The last page of the Shadow Dossier wasn't paper, but a slab of black stone.It sat on the table, quiet as a bone chewed and spat out by time.
Ethan and Carl exchanged a glance.Neither moved. They remembered: last time they touched a shard, the laughter inside nearly dragged them into the abyss—and mocked Carl's haircut as "an upside-down dog bowl."
"…How about you?" Carl asked cautiously.
"I thought you bragged about being brave," Ethan teased. "Or does 'brave' mean hiding behind me for the jump scare?"
Carl shrugged. "Brave doesn't mean stupid. You've got the face for terror."
So Ethan reached out.
The instant he touched it, cold slithered up his arm like a snake. Darkness swallowed his vision, then twisted symbols surfaced—letters dancing like clowns, graffiti scrawled in blood.
"The final dream approaches. No one shall remain awake."
Ethan sneered. "Sounds like a bad insomnia ad."
More words seared across the stone:
"The Key will choose its host. The host will choose destruction. Friend becomes foe, foe becomes savior."
Carl grimaced. "Reads like a philosophy student's thesis abstract—vague, pretentious, and lethal."
Suddenly, the slab cracked, spilling black light. Visions flooded out:—Cities burning, skies full of eyes.—Humans kneeling, singing to nightmare.—The Bureau's badge crumbling, the Chief's face melting like mud.—Ethan, standing amid corpses, holding a black key, smiling more monstrously than any monster.
Carl stared. "…Tell me you won't really turn into that."
Ethan shrugged. "At least my smile looks less fake than the Chief's."
The prophecy's final line silenced them:
"When the world falls into eternal sleep, the Key shall decide—wake, or never wake again."
Only their breathing filled the room.
At last Carl muttered: "So that means… you either save the world, or flip the switch off forever?"
Ethan sighed, tapped the stone against the table. It crumbled to ash."Pretty much. Prophecies never tell you how. They just remind you you're the unlucky bastard in charge."
Outside, chaos swelled—crowds chanting lullabies in unison.
Carl smirked at the window. "You think humans trust prophecy too easily? Like buying lottery tickets. Everyone knows they won't win, but someone insists 'what if I'm chosen?'"
Ethan nodded. "Difference is, this jackpot is world annihilation."
They went silent, then looked at each other—And laughed.
Not with relief, but with bitter irony.
Because they finally understood: the "Final Page" wasn't an ending at all.
It was an invitation.
An invitation to step into an even worse nightmare.