Edge of the Dark

Chapter 110: Chapter 109: The Lost World

The sky above them was heavy with dark clouds, the kind that promised a storm but never seemed to break. Ethan stood on the edge of the cliff, the wind biting at his skin, his eyes fixed on the sprawling city below. There was something almost surreal about the scene. The world had been spinning around him at breakneck speed, and now, in this quiet moment, it felt as if time had slowed to a crawl.

His mind kept returning to the photographs. To the faces of the dead. To the victims, the survivors, and the many, many lies they had all believed. Nathaniel Bishop had been right about one thing—this was no longer about simple justice. It was about something deeper, something more dangerous. They had stumbled upon a truth so vast, so tangled, that it threatened to pull them under. And as much as Ethan wanted to tear that truth apart, to expose it for the world to see, he knew that some secrets weren't meant to be uncovered.

Behind him, Zoe's voice broke the silence. "Ethan, we can't keep running from this."

He turned slowly to face her, his gaze lingering on the horizon for a moment longer before meeting her eyes. There was no anger there, no fear—only the kind of resignation that came from understanding the weight of what they had both been through.

"We're not running," he said softly, though the words felt hollow. "But the truth... it's too big. We were never meant to find it."

Zoe shook her head, stepping closer, her face etched with determination. "We've uncovered pieces, Ethan. We're so close. The truth might be bigger than we thought, but that doesn't mean we stop. You taught me that. You taught me to keep going, no matter how dark it gets."

Her words hit him like a wave, crashing over him with an intensity that caught him off guard. Ethan had spent so long chasing shadows, looking for answers in the wrong places, that it was easy to forget why he started this journey in the first place. They weren't chasing a single answer, a single truth. They were chasing justice—not just for the victims, but for themselves, too.

Ethan took a deep breath, then turned and began walking back toward the waiting car. Zoe fell into step beside him, her footsteps light but purposeful. There was no time for reflection, no time for rest. They had come too far to back out now.

"Where do we go from here?" she asked, glancing up at him.

Ethan didn't answer immediately. Instead, he pulled out the piece of paper from his pocket—the map he'd been obsessively studying for days now. The last lead, the final fragment of the puzzle. It was a small, nondescript building in the heart of the city—a building that no one seemed to know much about, but one that was tied to everything they had uncovered. The trail had led them here, to this forgotten part of the world, a place that time had left behind.

"We go to the archive," he said finally, his voice steady. "There's something there we missed. Something that's been staring us in the face this whole time."

Zoe nodded, but there was a flicker of doubt in her eyes. "And if it's not there? What if it's another dead end?"

Ethan's jaw tightened. "Then we'll keep looking until we find the answers."

They both knew that there were no guarantees. There were no promises that the answers they sought would be waiting for them. The more they uncovered, the more the world seemed to unravel around them, like a tapestry coming undone. They had peeled back the layers, exposed the darkness, and yet, every answer only seemed to raise more questions.

As they drove through the winding streets, the city seemed to warp in their eyes. It was as though the place they had known, the world they had been living in, was a mere illusion—shifting, fading, and revealing cracks that they hadn't noticed before. The buildings they passed, once so familiar, now felt strange, foreign, like something out of a dream.

"We're too far gone, aren't we?" Zoe asked, her voice quiet.

Ethan didn't answer right away. The truth was, he wasn't sure. They had already sacrificed so much to get this far, and yet, there was no end in sight. It felt as though they had entered a different realm, a world where the rules of reality no longer applied. Where every step they took only led them deeper into the unknown.

The world around them felt broken. The people they had known, the lives they had once believed in—those things were all slipping through their fingers like sand. And the more they uncovered about the web of lies that had ensnared them, the more they realized just how little they truly understood about the world they inhabited.

When they arrived at the building, it was exactly as it had been described—a small, squat structure nestled between two towering skyscrapers. The architecture was an odd mix of old and new, with crumbling stone walls and gleaming glass windows. It didn't belong here, in this part of the city, and yet it had remained hidden in plain sight for years. Forgotten. Abandoned. Waiting.

"Are you ready for this?" Zoe asked, glancing up at him as they stood before the entrance.

Ethan hesitated for only a moment before nodding. "We don't have a choice."

The door creaked open with an unsettling sound, as though it hadn't been touched in years. Inside, the building was dimly lit, the air thick with dust and the scent of old paper. Rows upon rows of filing cabinets lined the walls, and the shelves were cluttered with boxes of forgotten documents. It was a place that seemed to exist outside of time—a place where everything that had been lost could be found again, if only one knew where to look.

They moved through the maze of shelves and cabinets, their footsteps echoing in the silence. Ethan's heart pounded in his chest, each thump a reminder of the danger they were walking into. The further they went, the more the building seemed to shift around them. The air grew colder, the shadows deeper. It was as though the very walls were closing in on them.

Finally, they reached the back of the building, where a large desk sat beneath a single light. Atop it were stacks of old files, the edges yellowed with age. Ethan felt a sudden unease settle in his stomach. Something wasn't right. It felt too quiet here, too still. Like they were being watched.

He picked up the first file he saw, his hands trembling slightly as he opened it. The pages inside were yellowed, brittle, and covered in scribbled notes. But as he scanned the text, something caught his eye—a name. A name he had seen before, but one that shouldn't have been here.

It was Sophia's name.

Zoe stepped closer, peering over his shoulder at the file. "Is that...?" Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Ethan nodded slowly, his mind racing. "This isn't just about the dead. It's about the ones who never truly left."

He flipped through the pages, his heart sinking with each word. There, hidden among the other notes, was the truth they had been searching for. The final piece of the puzzle. It wasn't just about who had died—it was about who had lived, and who had been forgotten.

This building, this archive—it was a place where the world's darkest secrets had been kept hidden. A place where the truth had been erased, buried under layers of lies and corruption. And now, they had found it.

But the more they uncovered, the more Ethan realized that some truths were too dangerous to be set free. Some truths, once unleashed, could never be contained again.

As they left the building, the weight of what they had discovered hung heavily in the air. The world outside seemed unchanged, but Ethan knew better. They had crossed a threshold, and there was no going back.

The world they had known was lost, and in its place was a new, darker reality—one that held more questions than answers, and one that they might never escape.

As the car pulled away from the building, Ethan's thoughts were consumed by the truth they had uncovered. A truth that, in many ways, had been lost to time—a truth that would haunt them both for as long as they lived.