Can’t Win Me Back

Jasper felt a pain unlike any he had ever known.

It wasn't a physical agony like having flesh torn away, but a slow, excruciating torture akin to being slowly sliced by a blunt blade.

It was a hundred times worse than dying instantly.

His mind raced through a chaotic sequence of images, like a black- and-white movie playing backward.

He saw people retreating and leaving —Javier, Anne, Newton, Landon, Lauren, Jonah, Axel...

He reached out desperately, trying to grasp any of them, but they were slipping away, one by one.

Finally, the image settled on Alyssa's radiant face.

"Lyse...

Don't go..." Tears streaming down his face, he lunged forward, wrapping his arms around her.

But she dissolved into golden dust, vanishing into the frigid air.

"No! iy A beep sounded in his ear as if everything had been reset.

enveloped him, and he fell

was

staring at the fallen

he was dead, but deep down, he

footsteps approaching from

see Remy emerging from

look on his face, Remy

Without even a

you to

you have

Jameson stood motionless, his face

looked like a man who had been thoroughly

all his

of the

laughing

life has been a

reincarnation exists..." Before he could finish, the deafening roar of a

above, casting its shadow over

crash, and with that, the

cutting