The glow of the monitor burned into her retinas. Green lines of code scrolled endlessly, dancing across the screen like constellations she alone could read. Her fingers flew, the rhythm of her keystrokes faster than her own heartbeat. She was alive here, alive in a way the waking world never gave her permission to be.
Another firewall loomed. She smirked. Pathetic. Her commands threaded into the gaps, weaving through ports no one else had the imagination to notice. Warnings blared, a sterile, robotic monotone telling her to stop, to turn back, to log out. She silenced them with three taps. The system folded open.
Adrenaline curled through her veins. This was the high she craved — not the money, not the secrets, but the proof that nothing could cage her. She whispered under her breath in Portuguese, "Muito fácil. Too easy."
But then the text on the screen shifted. The bank's interface dissolved into static, lines of red scrolling vertically.
> DO YOU THINK YOU'RE SEEN?
She blinked. Typed a command to reroute. The text reappeared, repeating faster.
> YOU ARE A SHADOW.
A NAMELESS GHOST.
NO ONE LOOKS AT YOU.
Her pulse quickened. "No… this isn't real." She began hammering in escape commands, but her screen multiplied — one, then five, then fifty monitors stacked on top of one another, all showing her reflection.
Except in every reflection, the chair was empty.
Her fingers froze. She spun around, expecting her cluttered bedroom, but the walls had melted away. She was sitting in a cavern of monitors that stretched into infinity, each one replaying her keystrokes, her posture, her silence.
"Stop," she whispered, and her voice cracked.
From the monitors, laughter rose. Not human laughter, but mechanical — glitching, distorted, broken into a chorus.
> NO ONE SEES YOU.
YOU ARE INVISIBLE.
YOU ARE NOTHING.
The cables on the floor writhed like snakes, snapping at her ankles. Isabela bolted upright, tearing free, sprinting across the cavern. But no matter how far she ran, the monitors followed — hovering, swarming, flashing her empty chair.
She stumbled and fell. The glass of one monitor shattered as it struck the floor beside her. Shards rained down, and in every shard was her reflection — not coding, not typing, not alive. Just… gone. Absent. Erased.
She clutched her arms, nails digging into her skin. "I'm real. I'm here. I exist!"
The shards began to glow, forming words in burning light.
> PROVE IT.
The ground cracked open beneath her, swallowing the monitors, the cables, the light. She tumbled into a void so black it smothered her breath.
And in that silence, her whisper barely reached her own ears:
"…Does anyone see me?"
The darkness didn't answer.
(Perspective Change)
The chandelier glowed with sterile brilliance, scattering fragments of light across a dining hall that stretched too wide, too long. The mahogany table gleamed under the flicker of candles, plates lined like soldiers in formation.
Aiko sat alone at its center.
Her fork scraped against porcelain, the sound piercing the silence. She lowered her hand and waited, the way she always did. For voices. For footsteps. For her uncles, her aunts, her parents — anyone.
But the chairs remained empty.
The tick of the grandfather clock was the only sound.
Her chest tightened. "This isn't… right," she whispered. Her voice evaporated before it reached the ceiling.
And then the doors opened.
Figures streamed in, faceless silhouettes in immaculate suits and silk gowns. They moved like shadows, smooth and rehearsed, their laughter a hollow echo. They sat, one by one, their eyes never meeting hers, their hands never pausing to shake hers.
She stood, forced her best smile. "Welcome."
No one replied.
She tried again, louder, her voice fraying. "Welcome!"
The guests raised their glasses — not to her, but to each other. Their toasts blurred into a single phrase, cold and rhythmic.
> The Heiress. The Heiress. The Heiress.
Aiko's stomach twisted. She clutched the edge of the table, her nails digging into the wood. "I'm not— I'm not just—"
But the shadows turned to her at once, mouths stretching too wide, words slithering from their lips.
> You are nothing else.
Their faces began to blur, melting into masks of blank porcelain. The eyes were gone. The smiles fixed.
