Chapter 55. Finally a Way Out

Alison’s POV

Darkness wasn’t just the absence of light; it was an endless void. It felt like being submerged in a deep, inky ocean, weightless but suffocating. I had no sense of time, no idea if hours or days had passed. Sometimes, I thought I could hear faint echoes of voices, distorted like sounds traveling through water. They were fragments, disjointed and fleeting, but enough to make me desperate to respond. My mind screamed for my body to move, for my lips to part, but nothing happened. I was trapped in this abyss, locked within myself.

But today, something changed.

A voice cut through the darkness, clear and firm, tethering me to the world I could no longer touch. “Alison,” it said, soft but laced with pain. It was familiar... Katherine, Xander’s mother. Her voice trembled as she continued, her words striking deep into my consciousness. “If you’re still alive in there, wake up. Please, wake up. Xander needs you… or let go. Let him move on. He’s a shado