End of days 10

As I race along the corridor, reality peels away from its walls. The shadows reach out with writhing tendrils but I accelerate and leave them flailing in my wake. Behind me I can hear the hordes from the pit joining the chase with the hiss of a thousand sharpening knives.

My feet have found the speed they had when I led our victorious army. The lights overhead blur into one, and now the ceiling itself cracks open with a blinding white flash and the winged spirits I thought lost are wheeling around me once more before falling back to take on my pursuers.

But then in an instant it is silent again and I find myself alone in the furthest wing of the hospital. Here the polished linoleum floor has given way to soft-carpeted office suites, all unlit and empty except the one at the end where the Director’s name stands out in pale letters against the dark wood of the door.

It is only when I am close that I realise that the wood is not dark but charred and that the name is written in ash. The ribbon of light beneath flickers red and orange on the carpet.