“Petey. What is the Darkness doing?”

Pete considered. He hadn’t looked at that thing lately. He could see him, a green glow, tendrils like a writhing octopus reaching out through the placeless place where Pete now lived.

The Darkness was weak. His power, spread all through the barrier, was weakening. He was the thing Pete had used to create the barrier. In that panic moment with the terrible loud sounds and the fear on all the faces, when Pete had screamed inside his own head and reached out with his power he’d stretched the Darkness into that barrier.

Now it was weakening. Soon it would break and crack.

Dying.

“The Darkness, the gaiaphage, it’s dying?”

It wants to be reborn.

“Petey. What happens if it is reborn?”

He didn’t know. He was out of words. He opened his mind to her. He showed sister Astrid images of the great sphere he had built, the barrier that had pushed all the rules and laws away, the barrier made of the gaiaphage, that had become the egg for its rebirth, the numbers all twisted together, fourteen, and the twisting, screaming distortion when anything passed through from one universe to the other, and now sister Astrid was screaming and holding her head; he could see it in the avatar, funny screaming, like words that popped and exploded around him and—

Fear, Chapter 33