Aiko stumbled back, shaking her head. "No— I'm Aiko. I'm— I'm—"
The guests slammed their glasses on the table in unison. The wine inside was black, thick, seeping over the polished wood like oil. It dripped toward her feet, spreading into the shape of a great, suffocating crown.
She turned to flee, but the hall stretched on endlessly. Each step she took, the walls expanded farther away. The chandelier above grew brighter, searing, until it burned like a sun she couldn't look at.
Her breath came ragged. She collapsed to her knees, the crown of black liquid closing around her.
In the silence, a single whisper threaded through the emptiness:
"You were never Aiko. You were always theirs."
The shadows clapped, faceless, eternal.
And the heiress, drowning in their applause, realized she had never been anything but a role.
(Perspective Change)
The air reeked of smoke and steel. Gotham's alleys twisted into one another, impossible turns feeding back on themselves like a maze. Danielle ran, her boots pounding against cracked pavement, every instinct screaming that the League was close behind.
Shadows flickered at the edges of her vision. Blades sang as they cut the air. She twisted left, then right, knife flashing as she slashed at a phantom—
Only smoke. The figure dissolved.
But the whispers remained.
> Failure. Coward. Traitor.
Her lungs burned. She stumbled into a courtyard boxed in by crumbling brick walls. The only exit was the way she came, but it was blocked now. Dozens of shadows stood there, their blades dripping with red light that pulsed like veins.
Danielle's hand tightened on her knife. "Come on, then."
But the shadows didn't move. They parted.
And from between them stepped a boy. Small, sharp-eyed, clad in green and red. His cape fluttered like a living thing in the stale air.
Her throat closed. "Damian…"
He said nothing at first. His gaze, so much like hers, bored into her with unbearable weight. Finally, his lips parted.
"You abandoned me."
The knife nearly slipped from her hand. "No— I— I had to. I couldn't stay. You know what they would've made me into—"
But his voice cut like a blade, colder than any she had faced.
"You left me to carry it alone."
The shadows around him began to chant, their voices merging into one.
> Coward. Coward. Coward.
Danielle's heart pounded. She dropped the knife, reaching for him, her fingers trembling. "Damian, please. I didn't want this life for you. For either of us. I— I hoped you'd still have—"
But he stepped back, into the shadows, their forms swallowing him whole. His cape vanished last, a single flare of red before the dark sealed shut.
Danielle fell to her knees, the courtyard closing in like a coffin. Her knife lay at her side, useless. She covered her face with her hands, choking on words that wouldn't come.
"I'm sorry."
The shadows leaned closer, whispering in her ear.
> He'll never forgive you.
And when she looked up, the alleyways had collapsed into a single endless hallway, each door she passed leading only to more shadows, more whispers, more of his voice calling her a traitor.
(Perspective Change)
The hum of fluorescent lights was the first thing she noticed.
Not the sound of birds, or a computer fan, or even her own heartbeat—just that sterile, soul-sucking hum that filled the endless gray cubicles around her.
Evangeline blinked. Her hands were already typing. They moved on their own, filling spreadsheets, deleting errors, tabbing, checking, copying.
The clock on the wall read 9:00 AM.
When she next dared to look, it still read 9:00 AM.
Her coworkers were faceless silhouettes in cheap suits. Their hands twitched at keyboards in mechanical rhythm. They didn't speak, didn't breathe—only typed. When she turned her head, she realized their fingers were worn down to bone, the tips scraping across the keys, making faint, wet smacks with every press.
The air was dry. Her throat ached. But when she reached for her water bottle, her arm stretched into infinity, never finding the desk, never finding relief.
"Work," a voice said behind her.
She spun. It was her manager—except his head was a monitor. On the screen was her own face, expression blank, dead-eyed.
"Work, Evangeline," the screen repeated, lips moving in sync with hers. "Work, or you'll never escape."
Her stomach churned. She knew this wasn't real—she'd lived this before. She'd died once already, shackled to this endless cycle. This wasn't just a dream. This was memory wrapped in nightmare.
