Chapter 13: The Severance

Chapter 13: The Severance

He was drowning in the reflection of his own face. The cold, placid smile forming on his watery visage in the Patron’s form was a death sentence and an epitaph. It was the final stage of the collection: the victim’s acceptance, the moment their identity was finally dissolved and remade in the Patron’s image. The seductive peace of the Well was no longer a whisper; it was a roaring tide, promising to wash away the fear, the pain, the terrible, gnawing thirst. All he had to do was let go.

His knees hit the cold, wet marble of the shattered altar. The fight was leaving him, draining away into the abyss.

“Leo!” Elara’s voice was a ragged shriek, cutting through the psychic deluge. She was on her feet, the ancient scroll held before her like a shield, her face a mask of desperate fury. “The words aren't enough! The Mark is a claim of ownership. It was given to you! A claim can only be broken by a counter-claim, or by… by rejecting the gift!”

Reject the gift? How could he reject something that had burrowed into his very soul? It was a part of him now, a cold, wet cancer.

“Donum refuto! Onus dimitto!” she screamed, her voice cracking under the strain. “I reject the gift! I release the burden! Say it, Leo! You have to cast it off! Throw it back!”

The Patron loomed, a towering vortex of stolen lives, its psychic pressure immense. It knew it was moments from victory. The face that was Leo’s own was becoming clearer, more defined within the churning water. It smiled at him, a look of serene, final welcome.

To cast it off. Not just to fight it, but to actively expel it. The thought was a spark in the overwhelming darkness. The Patron wanted to take him. It was a predator, a collector. The one thing it would never expect was for its chosen piece to refuse the collection, to throw itself from the shelf.

Leo looked at his own reflection smiling its dead smile, and a final, defiant surge of rage burned through him. It was the fury of a cornered animal. The fury of a man who had been terrorized, hunted, and was now being told to peacefully accept his own erasure.

He would not be collected.

He gathered the last dregs of his will, focusing not on his memories, not on his pathetic, mundane life, but on the Mark itself. He visualized it as the Collector had described it: a token. A thing. An object that had been placed inside him. And he could throw it out.

“DONUM REFUTO!” he roared, the ancient words feeling alien and powerful on his tongue. He clawed at his own chest, as if trying to physically tear the brand from his flesh. He felt a searing, icy pain, a sensation of something tearing free not from his skin, but from his very essence.

The Patron recoiled. A psychic shriek of fury and surprise echoed through the cathedral, a silent blast of pressure that made the stone itself seem to groan. The faces in the column of water twisted from mockery into rage. It had not anticipated this.

But it wasn’t enough. The Mark was still connected, a single, tenacious thread of cold.

“It’s not letting go!” Elara cried out, blood now trickling from her nose from the sheer effort of the ritual. “You’ve rejected it, but it has nowhere to go! You have to… you have to give it a new direction!”

Give it… a new direction? Leo’s mind, fractured and reeling, struggled with the concept. He had to cast it off, but into what? Into where? He couldn’t destroy it. He couldn’t contain it. All he could do was… pass it on.

The full, horrifying truth of the ritual settled on him. This wasn't a severing. It was a transfer. A curse passed from one soul to the next. The scroll wasn't a shield; it was a weapon that required someone else to take the blow.

For a moment, he hesitated. To save himself by damning another?

Then he felt the cold tendril of the Mark begin to pull again, felt the promise of drowning peace return, and his instinct for survival overrode everything. He would not die here. He would not become another screaming face in the water.

He didn't choose a target. He didn't have the strength. He just needed it gone.

“ONUS DIMITTO!” he screamed, his voice breaking into a raw sob. I release the burden!

He threw his arms wide, a gesture of ultimate, final expulsion. With all his remaining strength, he imagined the Drowned Mark, that cold, wet splinter of the Patron’s will, being ripped from his soul and hurled away. Out. Anywhere but here. Anywhere but in him.

The connection snapped.

The pain was absolute, a blinding flash of negative space where the Mark had been. It felt as if a vital organ had been torn out, leaving a gaping, hollow void. He collapsed onto the altar, a choked gasp escaping his lips as the psychic presence vanished, completely and utterly.

The Patron of the Well let out one last, silent, frustrated scream. The towering column of water and bodies lost all cohesion, collapsing in on itself with the sound of a thousand waterfalls. It poured back into the abyss in the floor, a furious, black torrent that was swallowed by the void.

The thrumming stopped. The cold receded. The profane water that had flooded the floor drained away, seeping back through the cracks in the stone.

Silence.

A profound, normal, blessedly empty silence filled the cathedral. All that remained was the broken altar, the lingering smell of mud and decay, and two broken people shivering in the gloom.

Leo pushed himself up, his body a symphony of agony. Blood dripped from his nose and he tasted copper in his mouth. He felt… hollow. The constant, cold pressure that had been his companion for three days was gone. He was alone in his own head for the first time since he’d seen that third toothbrush. He was free.

Elara had collapsed, her energy spent, the ancient scroll lying discarded beside her. He helped her to her feet, his own legs trembling so badly he could barely stand. They supported each other, a pair of survivors limping away from a forgotten battlefield.

They stumbled out of the great oak doors, into the world.

The dawn was breaking. A weak, grey light filtered through the clouds, painting the sky in shades of slate and dirty rose. The rain was falling down now, a normal, gentle drizzle. A car passed on the street, its engine making a familiar, forward-moving sound. The world had stitched itself back together.

It was over. He had won.

A wave of giddy, hysterical relief washed over him. He started to laugh, a ragged, painful sound that quickly turned into a hacking cough. They staggered away from the church, away from the scene of the nightmare, seeking the anonymity of the waking city.

As they reached the corner, Leo leaned against a brick wall, trying to catch his breath. His gaze drifted across the street. In the recessed doorway of a pawn shop, a man was huddled under a thin, filthy blanket, trying to escape the rain. His hair was matted, his face etched with the weary resignation of life on the streets. He was invisible to the few early-morning commuters hurrying past.

Then, a figure stepped out from the alley beside the pawn shop.

Leo’s blood ran cold. It was her. The first Collector. Her floral dress was somehow clean and dry, a splash of impossible color in the grimy cityscape. Her posture was perfect, her movements unnervingly graceful. Her fixed, knowing smile was locked in place. She had not been destroyed. She had simply been waiting for her master’s tantrum to end.

She approached the homeless man, who flinched, pulling his blanket tighter around his shoulders, expecting to be told to move on.

The Collector stopped in front of him. She reached into her worn shopping bag. Leo watched, his heart hammering against his ribs, a new and terrible understanding dawning. He felt the phantom ache of the Mark, the hollow space it had left behind. He knew what was happening. He knew what he had done.

The Collector pulled out her hand. She held a small, simple object.

A brand new, pristine blue toothbrush.

It was still wet, dripping slowly onto the damp pavement. She held it out to the terrified man, an offering. A token. A gift. Her smile widened, full of a cold, detached amusement that was infinitely more horrifying than any monster.

The ritual hadn't ended the hunt. It had only reset it. He hadn't severed the curse. He had just thrown it to the wolves.

The harsh dawn light offered no comfort, no solace. It was a spotlight, illuminating the full, terrible cost of his survival. He was not a victor. He was the man who had just pushed someone else into the path of a monster to save himself.

He stared in horror as the Collector waited patiently, her terrible gift extended. The cycle was beginning again. And it was all his fault.