C.J. Thorpe stands near a flickering light, his face half-lit, half-lost in shadows.
“You ever see what a betrayal does to a man? Not the stab in the back—that’s quick. I’m talking about what happens after. The slow burn. The way it hollows him out, piece by piece, until all that’s left is the echo of what he used to be. I’ve seen it. Lived it. And I’ll tell you this—Felix Foley? He’s gonna rise out of it stronger than you ever thought possible. But you, Doom? You won’t.”
The shadows around him grow thicker.
“Felix trusted you. He looked at a man like you—cold, calculated, ruthless—and thought, ‘Maybe there’s still something worth saving.’ And what did you do with that? You didn’t just betray him. You didn’t just leave him behind. You took every ounce of that trust and burned it to fuel your ambition. But the truth is you’re just another parasite clawing at power because the idea of being ordinary terrifies you.”
C.J.’s voice drips with venom.
“You think running The Corporation makes you untouchable? That you and Nox have Arcadia locked down? Nah, Stubbins. It makes you a target. And the bigger you make yourself, the easier it is to see the cracks. ‘Cause here’s the thing about power: it don’t last. It eats itself from the inside out, and when it collapses, it takes everyone who built it down with it.”
Thorpe quietens.
“That Odyssey Pool you love so much—where you stripped people down to their core and rebuilt them in your image? It didn’t make you unstoppable. It didn’t make you better. It just gave you another mask to wear, another lie to hide behind. And when I look at you, Doom, I don’t see power. I see fear. Fear that without the Corporation, without Nox, without your games, you’re nothing. Just a scared little man in a world that doesn’t need him.”
The light above CJ flickers violently, casting erratic shadows across his face as his voice rises.
“You think you’ve got Arcadia in your pocket. You think Felix was the last person you had to crush to get to the top. But what you don’t understand is that betrayal has a cost, and that cost is standing right in front of you. I’m not Felix. I’m not gonna look at you and wonder what went wrong. I already know. You went wrong. The moment you chose power over loyalty, you sealed your fate.”
Thorpe steps forward, his face now fully illuminated.
“You call yourself Doom like it’s some kind of inevitability. But the truth? You’re not the end. You’re just another chapter in a book I’ve been burning through my whole life. And when I’m done with you, when I’ve stripped you down to whatever’s left under that mask, you’ll see it too.”
He smirks.
“You’re not untouchable. You’re not inevitable. You’re just another man who thought betrayal made him a god. The truth is, Doom: gods don’t bleed.”
Thorpe steps back into the shadows as the light finally gives out.
“But you will.”