She slammed her hands against the desk. "This isn't me anymore!"
The faceless coworkers turned toward her in unison, screens flickering where their heads should be. Each one now wore her face, each one typed endlessly, whispering: "You never left. You'll never leave. You're nothing but an office drone."
Her heart pounded. The cubicles stretched outward into eternity. The ceiling bent, cracking open. From the fracture poured not light, but ink-black bile dotted with stars. It dripped down, filling the room, rising around her ankles, her chest, her neck—until she was drowning in the same void she once prayed would swallow her life whole.
But in the dark, she saw a faint glimmer—leaves of gold, a sky of shifting blue, and an amethyst crescent moon reflected in a silver-needle meadow. Her breath caught. Her lungs screamed for air. Then, she broke the surface.
Evangeline gasped, her body trembling as she lay on soft grass unlike any she had known. The silver blades of it glowed faintly, cool and soothing against her palms. Obsidian trees stretched high above her, their golden-flake leaves whispering in an unfelt breeze. The sky shifted and swirled, never steady, caught between dawn and dusk.
She turned her head. Nearby, a black lake dotted with points of white, as if she were staring down into the universe itself. Something moved beneath its surface. Watching. Waiting. Then not one, not two, three other girls phased up from the earth jolting awake one was vigilant, another had an air of solitude, Danielle's voice cut the silence, low and steady. "Traditionally, I'd demand answers. But I assume none of you have any idea where we are?"
Her eyes flicked from one girl to the next, sharp and guarded. She hadn't let go of her posture—weight low, hand near her boot, ready to draw steel if she had to.
Evangeline sat up on the glowing grass, brushing silver needles from her sleeves. "Yeah, no. Don't know where we are. But it's… wrong. Like— cosmic horror wrong." Her hands waved around in jagged circles, pointing at everything at once. "Shifting sky, purple crescent moon, grass made of needles— which, ow, by the way—and then that."
She jabbed her finger toward the black lake nearby, its viscous surface swallowing starlight like a living night sky. The ripples seemed to pulse with a heartbeat that wasn't their own.
The well-dressed girl took a step forward, smoothing down the skirt of her immaculate outfit as though the Grove itself were some filthy inconvenience. Her voice was cool, measured. "My name is Aiko Arisawa. It's a pleasure to meet you all." She gave the faintest bow, though her eyes betrayed nothing but wariness.
The smallest of them—sharp-eyed, with a wiry tension in her stance—spoke next. "Isabela Moreira." Her words were clipped, defensive. She kept her distance, half-shadowed by one of the obsidian trees as though she could disappear if she wanted.
Finally, Danielle straightened, her cloak shifting as she stepped into the half-light. "Danielle al Ghul. Daughter of the League of Assassins." Her tone was blunt, almost challenging, like she dared the others to flinch.
That left Evangeline. She blinked under three pairs of expectant eyes, her cheeks flushing. "Oh, uh—right. I'm Evangeline Moreau. Good to meet ya!" She gave an awkward wave, a little too quick, a little too loud.
The silence after stretched tight, filled only by the faint rustle of golden leaves and the quiet thrum of the Abyss Font. None of them moved. None of them trusted. Then Danielle took the lead walking to the lake the rest then followed one by one.
Reaching the bank the silver grass crunched faintly under their boots as the four settled near the pond of star-black water. No birds. No insects. Just the whisper of golden leaves overhead.
Danielle was the first to speak, arms crossed, her assassin's mask of discipline firmly in place.
"We don't know what this place is. Until we do, no wandering. We stay close, we set watches."
Aiko raised a brow. "You sound like a drill sergeant."
"Better than sounding lost," Danielle shot back.
Isabela gave a thin laugh, tugging at her hoodie strings. "You two can fight over who's in charge. I'm voting we all just don't die."
Evangeline's eyes stayed locked on the pond. "Don't think dying's the problem here."
That night, they slept in shifts, though none of them closed their eyes for long. The sky kept moving—sunrise bleeding into sunset, moon flipping to dawn—never stopping. Every time Evangeline blinked, she swore the shadows of the trees had changed shape.
