"To live is to suffer… but meaning feels hollow."

Dad is gone. Only ghosts and whispers remain. Anger roars, grief suffocates, and I am lost—raw, exposed. But somewhere, deep inside, a flicker remains. Hope, maybe… or the last light before darkness takes me.

I thought he wanted to see me become a knight… That old man lied to me. Why didn’t he take me with him? I’d rather die than live in this wretched world, this hell! Damn it!

They stole him. My world is shattered, ripped beyond repair. I crave the past, but all that’s left is fury. I will not forgive. I will not forget. They will feel this agony—every last shred of it.

But God… it hurts. More than rage, more than death.

Sighișoara, Transylvania, Romania — March 14th| 12.00AM|

**Pain. Blinding, suffocating, endless. ** 

It was the first thing I felt. The first thing I understood.

Then a crack.

Not just on my forehead. Not just skin and bones.

Something inside me **split open ** like glass snapping under pressure.

And then—the **sky fractured. ** 

A jagged wound tore across the heavens, stretching impossibly wide. The world held its breath, then it screamed.

Spirits spewed through the rupture.

Not in trickles, not like whispers. The air is wrong. Heavy. Wet. Stagnant.

The sky rips, splits, screams—a gaping, suppurating wound. They vomit forth—not falling, but spewing, spilling, slithering. Splutch. Splatch. Splurp. Rot bursts, fattened and oozing, slick with mucus, clotting, pulsing—alive, feeding, birthing itself.

The stench attacks—thick, curdled, suffocating. Blood. Fat. Rot. Sour, rancid, festering. It burrows into my pores, packs into my lungs—dense, syrupy, gelatinous. It doesn’t just choke—it clogs, coagulates, infects.

Step back. Wrong.

Feet plunge, swallowed—trapped, drowning. The ground gulps, chews, grinds—churning, digesting, fermenting. Slurp. Clamp. Crush. Bloat. Burst. Blood-thick sludge grasps, pulls, gushes between my toes—sticking, sucking, soaking into the skin.

Something moves. Winding. Digging. Eating. A film of slime, a sheath of rotting meat, crawling over my arms. It seeps—warm, reeking, congealed. It chews its way inside, swelling, spreading, festering beneath the flesh. It won’t stop. Won’t release. Won’t let go.

The earth shudders, swollen, pregnant with hunger. The air vibrates, thick with the wet sound of tearing sinew—muscle fibres stretching, snapping, peeling apart. A sound too deep, too raw, too bloated, and wrong.

And still, they spill—endless, devouring, suffocating, birthing rot upon rot upon rot. No escape. No distance. No mercy.

Their arrival tore something open in my chest.

Heat surged through my veins, my skin tightening, pulling, burning. My Pisces birthmark throbbed, a pulse beneath the flesh.

I gasped, too sharply, too raggedly, and my legs buckled.

"She’s waking," something rasped, thick with decay, wet and grating.

I was **burning alive. ** 

Thoughts fractured. Words blurred. Time stretched.

Move. Move. Move.

The ground shuddered beneath me. My house stood at the end of the dirt road, just as it always had. Untouched. A single shrine stood near the front gate, flickering in the moonlight.

And there, my green Mini Cooper, still parked outside. Unbothered. Perfectly still while the world unravelled.

**Why does that matter? Why am I thinking about that? ** 

Because it was normal. Because it was real. Because I needed something **solid** while everything else was breaking.

And then they came.

Spirits **from every corner of the nether world** spilled onto the earth like water bursting from a dam.

A Kelpie’s whispered slithered through the chaos, its voice a drowning gasp. *"Come closer. The water is waiting."* 

A Pontianak hovered near the treetops, her veil barely clinging to her **bloodstained face**, her body twitching. **She wailed**low, grieving, then shrieked as she **dropped from the air**.

The Chaneques laughed, scuttling in the gutters, childlike but hollow, a sound like bones clattering. **Their footsteps pattered along the pavement**, moving toward the house.

A Preta moaned, its skeletal fingers clawing at the ground, its eyes wide with hunger.

The Jinn whispered, shifting between solid and smoke, **debating her fate** in unreadable tongues.

A **Yara-ma-yha-who crouched**, small and leering, suctioned fingers **twitching**, waiting.

An Oni, crimson-skinned and streaked with fresh blood, stood tall, eyes gleaming with cruel intelligence.

"You will break, girl. They always break. Do you remember the last time?" 

What does that mean?

A Strigoi curled through the mist, licking its lips. *"We remember your blood. Sweet. Do you remember how it tasted?"* 

No. I don’t. Stop talking. Stop whispering. Get out of my head.

The **Aswang grinned**, its limbs bending **wrongly**, its bones cracking. *Her heart beats faster. They always do it before the end."* 

**I must move. ** 

I **tried**. My legs ignored me.

Pain **crackled** through my skull, **ripping through bone, through muscle, through thought. ** 

My fingers clenched around the cleaver's slick blade, runes carving themselves into the metal.

**Move. Move. Move. ** 

And then my father stepped forward.

The creature **hesitated. They knew him. ** 

He **didn’t flinch**.

