Black.
Not darkness.
Darkness is gentle. Darkness is a blanket for sleeping children and tired gods.
This was something else.
This black was older than time, older than thought, older than the idea of memory.
It was the color of absence—of everything ever erased.
And inside it… I drifted.
Or floated.
Or dissolved.
Hard to tell. Everything had become everything else.
My soul flickered like a candle that forgot it was supposed to die.
Who was I?
Silence.
A long, ancient silence.
Then a name crawled out of some dusty corner of my mind like a wounded animal:
Aren.
Right. That was me. Probably.
Names feel strange after centuries. Like wearing boots that once belonged to someone you might've murdered.
And I… have murdered a lot of people. I think. Maybe. My memories are broken glass—everywhere and cutting me constantly.
The curse stirred.
A familiar burn swept through me—hot and cold together, divine and merciless.
This wasn't fire.
Fire is honest.
Fire is loyal.
Fire kills everything equally.
This was smarter. Crueler.
A god's idea of "justice."
Serath. God of Order. God of Perfect Morality. God of "I'll lecture you about fairness for hours while killing you for eternity."
His voice echoed in my skull—sharp, too clear, like it had just been spoken:
"Even if all creation crumbles… you will not. You will burn. Forever."
A normal man might've wept.
I laughed.
A hoarse, cracked sound that echoed through endless black.
"Forever…" I murmured. "Gods always underestimate how long that actually is."
The fire swallowed me again.
I didn't scream.
Screaming was boring by now.
Overused.
After five hundred years, even agony becomes routine. Predictable.
Weirdly comforting.
Pain became companion.
Madness became hobby.
Time became joke.
And silence… silence became holy.
So I floated in that sacred quiet, letting eternal fire chew on me like a dog gnawing an old bone.
Then—
The void twitched.
A faint vibration rippled through the darkness, soft as a breath.
I stilled.
The curse paused—actually hesitated, as if startled. That had never happened.
A warm ripple moved across the black.
Warm.
Warm?
My mind stopped functioning for a full second.
"No," I whispered. "No, that's illegal. Warmth isn't allowed here."
Another ripple.
Closer.
Then—
CRACK.
The void split like thin glass.
A fracture of sunlight tore through eternity.
Pure gold.
Soft white.
Color—after five hundred years of nothing.
My soul recoiled instinctively.
Sunlight.
I had forgotten sunlight existed.
A memory punched through me:
bright morning
wind slapping my face
someone yelling, "AREN YOU IDIOT GET DOWN FROM THERE"
me yelling back, "NO I JUST DISCOVERED I'M NOT AFRAID OF HEIGHTS"
immediately slipping
falling
laughing the whole way down
Good times.
The crack widened, spilling warm light into the void.
It brushed against me.
A fingertip of gold.
My entire existence shuddered.
"Oh…" I breathed. "It's… warm."
Words I thought I'd never say again.
I reached out.
My arm flickered in and out of reality, but I reached anyway.
Hope made me tremble more than pain ever did.
Hope is terrifying.
Hope is the cruelest thing in all existence.
Then something shifted.
The warmth moved.
Not toward the crack—
Toward me.
Like something ancient waking up.
Like something newborn learning how to breathe.
It touched my soul.
Not burning. Not killing.
Just touching.
"…No," I whispered. "No way. Don't tell me—"
The warmth pulsed.
A voice followed—soft, trembling, young:
"…You… can hear me… right?"
Every thought in my head hit the brakes hard enough to give me psychic whiplash.
I blinked slowly.
"…The fire," I whispered. "The fire that burned me for five centuries… is talking?"
The warmth recoiled slightly, almost shy.
"I… didn't know how to speak then," she whispered.
Her voice soft, unsure.
"Back then… I only knew how to burn. To obey. To exist."
A memory drifted through me:
me holding a sword
a man kneeling
blood everywhere
me saying, "You shouldn't steal my lunch without asking."
the man screaming
someone vomiting in the corner
I blinked the memory away.
Normal.
The warmth fluttered nervously.
"You're talking now," I said softly.
"How cute. Am I hallucinating? Did my sanity fall off a cliff?"
Silence.
Then—
"You're… not afraid of me?" she asked.
I laughed.
A real laugh.
Deep. Sharp. Unhinged.
"Afraid? Sweetheart, after being roasted alive by you for centuries, I'm emotionally fireproof."
Her warmth dimmed, trembling.
"…I'm sorry."
I froze.
"…Sorry?" I repeated. "You're apologizing to the man you turned into soul soup for five hundred years?"
"I didn't understand anything," she whispered.
"I was born as power. Not thought. Not feeling. Not self."
Her voice cracked.
"I didn't know you were alive inside me."
She hesitated, then:
"Now… I can feel you. Think. Choose. It's all new."
Her warmth wrapped around me—careful, gentle, almost afraid I'd shatter.
"I can feel you, Aren."
I closed my eyes.
Warmth washed through me like a forgotten memory:
sunrise, wind, forests, a heartbeat that wasn't pain.
I exhaled.
Not from exhaustion—
But relief.
"…I hear you," I murmured.
I leaned into her warmth, letting it fill the fractures inside me.
"And I'm listening."
She brightened slightly—like a shy embrace.
"Aren," she whispered, "can I… stay with you?"
My smile twisted—soft, cracked, a little dangerous.
"Oh? After five centuries of torture, now you want to cuddle?"
She flinched.
"I never wanted to hurt you…"
"Relax," I said quietly.
"If I wanted revenge, I'd be screaming already."
A memory stabbed in again:
me chasing a thief
the thief yelling, "WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?"
me yelling, "BECAUSE IT'S FUNNY"
crowds fleeing
Ah. Youth.
"…Are you angry?" she asked quietly.
I tilted my head.