(2 day Timeskip)
By the fourth day, hunger gnawed even if the Grove refused to let them weaken. Their stomachs hurt, but they didn't collapse. It was cruel in its mercy.
Danielle paced like a caged wolf. "We need to map this place. There has to be an edge."
"We've walked for hours and always returned here," Aiko replied coolly, brushing imaginary dust from her skirt. "Your 'strategies' aren't working."
Danielle's eyes narrowed. "You'd rather sit and wait for death? Figures."
"Better than barking at shadows."
Isabela whistled low. "Hey, don't mind me, just trying to hold this powder keg together."
Her joke landed flat.
Evangeline snapped, slamming her hand against the obsidian bark. "Enough! You all keep acting like this is just some power game. None of us knows where we are, so maybe stop tearing each other apart before this place does it for us!"
The words echoed longer than they should have. For a moment, none of them spoke. The golden leaves above rustled like laughter.
(2 day Timeskip)
The fight broke something open.
On the sixth night, they sat by the pond, their reflections stretched and distorted on its surface. Silence pressed heavy until Isabela muttered, "I've spent most of my life hiding behind screens. Out there I'm invisible. Here… it feels like that nightmare followed me."
Aiko's lips tightened. "At least you had the freedom to choose. I've never been anything but what my family decided I am. If they looked at me, it wasn't me they saw. Only the heiress."
Danielle exhaled, sharp and bitter. "Luxury problems. I left someone behind. Someone who'll never forgive me. And maybe he's right."
All eyes turned to her. Danielle didn't look back.
Evangeline hugged her knees. "At least you still had someone. I was just another cog in the machine until I broke. The only thing that saw me was the void."
The quiet that followed wasn't empty. It was fragile, human. For the first time since waking, the Grove felt less suffocating.
Isabela snorted suddenly. "Well, guess we're all screwed up. Good thing misery loves company."
Danielle actually chuckled. Just once. But it was enough to make the other three laugh too.
(2 day Timeskip)
By the eighth day, the Grove had tired of letting them breathe. Shadows peeled from the trees, shapes half-formed from their nightmares. Aiko's faceless guests, Isabela's endless monitors, Danielle's chanting assassins, Evangeline's dead-eyed coworkers, they stalked into the clearing.
Danielle drew her blades. "Stay close." They obeyed without hesitation. But the battle was chaos, steel clashing with smoke, Isabela swinging a branch like a staff, Aiko throwing porcelain-mask fragments like daggers, Evangeline screaming as she willed light from nowhere to shove the creatures back. For every shadow they cut down, two more crawled from the dark.
At last, they stood together, backs pressed, breath ragged, ready to fall. The shadows surged. And froze. The Grove silenced. The sky stopped shifting. Even the pond of liquid night went still. From its surface, something began to rise.
Not water, not shadow, flesh forming from molten void, her body knitting itself like lava cooling into shape. Arm-like appendages curled from her head, dripping starlight. Her eyes opened, and the weight of eternity fell on them like chains.
Something had come.
Then the black bile shimmered like a mirror, its surface trembling as if it had been waiting all along. From it rose a woman draped in twilight, obsidian and gold, shadow and light woven together. Her crown of night unfurled slowly, like branches stretching toward a forgotten sun. Red shoes kissed the silver grass with each step.
The four girls stared, their breath caught in their throats. It wasn't fear that held them, but a strange, aching familiarity, like seeing someone from a dream you never wanted to wake from. When she spoke, the sound was a hush, softer than the breeze through the golden leaves. It wasn't loud; it was close.
"I've been waiting for you."
Her eyes looked like molten amber in a dark void. She took another step, the grove seeming to draw inward around her.
"Eight days. Eight nights. I watched as you walked through your storms. I wanted you to have the chance to see one another, to hold something real before you found me. To know you weren't alone."
She looked at Danielle first, her voice tender.
