'O, were I but a luckier man I would know one as eloquent as I to sing the song of my life! The song of my death!'
"SHUT UP!"
'Moros, I fe-'
"I don't CARE if it hurts! You're pissing me off!"
Apollo had loosened a second arrow. A third. A fourth, a fifth. Each of the sharpened metal tips found flesh, found blood, but that of the dark god's grotesque shield rather than he himself. With every new arrow embedding itself in Hedylogos' body Moros heard the erote's painful, pathetic scream. Normally he would have reveled in it. Fifteen minutes ago, he did. But now the voices were too numerous, too inescapable, clawing at the remnants of his sanity.
Halfway down the length of hallway behind Apollo, just like the doorway he had entered through, part of the ceiling and walls collapsed in upon itself. Flame and debris, dust and smoke crashed to the floor in a pile as high as any man, jutting out in numerous directions. It was thick, not thick enough to be immovable, but thick enough to require time to do so. Doom may have been a psychopath, may have been a raving lunatic, a man shouting to himself in a burning building, but he had just wrenched control at the drop of a hat. Perhaps he wasn't so far gone after all.
Oh, how quickly the wily hunter became the cornered hunted.
'I'm disappointed. Even I lasted longer than this!'
"Not by much."
'That's because you're so big and strong, my Doomie-woomie!'
'I'm going to be fucking sick.'
'Shut! Up!'
"..."
Hedylogos' body popped out into the opening at the end of the hallway, held there aloft for several seconds, arms and legs dangling like some kind of gruesome marionette. Moros stepped out a moment later, holding his shield in front of him, an amused chuckle pulling at the corners of his lips.
'Honestly, I expected-' '-expected you to-' '-to do better-' "Honestly, I expected you to do better than this."
The heavy stride began immediately, each step severing the precious space between them.