Silence.
Total silence.
Not the silence of rest—
but the silence of nothingness.
Kael no longer breathed.
Or rather… he could not tell if he still did.
The air hung heavy, saturated with ash and shadow,
thick enough to feel like a weight on the lungs.
Even his heart seemed afraid to beat.
Everything was suspended—
paused—
waiting.
And yet…
she was there.
Not before him.
Not behind him.
Not above.
Everywhere.
A presence so vast it erased the notion of distance.
Space bent around her.
The ruins bowed, warped beneath her unseen mass.
The air vibrated—dense, viscous, almost liquid.
Kael felt it in his bones,
in his teeth,
deep inside his skull—
a pressure that crushed thought itself.
Each breath tore at his throat.
And still, he could not look away.
Something held him.
Then—
he saw her.
Or believed he did.
A shape without stability.
An outline that refused to exist twice in the same way.
Each attempt to grasp her form birthed another—
layer upon layer,
angles that should not meet,
curves that led nowhere,
a geometry sickened by its own existence.
And at the center of that impossible chaos—
A gaze.
Or the idea of one.
Something unseen slowly turning toward him.
Kael's stomach folded inward.
His legs quivered.
His hand—the one gripping the screwdriver—trembled too.
Not from fear.
From force.
From mass.
From will.
He tried to speak.
No sound emerged.
Even his voice was crushed beneath her presence.
Then—
A moan.
Weak.
Ragged.
Behind him.
Kael turned—slowly.
A monster, torn nearly in half, crawled through the dust.
Its fingers scraped the ground with wet, meaty sounds.
Still alive.
Or close enough to mock the concept.
The creature—the other—tilted her head.
Her attention slid from the dying thing to Kael,
then back again.
And then—
she stepped aside.
One step.
Slow.
Measured.
Almost… graceful.
An offering.
An invitation.
Kael froze.
His heart detonated inside his chest.
The sound of his breathing felt obscene—
too loud,
too human.
It's… for me?
The thought struck with brutal clarity.
Yes.
For him.
A gift.
Or a test.
His fingers tightened around the screwdriver.
The metal hummed faintly between his damp palms.
I can do this.
I have to.
This time… it'll be me.
He stepped forward.
One step.
Then another.
His breath shook.
So did his legs.
The prey lay there—
weak, broken, barely moving.
One strike would be enough.
He raised his arm—
And then—
A sound.
Sharp.
Clean.
The screwdriver tore itself from his grasp.
No contact.
No force he could see.
It flew through the dust, clattered—
and embedded itself upright several meters away.
Kael flinched.
The emptiness between his fingers made him nauseous.
He looked up—
—and she was there.
Between him and the prey.
He stumbled back.
Once.
Twice.
His lungs refused the air.
Panic surged through him like fire through veins.
"No… no… why…?"
No answer.
Only silence.
Not empty silence—
but silence too full.
Dense.
Pressing.
Alive.
The silence of a predator listening to its toy breathe.
Another groan echoed—farther away now.
Another half-living body.
Kael saw it.
He lunged.
CLACK.
A vibration in the air.
A whisper of displacement.
She was there again.
Ahead of him.
Always ahead.
His heart skipped.
Impossible.
She was reading him.
No—she was before him.
Every intention anticipated.
Every movement erased before birth.
He felt her inside his head,
cold fingers tracing the edges of his thoughts.
"Why?!" he shouted.
She did not move.
Not a tremor.
Not a shift.
She simply contained his gaze.
Something tightened inside Kael.
It wasn't fear.
It was older.
The primal certainty that he was not an opponent—
not even an enemy.
Only prey.
Tolerated.
He spotted another target—
farther away.
He ran.
CLACK.
Stopped.
Again.
Effortless.
Soundless.
Absolute.
Kael broke.
His nerves snapped like overstretched wire.
"LET ME! JUST ONCE!"
His voice tore through the void, hoarse, shredded.
"ONCE! I'M BEGGING YOU!"
He slammed his fists into the ground—
again—
and again.
Skin split.
Blood sprayed across the dust.
"Is that what you want?! Huh?! You want me to crawl?! To worship you?!"
Nothing.
Not even an echo.
Even sound itself seemed afraid of her.
Kael collapsed to his knees.
Breath ragged.
Shoulders shaking.
Sweat.
Dust.
Tears.
"Kill me…" he whispered.
An offering.
A surrender.
"Kill me, goddammit…"
She did not move.
But the silence thickened—
an invisible hand pressing him down into the dirt.
Kael lowered his eyes.
His shadow trembled.
And then—
another shadow slid into it.
His.
And hers.
A black, liquid mass stretched outward.
The two shadows touched.
Merged.
Cold flooded his skin.
And in that mute communion, he understood.
She did not want to kill him.
Not yet.
She wanted him to know.
To understand his place.
That of a mouse—
beneath the paw of a god.
Kael did not dare breathe.
And the universe itself seemed to hold its breath with him—
while that fucking loading bar
kept crawling forward,
slow, merciless, inevitable.
[91 %…]