The Abyss was quiet.
Too quiet.
And Nyxsha, the Abyssal Apex Monster, a Nekomorph, didn't trust quiet.
It was the kind of silence that hid teeth—sharp ones, waiting to snap.
She sprawled beneath the jagged overhang of a collapsed cathedral, her massive feline-lupine form dwarfing the shattered stone.
The Bone Ceiling loomed above, its blood-stained stalactites dripping into a black pool with maddening rhythm.
Drip.
Drip.
…Drip.
Each drop grated on her nerves like a taunt, as if the Abyss itself were mocking her insomnia.
Nyxsha grunted and rolled onto her side, her thick, jagged black fur scraping against the stone.
The ruins around her were a testament to desecration—half-devoured angel statues with hollow eyes, altars split like broken promises, crosses melted into twisted spikes.
This was her den, claimed from the wreckage of a cathedral that had once echoed with prayers.
Now, it echoed only with her restless sighs and the occasional snarl.
"Sleep," she muttered, batting at her scarred, prehensile tail like a kitten chasing a ghost.
"Just sleep, you ugly fur-heap. Close your eyes and stop—"
She bit her lip, fangs grazing her own flesh.
Stop what?
Thinking about the screams?
The blood?
The faces of those she'd—
No. Shut up, brain.
scritch scritch scritch
Her claws scratched absently at the runic scars across her belly—scritch scritch scritch—until a sharp sting made her wince.
No use.
She tried every position.
Curled into a ball, flat on her stomach, propped on one elbow like she was posing for a cursed portrait.
Nothing worked.
Finally, she flipped over, splayed on her back, arms and legs outstretched like a lioness who'd given up on dignity and existence.
"This. Is. STUPID," she growled, her glowing yellow eyes narrowing at the ceiling.
She scratched her inner thigh with a paw, sniffed her tail for the hundredth time—why does it smell like damp cave moss?—and let out a huff.
"Four days. Four days without sleep. I killed a bone-wyrm yesterday. Crunched its skull, licked the marrow, the works. That's supposed to help. So why am I still—"
She raised her voice, as if yelling at the Abyss might bully it into submission. "WHAT DOES A MONSTER NEED TO GET SOME DAMN SLEEP?!"
Then—
WHUMP.
"OOMphh—?!"
The air whooshed out of her lungs as something—or someone—crashed onto her stomach with the grace of a drunken meteor.
Pain and indignation exploded through her, her fur puffing out like a spooked cat's.
Her six claws unsheathed in a flash, her tail whipping the air like a scourge.
Her massive jaws parted, revealing fangs that could crush stone.
"What in the rotting gods' unholy scrotum just—?!" she roared, her voice shaking the cathedral's ruins.
She froze, her glowing eyes locking onto the pale, bloodied figure curled on her belly.
A man—no, not quite.
Too fragile, too soft.
His white hair, streaked with gold, was matted with blood.
His torn tunic barely clung to his slender frame, and two ragged stumps on his back oozed golden-red ichor.
He looked like a bird that had plummeted through every jagged branch of the Abyss and somehow survived.
For a moment, Nyxsha forgot how to breathe.
Her hackles lowered, her snarl fading into a low, confused rumble.
What is this thing?
Her nose twitched, catching his scent—warm, like sunlight on grass, mixed with blood and sorrow.
It was wrong. He was wrong.
Nothing this delicate belonged in the Abyss.
Her tail flicked, brushing against his leg.
She bared her fangs, ready to fling him off—then stopped.
His chest rose and fell faintly.
He was alive.
Barely.