Rey crashed into the earth.
The impact knocked every thought out of his skull. His body tumbled across jagged, cracked stone. Dust filled his throat. His palms scraped raw. The pain was sharp, real, alive. For a second, that pain was the only thing that told him he still existed.
Then came the silence.
No wind.
No birds.
No screams.
Just an unnatural stillness that clung to everything like ash.
Rey lay still, breathing heavily. His shirt was torn, one arm cut and bruised, blood drying fast. The red sky above didn't move. It just... hung there, a sunless void pulsing like an open wound.
He forced himself to sit up.
Mountains rose in the distance—crimson peaks sharp as blades. The land was dead and dry. Charred skeletons of trees reached skyward like fingers begging for mercy. Rivers of black liquid crawled across the terrain, too thick to be water.
It was another world.
A wrong world.
The Abyss.
---
Rey's thoughts raced.
Where am I?
Where's Mira?
What the hell were those things?
But more importantly—why was he still alive?
The demon that dragged him here… it could've killed him. It should've. He remembered the way it looked at him. Not with hunger, not with cruelty—but with purpose.
Like he was meant to be brought here.
The memory sent a tremor through him. He shook it off and stood, wincing. He needed shelter. Food. Water. But this land didn't offer any of those things. There was no grass, no clouds, no sound of life.
Only death.
---
He wandered.
Hours passed—or maybe days. The red glow above never shifted. He had no way to tell time. His mouth was dry. Stomach hollow. Every step echoed. Once, he thought he saw movement—a distant figure on the horizon. But it vanished like smoke when he called out.
Then he heard whispers.
Soft. Slithering. Dozens of voices inside his head.
> "He bleeds like them..."
"But he walks alone."
"Too early... not yet awakened."
"Tear him open. See what sleeps inside."
Rey fell to his knees, clutching his skull.
He screamed.
The voices faded, leaving a headache sharp enough to blind him. He looked up.
A temple stood ahead.
Or what remained of one.
Its walls were broken, its pillars half-swallowed by the ground. Giant statues of unfamiliar gods—some human, some monstrous—lined the shattered pathway. One statue was weeping blood. Another had no face.
Rey approached. Something pulled him.
Not a force, not a hand. Just instinct. The same instinct that had told him not to die. Not yet.
Inside the ruin, a single altar remained. On it lay a slab of black stone, cracked but humming with faint energy. Strange markings spiraled around it—glyphs no human tongue could speak.
Rey stepped closer.
The moment his fingers touched the altar—
The pain returned.
But this time, it wasn't in his head.
It was everywhere.
Like fire pouring through his veins. Like his bones were being rewritten. He collapsed, convulsing, eyes rolling back.
Visions flashed:
A sea of red.
Chains in the sky.
A throne made of screaming skulls.
A name—unspoken, ancient, bound in silence.
Then—
Darkness.
---
When he awoke, the pain was gone.
But something had changed.
His wounds had closed. His body felt... stronger. Lighter. Like something inside had awoken and was waiting. Not a power. Not a blessing.
A curse.
And for the first time since entering the Abyss…
He smiled.
Not out of joy.
But because he realized—he wasn't completely helpless anymore.
---