"Danielle al Ghul. You've carried guilt heavier than any blade. You thought family meant loss, that closeness meant betrayal. Yet you stayed. You chose to stand with strangers, to trust again. That was your trial, and you passed."
Danielle's lips parted, but no sound came. She only felt a tremor in her chest, like something thawing. Her gaze shifted to Aiko, soft as a lullaby.
"Aiko Arisawa. They called you Heiress, but never Aiko. They gave you a title, but never a name. Here, you laughed. You were seen, not for what you had, but for who you are. That was your trial, and you passed."
Aiko pressed a trembling hand to her heart, her mask slipping. The being turned, golden flakes drifting down from the trees around her.
"Isabela Moreira. Little ghost. You wondered if you were real, if anyone could ever look at you and truly see you. But in the grove, you found eyes that did. You reached back. That was your trial, and you passed."
Isabela's breath shook, tears stinging her eyes before she even realized she was crying. Finally, Yltharae's gaze fell on Evangeline. Her tone was almost a whisper, as if speaking to a child waking from a nightmare.
"Evangeline Moreau. They told you to work, to be a machine, to bury your imagination. But you chose to create again, to build instead of break. That was your trial, and you passed."
She opened her arms, not demanding, but inviting.
"You four are not lost. You are found. You need not leave your bonds behind. The grove will not take them from you. It will keep them safe, as I will keep you safe."
The sky shifted above them, a soft swirl of blue and violet. The crescent moon glowed brighter, casting gentle light over their faces.
"I am not here to take. I am here to give. I am the shelter you sought when the world turned its back. I am the soil where your roots can grow. Stay. Let me protect you. Let me make you whole."
The girls felt their hearts pulling toward her, not with force, but with relief. Their knees bent, but it was not submission; it was the weight of finally setting something down. In the quiet, their voices broke as one, almost too soft to hear:
"Our goddess."
The girls knelt in the silver grass, the obsidian trees whispering overhead as though the entire grove held its breath. The being lowered her arms, her voice softer now, like the first words of a prayer.
She stepped before Evangeline, brushing her cheek with fingers that shimmered with gold.
"Evangeline. You are my dawn. Your heart will be my lamp, your hope my lantern. I give you Light, so that even when the night swallows the world, you will always shine."
Warmth like sunrise spilled through Evangeline's chest, her eyes glowing faintly with a gentle radiance. Yltharae turned to Danielle, her shadow falling heavy as she cupped the girl's chin.
"Danielle al Ghul. You are my dusk. In your sorrow there is strength, in your silence, truth. I give you Darkness, not to blind, but to shield. You will be my blade of night, sharp and unbroken."
Danielle felt the shadow settle in her bones, wrapping her like armor, a comfort she had never known. Next came Isabela, trembling as Yltharae knelt to meet her eye level. Her hands pressed gently against Isabela's chest.
"Isabela Moreira. You are my horizon. Between worlds, between truths—you are the silence between stars. I give you Space, so no place will ever bind you, no boundary will ever hold you."
The air bent around Isabela, her form shimmering for a heartbeat as though she stood in two places at once. Finally, Yltharae reached Aiko. She took the girl's hand and kissed her forehead like a mother blessing a child.
"Aiko Arisawa. You are my heartbeat. The pulse of yesterday, the whisper of tomorrow. I give you Time, so that no hour will chain you, and no end will claim you."
Aiko's breath caught as the crescent moon above flickered, then steadied—as if the night itself had bowed to her. When she rose, The being spread her arms again, obsidian branches swaying, Voidspawn gathering at the edges of the grove in silent reverence.
> "Together, you are mine. My light, my dark, my horizon, my heartbeat. Go forward as daughters of the Grove, bound not by chains, but by eternity."
The four girls whispered as one, voices trembling with awe and devotion:
"We are yours."
Then as soft as the spring breeze the being spoke one last time.
"One last thing my children, my name is Yltharae."
——
A/N:
I know it took a bit longer but you get 3.7k words so bite me, and also thanks for the support ^^