….Franklin staggers forward several feet, before tumbling forward into the sea of red that has formed from the waterfall that flows from his gut.

“Who would’ve thought that in the end patience WAS a virtue,” Henrique sneers with a muffled laugh as he drops to his knees and takes in several exhausted breaths. “Fifteen years, and all I had to do was wait for you to show yourself for who you really were, instead of searching the cracks and crevices of this dying land.”

“If your words were palatable, I would swallow them whole, yet they are covered in shit and smell worse.” Claudio says with a broad grin across his lips as he crouches in front of the bewildered Henrique.

“H-H-How?”

“A nudge here, a poke there, a little bit of theatrics everywhere, nothing more or less, but that’s all I needed to spin my web.”

“B-B-But if y-you live, t-that m-mean t-t-th…” he stammers as he looks frantically over to Franklin’s form, who’s dead eyes stare towards him in silence.

“That you killed your oldest friend for nought? Why yes, yes I do believe you did.”…