Chapter 58: End Passage
Hours passed, yet Dexter remained in bed, his body unwilling to surrender to sleep. He tried to think, to reach for that smooth, gentle voice—but it was gone. No matter how many times he tried to summon it, silence answered. Was he not losing his mind after all?
It made him believe Pry’s words even more.
After all, the system had warned that his penalty for failing to kill his mother would be a "soul passage." Now that he thought about it, was this what it truly meant? Had the system brought him to a new reality just to erase him quietly?
But how had he even survived the torment his mother inflicted? Both arms severed, a blade through his heart—who survives that?
His mind kept him awake through the night. A wave of relief washed over him, yet a part of him still refused to believe any of it.
The sun rose above the horizon, but his thoughts were still racing. The weight of sleeplessness began to take its toll—his half-blind eyes ached, and his mind spun like someone waking from a sleep that had lasted far too long.
Instinctively, he began to shift on the sickbed, despite being unable to move properly. The overwhelming pain made the bed tremble beneath him, prompting the nurses to rush in and administer anesthesia to help him relax, if only for a moment.
The moment sleep took Dexter, it happened. The sensation was identical to what he’d felt earlier—when he was believed to have died.
His soul, and only his soul, drifted like a balloon through a vast, empty vacuum.
That feeling consumed him completely. He hadn’t even had time to sink into the anesthesia-induced sleep before it overtook him.
What followed was a wave of relief and warmth—more comforting, more like home than anything he had felt in weeks. But before he could grasp what was causing it, sleep finally pulled him under.