With the Overseer's dramatic exit from the mortal coil, the Shadowed Hand's reign of terror on Lian Yu effectively ended. The remaining cultists, their faith shattered and their leader reduced to a rather uninspiring corpse, scattered like startled cockroaches, some fleeing into the island's treacherous interior, others attempting ill-advised voyages on makeshift rafts. Michael, though finally free from their physical grasp, found himself still tethered to the island by invisible chains of memory and trauma. The years of captivity, the brutal choices he had been forced to make, the faces of those he had used or sacrificed in his desperate bid for survival, lingered in his mind like unwelcome guests.
He bid a silent farewell to the islanders, his heart a complex knot of gratitude and a profound sense of isolation. He knew he could never truly shed the skin of the survivor, forever marked by the crucible of Lian Yu and the potent, volatile power that now coursed through him. As he finally set sail on a salvaged fishing boat, the scarred silhouette of the island receding into the mist-shrouded horizon, he stared out at the vast, indifferent ocean, a chilling realization settling upon him. He had escaped one prison, only to carry another, more insidious one, within himself. "Freedom," he murmured, the word tasting like ashes on his tongue. "A ghost I suspect I'll be chasing for a very long time." He was no longer just Michael Queen; he was something… else. Something forged in darkness and tempered by loss.