"Angry? Hm."
I checked inside myself.
No rage.
No hatred.
Just exhaustion, madness… and a strangely warm emptiness.
"…No," I said. "Not angry. Maybe later. Rage is tiring."
She relaxed slightly.
"Then what are you?"
I smiled.
"…Curious."
"Curious about you."
Her warmth fluttered in delight.
"Do you… want to leave this place?" she asked.
Everything inside me stopped.
Leave?
Leave this void?
Leave the endless torture?
The crack of sunlight widened—waiting.
I stared at it.
At freedom.
Then at her.
"…Can you do that?" I whispered.
"I don't know," she admitted softly.
"But… I want to try. With you."
A soft, broken laugh escaped me.
"Then try," I whispered.
"Let's set eternity on fire."
She glowed brighter and wrapped around me fully—lifting me, holding me.
"Aren…" she whispered.
"Yes?"
"…Don't let go."
I smiled—gently, beautifully insane.
"I won't," I said.
"Not until the universe burns before I do."
The void trembled.
The crack exploded with light.
And for the first time in five hundred years—
I stepped toward the sun.
Silence.
The same silence I had worshipped, hated, and clung to for five centuries.
Only now… it felt wrong.
Too still.
Too sharp.
Like the world was holding its breath for something it didn't understand.
Beside me, the fire's warmth trembled.
Not in fear.
In… anticipation.
"Aren," she whispered, her voice small but bright, "are you ready?"
Ready?
I almost laughed.
"No," I said. "But I'm bored. That's close enough."
Her warmth rippled, anxious.
"You don't have to be afraid."
"I'm not," I said lightly. "I just enjoy sounding dramatic. It makes immortality feel theatrical."
She didn't get the joke.
But she tried.
Her warmth shifted, searching for meaning she didn't yet know how to hold.
She pressed closer, gently wrapping around the cracked shape of my existence.
She was different now—
not a blaze, not torment, not the curse forged to unmake me—
But a presence.
Alive.
Awake.
Choosing.
And she had chosen to disobey a god.
"Show me," I murmured. "How do we leave?"
Her glow dimmed, almost shy.
"We already have," she whispered.
I blinked.
"...What?"
"The moment you reached for me… the curse broke."
I stared blankly into the black.
"...That's it? Five hundred years of divine torture and it ends because I touched you?"
She dimmed further, embarrassed.
"I didn't know I could break it either. Serath created me to burn. Not to feel. Not to choose."
Her warmth brightened—timid, but proud.
"But when you touched me… I chose you."
My mind went blank.
Then I smiled—slow, crooked, beautifully unhinged.
"Oh," I whispered. "So the god of order forgot to install safety measures in his divine weapon."
Her warmth pulsed with something like agreement.
I finally understood what was wrong around us.
The void was ending.
Not cracking.
Not screaming.
Not collapsing in dramatic cosmic fashion.
Just… folding inward.
Like a dying thought withdrawing into silence.
"Fire," I murmured, "did you… unmake the curse?"
A chill slipped through me.
"And Serath?" I asked softly.
Her warmth wrapped protectively around me.
"He won't notice yet."
"Why not?"
She hesitated. Her voice softened.
"Because he isn't looking at you anymore."
I froze.
It's really unacceptable if your favourite enemy forget about you.
How... How could he do this.
"...What do you mean?"
"He thinks you're gone. Erased. Faded out long ago. Your presence dimmed so slowly he didn't realize you stabilized."
I frowned.
"Stabilized?"
"You adapted," she whispered. "Your soul learned to survive divine flame. It stopped breaking. That confused the curse. It weakened. And when it weakened… I woke up."
A long silence followed.
Then I exhaled a small laugh.
"So I bored the curse to death."
She brightened like a delighted ember.
"You're adorable," I added, dead serious.
She dimmed shyly.
"Thank you."
Then she wrapped around me fully—
gentle,
careful,
as if holding shattered glass that still remembered how to cut.
"Hold on to me," she whispered. "I'll take you out."
I reached toward her warmth.
She pressed into my hand—
Not fire.
Not pain.
Something new.
Something mine.
"Aren… don't let go," she pleaded.
"I won't," I said.
Then paused.
A memory surfaced, sharp and idiotic:
me on a rooftop
someone screaming, "AREN GET DOWN"
me shouting, "WATCH THIS, I'M AIMING FOR THE BARREL"
I miss
I regret nothing
I snorted.
"I should warn you," I said. "Impulse is my entire personality."
Her warmth flickered with amusement.
"I know," she whispered. "I learned it from you."
We smiled—
me, a half-dissolved soul stitched together by madness,
and her, a newborn divine flame learning how to be alive.
"Alright," I murmured. "Let's leave hell."
And then—
The void simply stopped existing.
No roar.
No collapse.
No divine tantrum.
One instant it was there.
The next—
nothing.
We fell upward, carried by her warmth through a space that wasn't a space anymore.
Light bled in.
Color seeped back.
Reality rebuilt itself with an embarrassed shuffle, as if realizing it had misplaced us for half a millennium.
And then—
Air.
Real air.
Wind brushed past me like a forgotten lover.
My soul clawed itself back into shape—
awkward, painful, imperfect.
I gasped.
My first breath in five hundred years.
I laughed.
Quiet. Broken. Wild.
"…We're out."
Her warmth curled against my chest.
"Yes," she whispered.
Then, softer—
"Welcome back, Aren."
I opened my eyes.
The world waited.
And I—
the thing Serath forgot to bury—
stepped into it.
---
Author Note:
Hey guys, The Cursed One here. This is the first chapter of Aren's story—how was it?
I honestly have no idea how well I wrote it. I'm still new to all this, you know, so your comments and feedback would really help me improve.
Thanks for reading, and I'll see you in the next chapter!
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