The darkness was thick enough to swallow gods.
It pressed down like the silence after a scream. Stale air curled around ancient stone pillars long forgotten by time, their runes worn smooth by centuries of damp and prayerless nights. The ground beneath her was uneven, cracked with the remnants of a sacrificial circle—its center blackened by something that once burned and never stopped. The chill in the air wasn't natural; it was the breath of something sealed deep below, still dreaming. Echoes didn't bounce here. They died. Cold, unmoving, eternal. The kind of darkness where dreams forgot themselves and even memories curled inward to hide.
It reminded her of the room where they first changed her—too small, too loud, too bright. She had clawed her way out of that light into this abyss. And still, the ache remained.
