For the first time in years, the world wasn't ending.
But it was what lay beyond the blue sky that made Valerie's breath catch painfully in her throat.
Wrapping around the entire atmosphere, completely encompassing the globe, was a faint, shimmering web of pure, impenetrable golden energy. It was a massive, planetary firewall.
And standing directly outside of that golden barrier, floating in the absolute dark of the multiverse, was a shadow.
It was a colossal, terrifying silhouette composed entirely of shifting black static. It was easily the size of a moon, dwarfing the planet it guarded. It wept glowing red ash into the void, its piercing white eyes staring out into the dark.
"Sebastian," Valerie whispered, her hands pressing flat against the reinforced glass of the balcony window.
