Sylas lay curled upon the frigid stone of his prison cell, where a slender crack in the wall permitted only the faintest sliver of light—a cruel tease that illuminated nothing but despair.
The soft hum of rain dripped from the damp walls, a melancholic lullaby echoing in the void.
He stirred, his gaze drawn to the crack, where the serene moon hung like a distant, indifferent witness.
He raised his right arm, but it no longer felt his own—a limb cloaked in pitch black, etched with sigils that pulsed with an eerie golden light, as if fate itself had branded him.
He attempted to speak, yet his voice betrayed him, trapped in a throat that felt alien, severed from the whispers of his mind.
The steel door creaked open, admitting a knight whose face was a mask of stoic indifference. His eyes fell upon Sylas like stones into an abyss.
"Follow me," the knight intoned, his voice devoid of warmth, a hollow command echoing in the chill.
Sylas obeyed without question, his spirit weary, shattered beyond the will to resist.
The knight led, and Sylas trailed, through halls that stretched like endless veins of stone and moss, veins pulsing with forgotten suffering.
They passed cells teeming with the damned—the mad, the fractured souls clawing at the bars of their existence.
One prisoner lunged, grasping Sylas's ankle with desperate fingers. "Let me out!" he wailed, his voice a raw plea torn from the depths of agony.
The knight halted, pivoted with mechanical precision, and drew his blade. In one fluid, merciless arc, he severed the man's arm.
No blood flowed; only a scream that shattered the air before the man crumpled into unconsciousness.
"We have no time to waste," the knight snapped, his tone a blade sharper than steel. "Keep walking."
Sylas met the knight's gaze, searching for a flicker of humanity, but found none. The knight murmured, "Those eyes..." yet trailed off, turning away as if the sight burned him. They pressed on.
This was a dungeon of the forsaken, where prisoners were arrayed like specimens in a grim laboratory—not humans, but livestock, herded and broken.
They fed on hands and knees, confined in cells too squat for dignity, their humanity stripped away like flesh from bone.
Gazing upon them, Sylas thought: *If this is the fate that awaits me, I would sooner embrace death's cold mercy.*
The knight paused before a door, shoving it open to reveal a moonlit garden where rain pattered upon grass like tears upon a grave.
They traversed toward a towering fortress, its stone-brick walls rising like ancient sentinels, crowned by a flag shrouded in impenetrable darkness.
At the entrance, two guards stood vigil. One swung the door wide, while the other whispered secrets meant for no other ears.
Yet Sylas heard them clearly, as if amplified by some cursed gift: "Kids nowadays—no innocence left in them. That one there slaughtered sixty merc's."
The other replied in hushed tones: "Look at him—so frail, a newborn could best him."
Then, forgetting his whisper, he laughed aloud: "That's a massive stretch!" He clamped a hand over his mouth, eyes wide with folly.
The knight fixed them with a glare. After a heavy pause, he barked, "Work," and strode into the fortress.
Within, they navigated rain-slicked halls, the silence a fragile shroud soon to be torn.
Sylas glimpsed a door ajar, from which emanated a stench that even the relentless rain could not cleanse—a reek of decay and finality.
He peered into the gloom, but what greeted him was not life, only carnage: corpses mangled into indistinguishable heaps of flesh and splintered bone.
The door groaned wider, and from the shadows emerged a boy, his brown hair tousled, one hand clutching bloodied gloves.
His purple eyes locked onto Sylas's, a smirk curling his lips like a venomous promise. "Don't feel bad," he whispered, "because you'll be next."
With that, the boy sealed the door and vanished into the night, leaving the air thick with unspoken doom.
Sylas turned away, his steps heavy with longing for an end—for peace to swallow his torment.
They continued, each footfall muffled by the ceaseless rain, until they arrived at grand wooden doors, guardians of secrets untold.
The knight pushed them open and gestured for Sylas to enter alone.
Sylas stepped into utter darkness—a void imperfect yet absolute, where light and sound had long since perished.
The knight remained outside, closing the doors with a finality that echoed like a tomb's seal.
In the shadows, a whisper uncoiled: "You step into darkness, Sylas. But have you the slightest idea—you were blind far longer than you've perceived?"
Sylas found his voice, raw and laced with fury: "Reveal yourself."
The voice returned, slower now, more deliberate, each word a deliberate wound:
"I bore you to Mercy—ash and blood my cradle."
Sylas stared into the abyss, his gaze sharpening like a blade honed by grief. *why tell me this.*
The voice softened, yet remained as frigid as frost: "I chose. Your life over hers. Death for a life."
Sylas laughed—a low, guttural rumble born of bitterness. "so... What."
The figure leaned closer, its face emerging from the shadows like a specter from nightmare: Ashrosa, revealed in all his calculated cruelty. "oh well, wouldn't the broken child be more useful then the dead mother? ."
Sylas clenched his teeth, rage boiling in powerless veins. "You dare scorn my tragedy?."
Silence swelled, a suffocating tide, as Ashrosa smirked, her eyes gleaming with triumph. "A god didn't create you sylas, no—the calculated absence of one did."
The quiet enveloped him like a shroud, stifling and absolute.
Sylas's breath caught, shallow and ragged, his heart a faint drumbeat in the cavern of his chest.
Then—a whisper.
Not Ashrosa's. Not of this realm.
Something ancient, glacial, slithering like smoke beneath his skin, weaving through his bones.
*"Reclaim your shadowed throne, forsaken heir."*
The word infiltrated his mind, soft yet inexorable, tugging at threads long buried in oblivion.
His vision splintered, shadows contorting into grotesque forms—scales? Wings? No—something primordial, unknowable.
Colors bled at the periphery, dissolving like ink in turbulent waters, smearing reality into chaos.
The room inhaled, pulsed, alive with an unseen malevolence.
Blood wept from his eyes, crimson veils blurring his sight. His hand extended instinctively, grasping at phantoms.
He leaned forward, but balance betrayed him; he tumbled onto the floor.
With a resounding thud, darkness claimed him utterly.