. Jennifer Watson gave me your number. She said you called her this morning.”
One of the 1975 survivors.
“I need to know how you survived,” Marcus said immediately.
“I didn’t survive. I died.” Sarah’s voice was calm and matter-of-fact. “The thread went into my brain. I felt it crawling through my thoughts, eating my memories. I jumped from a window trying to make it stop. Broke my neck. I was dead for four days.”
“But you came back.”
“I came back because Michael failed. He only killed three people permanently before he gave up and let the thread take him. The cycle failed, so those of us it had killed were released. We woke up miles away with no memory of where we’d been or what had happened.”
“Do you know why it let you go?”
“Because incomplete cycles break. The thread needs exactly twenty-five deaths to complete itself. Anything less, and it has to reset. Has to try again in fifty years.” Sarah paused. “Jennifer told me you’re on day two. That you’re trying to break the cycle.”
“I’m not going to feed it anymore. I’m going to starve it.”
“That won’t work.”
“Why not?”
“Because the thread doesn’t just sit there waiting for you to feed it. It hunts. By day six, it’ll split into multiple threads and attach to everyone around you. You won’t be able to stop it. And every person it kills, every person you kill, you’ll carry their last moments forever. Their pain becomes your pain. Their fear becomes your fear.”
Marcus thought about Emma’s death. His father’s death. Those memories were already burned into his brain and would never fade. Twenty-three more of those? He couldn’t survive that. He couldn’t stay sane.
“There has to be another way,” Marcus said.
“There isn’t. I’ve spent fifty years looking. Jennifer’s spent fifty years looking. David’s spent fifty years looking. There’s no way out except to die or to feed it. And feeding it just makes you the next lure, the next bait, trapped forever.”
“Then I’ll die.”
“You’ll die screaming. You’ll die over the course of hours, maybe days, while it eats you from the inside. And then you’ll be trapped anyway, conscious but powerless, watching the next cycle begin.” Sarah’s voice hardened. “Is that really what you want?”
Marcus didn’t answer.
“Listen to me carefully,” Sarah said. “The thread showed us things while we were dead. Showed us what it really is. It’s not a curse. It’s not a demon. It’s a birthing process. Something ancient is using us to build itself a body, piece by piece, across centuries. Every cycle adds another part.
Every version of you is just material for its construction.”
“What happens when it finishes? When it has all twenty-five fingers?”
“We don’t know. Nobody knows. The 1825 cycle was completed, but we don’t know what happened after. Maybe it finally took physical form. Maybe it moved on to building something bigger. Or maybe it’s still here, still growing, and the hand was just the first piece.”
Marcus felt sick. “So either I help it finish, or I die and get trapped as part of it anyway?”
“Those are your options. I’m sorry.”
“Why are you telling me this? Why not just let me figure it out on my own?”
Sarah was quiet for a moment. “Because we were you once. We know what it’s like. And because...” She hesitated. “Because we’re still connected to it. All of us who survived. We can feel when a new cycle begins. Feel the thread waking up. And in our dreams, we see what you see. Feel what you feel. Your pain is our pain now.”
“That’s why you left town. Why you all ran.”
“Distance helps. It doesn’t stop it completely, but it helps. And we had to get away before the next cycle started. Before it could use us again.”
“Wait. Use you again?”
“The survivors aren’t random, Marcus. We’re backups. If a cycle fails too badly, if the thread-bearer dies before feeding it anything, the thread jumps to one of us. We become the new host. That’s why we ran. Why we stay away.”
Marcus’s blood went cold. “So if I die without feeding it...”
“It’ll jump to one of us. Probably Jennifer, since she’s the oldest survivor. And she’ll have to go through what you’re going through now.”
“That’s not fair.”
“None of this is fair. But that’s how it works.” Sarah’s voice softened. “Feed it, Marcus. I know that sounds terrible. I know you don’t want to. But feed it the minimum you can stand. Fifteen, maybe twenty people. Then let it take you. That way the cycle fails, we all get released, and in fifty years it has to start over from scratch. Give the next version a chance.”
“I can’t kill twenty people.”
“You already killed two.”
“That wasn’t me!”
“Doesn’t matter. Their deaths are still on you. Their memories are still in your head. You’ll carry them forever whether you kill more or not. Might as well make their deaths mean something. Might as well use them to buy time.”
Marcus wanted to throw the phone across the room. He wanted to scream.
Instead, he said quietly, “What if there’s a third option nobody’s tried?”
“There isn’t.”
“What if I feed it more than twenty-five?”
Sarah went silent.
“What if I overload it?” Marcus continued. “Give it so many deaths it can’t process them all? Break it by giving it too much?”
“That’s...” Sarah paused. “That’s never been tried.”
“Maybe because everyone’s been trying to starve it or feed it exactly what it wants. Nobody’s tried to break it.”
“You’d have to kill hundreds of people. Maybe thousands. Are you really capable of that?”
“No,” Marcus said honestly. “But the thread is. And if it breaks the thread, if it ends this thing for good...”
“You’d become the worst mass murderer in history. They’d hunt you down. Kill you. And you’d still have all those deaths in your head, all that pain and suffering.”
“But it would be over. The cycle would be broken.”
Sarah didn’t respond for a long time. When she finally spoke, her voice was different. Thoughtful.
“There’s one more thing I should tell you. Something the thread showed me while I was dead.”
“What?”
“The basement where you found your corpse. That place exists outside of time. All the cycles happen there at the same time. When you die in that basement on day seven, you don’t just die. You become part of that moment, frozen there forever. All the versions of you exist in that space at once.”
Marcus thought about what Thomas had said. About seeing all the other versions, all the loops.
“So they’re all still there. All still suffering.”
“Yes. And if you break the thread, if you truly end it, you might free them too. Free all the versions that came before you. Give them peace.”
That changed things.
Marcus wasn’t just fighting for himself anymore. He was fighting for every version that had come before. Every Marcus, every Michael, every Thomas, every Cassidy. All of them trapped in that basement, in that moment of death, for decades or centuries.
“I have to try,” he said.
“I know.” Sarah sounded sad. “Good luck, Marcus. And I’m sorry. For what you’re about to do. For what you’re about to become.”
She hung up.
Marcus sat in his room, staring at the thread.
Day three was almost over. He’d been awake for over thirty-six hours. His body was shutting down. He needed sleep.
But he couldn’t sleep. Not yet. He had work to do.
He had to figure out how to kill enough people to break a thing that had been feeding across centuries.
And he had four days left to do it.