slither~~~ slither
hissss…
Shadows, cold and alive, crawled across the shattered temple like a hunting tide. They clung to ruined columns and shattered plinths, sliding low across the dust-choked floor as if tasting the air. The ruins were still—eerily so—save for that reptilian movement threading through the darkness with the patience of an apex predator.
The thing that stalked him had hunted kings.
It had slain demigods.
But never had it seen prey this large.
Her silhouette slowly uncoiled from the dark, a serpentine form wrapping sinuously between fallen marble bodies—statues of warriors frozen mid-charge, now cracked relics of an age long forgotten. She moved through them as though weaving between corpses on a battlefield. careful, silent and merciless.
she felt him.
The one who knelt.
A presence so vast it pressed at her senses like a stormfront. But where others trembled before such immensity, she felt only hatred.
Hatred for all who dared look upon her.
Hatred for all who had come to claim her head.
She had slain them all. She would slay this one too.
But Atrius did not even notice her.
He knelt upon the desecrated stone, expression frozen in exquisite agony, oblivious to the shift in realm, oblivious to the temple's choking fumes and shattered murals. His mind was elsewhere—locked in a realm where no body could tread.
What is the ego?
A simple question, once.
A consciousness aware of itself.
A memory, a name, a life.
These were the pillars of identity.
But what happens when that ego is force-fed the memories of millions?
Experiences from a thousand cultures, a thousand worlds, a million deaths, loves, betrayals, hungers, horrors—crammed into a single mind without order or mercy?
It becomes madness.
A riot of contradicting wills.
A storm of alien desires.
A blizzard of incompatible moralities crashing into one another until the bearer becomes nothing.
This was the curse gifted by the Chaos Gods.
"The suffering of a million worlds,"
And now those "worlds" screamed within him.
Atrius---an anomaly, both potent psyker and a null to the Warp's corrupting touch—should have stood beyond such manipulation. A void cannot be twisted… unless the power is strong enough to break the laws surrounding it.
And Tzeentch always finds a way.
Atrius had feared his gift.
He had denied it.
Denied training, denied its mastery and denied understanding it—for ten long millennia he had fled from what he believed would make him unworthy in the Emperor's sight. A defect among his brothers as one of the ten thousand.
that fear was an opening.
A weakness a god of paradoxes could exploit.
The result was agony.
Agony beyond flesh.
Agony woven into the soul.
Suddenly, Atrius's body convulsed.
The entire temple trembled with him, dust rising like storm clouds as the frozen statues split and burst apart under the psychic shockwave. The air cracked. The torches screamed as their flames doubled and warped.
And the giant rose.
His body was limp, dangling like a corpse pulled by invisible strings, head bowed, arms slack, breath shallow. His feet did not touch the stone. He drifted upward with a violent jolt as if seized by something unseen and terrible.
The creature froze.
High atop a pillar, she held her breath—forked tongue tasting the air, slit pupils narrowing. She watched the giant levitate, watched the ground fracture beneath him and dust whirl in a spiraling halo.
Her tail coiled protectively around the stone.
But then curiosity, predatory and venomous, returned.
She slithered down the pillar—fast, smooth and graceful.
The torchlight revealed her fully at last:
A woman's torso, pale and beautiful yet cursed, fused seamlessly into the long, massive body of a serpent. Her scales shimmered in shades of dark emerald and burnished gold, each one catching fire-light like a blade's edge. Her arms were slender but strong; her claws, black as obsidian, clicked softly as she descended.
Her hair writhed.
Not strands but snakes. Venomous and hissing, each reptile gazing in a different direction with cruel, cold intelligence.
A gorgon.
The curse of Athena's wrath bound into flesh.
Any man who looked upon her true visage would become stone.
Their breath would seize.
Their blood would freeze.
Their flesh would calcify into dust.
this giant… this titan… still lived. not for long.
His limpness emboldened her.
cautiously, she drew near.
She circled him slowly, her coils creating a massive spiral on the temple floor. Her head rose, body lifting her until she hovered at his chest height. Torchlight exposed the red glimmer beneath his half-closed eyelids—eyes that flickered gold, purple, red, each hue fighting for dominance without consciousness behind them.
He was asleep, and yet not.
Present, yet infinitely distant.
Her lip curled.
She reached out with a clawed hand, tilted his chin upward, raising herself higher until she loomed above him. She pried one lid open with delicate precision.
'What is your affliction?' she thought.
Atrius' expression was soft.
A faint smile—ecstatic, blissful—touched the corners of his lips, as though submerged in a dream of maddening delight. He looked… pleased.
Disgust twisted her features. Her face elongated, jaw splitting unnaturally wide. Scales rippled across her cheeks as venom coated her fangs. The snakes in her hair bared their own fangs, hissing in unison.
Her eyes burned bright.
"HISSSSSS—"
The cursed gaze was unleashed.
Silence followed.
contrary to her expectations, nothing happened.
Atrius did not even budge.
his body did not begin to petrify.
Instead, the smile on his face deepened slightly—dreamlike and blissful—red eyes half-open yet utterly empty.
the gorgon tilted her head in confusion as her frown tightened.
She hissed again— this time, louder and angrier.
"HISSSSSS—!"
a moment passed.
Still nothing happened.
Only the ever-flickering glowing set of eyes stared back, there was no light to them.
It was almost as if he was a husk.
A shell.
A body whose mind was drowning in a maze of consciousness.
he was not here at all.
This confused her greatly,
Her confusion curdled into rage.
She inhaled sharply, serpentine torso expanding, then struck with the full force of her curse—eyes blazing, jaws wide, venom dripping onto the stone.
"HISSSSSSSSS—!"
crack.
A sound like breaking bone echoed sharply.
She froze.
The sound came again.
crack… crack…
Slowly she slithered around his form, searching for the source.
And then she saw it.
One of Atrius's massive gauntleted hands—
turning grey.
Granular.
Petrifying.
Stone crawled across the armor plates, creeping up toward his elbow like frost on steel.
It worked.
Just not the way she expected.
Her pupils narrowed to slits.
The curse had taken hold… yet only partially.
Only on flesh weakened—or distorted—by the internal torment wracking him.
A smile crept onto her lips, fanged and triumphant.
This prey could be slain after all.
And she slithered closer, ready to claim the kill.