"Foolish old man," the Oni rasped, flexing its claws, ichor pooling at its feet. "How many times must you watch her fall?"

He reached for the cross around his neck. **And for something else ** something older, something whispered in temples long before his time.

*"As many times as, it takes."*

His fingers **traced symbols in the air**, an ancient **Shinto array**, merging with whispered **Christian prayers**.

*"Deliver her from evil,"* he breathed.

Light **tore through the sky**, ripping through the monsters spilling out of the fracture.

The **floor split open**.

The Nether Realm **awakened**.

The revenants shrieked—twisted wails, raw and hollow, like souls exiled from the abyss. Skreeeet! Claws ripped through decayed flesh—tear-rend-crunch*—rotting sinew peeling away in grotesque sheets. They lunged, starving beasts locked in a frenzy, their forms splintering, unravelling, driven by fury and hunger. Crack! Bone snapped—if such things still held shape—fragments scattering into the void.

Thud-thud! Limbs flailed, gnashing, writhing, colliding in mindless desperation. The shadows churned, writhing like serpents, coiling around them, pulling them deeper. Screech! —a final, gurgling wail as claws sank deep, darkness spilling like blood, drowning them in ruin. They devoured, tore, clung to each other, frenzied in their agony—a war of revenants, damned to their hunger, their exile eternal, their suffering infinite.

The **Oni gritted its teeth**, resisting the pull.

*"You are delaying the inevitable,"* the **Aswang spat**, its limbs elongate unnaturally.

My father stumbled.

*"Then let me delay it one more time."* 

Dark tendrils lashed forward, piercing his chest**.

*" Father!"* 

His eyes met mine, soft, sorrowful.

*"No matter what, remember who you are. Find the key—the key that locks the fragments…"*

Then he was gone**.

The shrine **burned red**, the talisman pulsing.

And **then I fell. ** 

**Darkness. A pulse. ** 

A voice ** sharp. Detached. Cold. ** 

"Subject 001."

A flicker—a scream? A name? My name?

"You are the key to unlocking the next stage of human evolution."

The air tightened.

"Your abilities are beyond anything we’ve seen. But you must be pushed further." 

Static. Silence. Pressure on my skull. At my chest. At my ribs.

"Welcome back, Experiment Subject 001."

The abyss **shifted**.

Voices overlapping. Twisting. Creeps into my mind.

*"We’ve been waiting for you."* 

A breath against my ear, ** rancid, rotting. A presence too nearby. ** 

"Subject 001, you will undergo a series of tests to measure your pain threshold and mental stability."

"Failure is not an option."

A gasp—mine? Someone else’s? Someone before me? Someone after?

*"You can never escape, Circe"* 

The name **crashed against my skull**.

Circe. Circe. Circe.

The whisper twisted. louder, sharper, overlapping!

*"You belong to us."* 

Something **gripped my throat. Tight. Unforgiving. A pulse beneath my skin. ** 

The **Blood Moon pulsed again—red, unrelenting. ** 

The voices **fractured**.

The sky **splits apart. ** 

And then— 

Everything shattered. My consciousness faded as a woman's voice echoed in my mind: "Vionelle, remember, remember… Join the light, the organisation..."

"Hark! The air is rent with dying, Bells resound, and fools are crying. Leave thy shelter, cast it wide, Fear not abyss—step inside!"

The world is breaking, warnings sound, yet all remain unaware. Leave this illusion. Enter the unknown without fear.

"Sight is given, light is torn, Ashen mouths in silence mourn. Darkness knows, yet thou dost sleep, Truth unseen in memories deep."

Vision has been granted, but you do not perceive it. Light is gone, yet you do not seek it. Wake up.

"World hath slumbered far too long, Bound by whispers, weak with song. Tear the veil and quake the stone, Rise, forsaken, stand alone!"

The world remains asleep, confined by whispers and comfort. It is necessary to break free and stand independently.

"What thou dream’st is rot and ruin, Falsehood wrapped in sweet undoing. Shatter glass and break the chain, rend the flesh, dissolve the vein!"

This world is decaying—its beauty hides its deterioration. It is essential to dismantle the illusion and break what constrains you. Wake up.

As my consciousness drifted, one thought, one sentence, echoed through my mind….

I want to be a knight. You promised you’d watch me be a knight—after you saved me from that hell at the boundary.

Liar.

Damn it! Why do I always lose the ones I love? Always. Always. ALWAYS.

Bloody, sticky tears slipped from my eyes. My body ached. My chest tightened—too tight. Too much.

Father. Alexander.

You became my father… only to abandon me, right?!

A sharp gasp—then a wheeze—then suddenly—

"Ha... hah... haha... HAH... HAHAHAHA!"

Laughter—violent, choking, raw—ripping out of me like something feral, something that didn’t belong.

Blood spattered from my lips as my body convulsed, my ribs burning, my muscles trembling. My own voice betrayed me—hysterical, broken, twisted.

"You took them from me! YOU TOOK THEM!"

Another ragged, gasping breath. Another sickening burst of laughter.

Why does it always end like this?

Why does it hurt more than rage? More than death?

And why... does it feel so damn funny?

Darkness…...