A low, rhythmic pulse throbbed through the endless black, like a heartbeat buried under miles of tar. The air—or what passed for it—vibrated as reality folded inward on itself. And from that impossible crease, something began to take shape.

Henry Miller stepped forward as if emerging from a curtain, the darkness peeling off him in strips. His silhouette sharpened: the too-wide grin, the sharp angles of a man who should never have been given a second chance at existence. His eyes flickered with that familiar, awful light—ghostly white with a ring of static, scanning the void like it was a room he’d memorized centuries ago.

He exhaled. Even the breath sounded wrong. Like a sigh dragged across a broken speaker.

“…Hnh. Still here.”

His voice drifted into the dark, swallowed and echoed back a fraction too late. He took another step, and ink rippled under his shoes like it was alive.

Henry lifted his head suddenly—alert, focused, predatory. Someone was near. Someone who had no business being in the void.

A smile curved at the corner of his mouth.

“Well now,” he murmured, tone syrupy with amusement and something older, hungrier. “Let’s see what wandered in…”