[Location: The Throne Conclave, outside of all time]
Time wept here. Reality stuttered like a dying heartbeat trying to remember how it once felt alive.
This was not a room. This was a concept:
A divine courtroom carved from regret, rules, and recycled fate. A throne hall where even light had to kneel.
Seven pillars rose like obsidian monoliths, each suspended in the void.
They weren't built—they existed.
Forged from the bones of dying stars, draped in silence, orbiting a pulsing black sun that cast no warmth. Upon them sat the Seven.
The 7 thrones of sins.
Pride's throne was a polished void, reflecting nothing. A shape sat there, cloaked in pure existence, shifting with unreadable grace. Where it looked, truths unravelled.
Greed perched upon a mountain of skulls that whispered in dead tongues. Rings of memories floated around him like chained halos.
Wrath's throne bled fire. Not metaphorically. It bled. Flame oozed down like lava sobbing from a wound.
Envy's throne mirrored the others—identically. You couldn't tell if Envy was even there or if you were just seeing your own shame staring back.
Lust's throne pulsed, alive, like a heart that beat to the rhythm of every forbidden urge. Every time it moved, the space around it forgot itself.
Gluttony rested upon a throne that devoured the floor beneath it—endlessly chewing through creation like it was stale bread.
Sloth's seat? It hovered halfway out of sync with reality, flickering between dimensions like a dream no one could finish.
And in the centre, on nothing—no pillar, no pedestal—stood Nochtyr, the Vaer'krul Lord.
Alone. Unarmed. Not kneeling.
A man carved from shadows and ash. His robes bore the stains of a thousand mercy killings. His eyes—too old for pity, too kind for this court.
He did not shake. He did not beg. But he looked tired.
A voice like collapsing universes cracked from the centre pillar.
"Nochtyr. Eighth Monarch of the Throne's. Lord of Vaer'kruls. Accused of heresy."
"You speak of love."
"Explain."
Nochtyr tilted his head, exhaling slowly. His breath glitched in the air—pixels of frost disobeying physics.
"They dream," he said.
His voice was soft. Not afraid. Just sad.
"The humans. They dream, even when they die. Even when you erase them. Again. And again. And again."
"Reset 12, they learned forgiveness."
"Reset 49, they bled for each other without reason."
"Reset 92… they built a song that made even me feel hope."
"They grow. They change. They hope."
Greed's voice oozed through the void like oil on glass. "They hoard pain. They forget nothing. They poison progress."
"They are mirrors," whispered Envy, "and I hate what they reflect."
"They fear us," Lust said with a purr. "And that is beautiful."
"They climb too far," Wrath barked. "So we burn the ladder."
"They always rot," Gluttony moaned. "Let me eat this cycle."
"They are tiring," Sloth yawned. "Let them sleep again."
But Pride… Pride said nothing. Just watched. Eyes like collapsing galaxies.
Nochtyr raised his chin, eyes gleaming with something ancient and outlawed.
"You are gods who've never bled."
"I walked among them. I broke bread with them. I wept with them."
"They deserve more than your boredom."
And then came the twist of the blade. A figure stepped out from behind The Empty Throne. A throne present along with the other seven thrones.
Nochtyr blinked once. His eyes narrowed.
It was him.
His second-in-command. His brother-in-arms.
His friend.
His voice was like a dagger dipped in guilt:
"Nochtyr harboured forbidden data. Let echoes of the human soul enter divine code. He let a child touch godhood."
"He has been compromised."
"He has… felt."
Nochtyr didn't deny it. He just… looked at him.
Like someone trying to remember the last moment they trusted someone and wondering if it was all a lie.
"That's why you're dangerous," the traitor whispered.
Pride finally spoke.
One word.
"Judgment."
The moment Pride spoke it, the concept of sound fractured. No thunder. No light. Just… silence.
A silence so deep it crushed thought, memory, identity.
From above—where even imagination dared not look—the chains came.
Not forged. Not summoned. They were remembered into existence.
Each link shimmered with names long forgotten.
Lost languages. Erased lovers. Dead gods.
Every soul that had ever been deleted to make room for divine convenience.
They wrapped around Nochtyr's limbs—not with force, but indifference.
He didn't resist.
Because he knew.
Resistance wasn't part of the story.
"You never wanted justice," Nochtyr whispered, voice almost tender. "You wanted silence that wouldn't speak back."
Reality around him began to peel like old paint.
The Throne Conclave blurred.
The stars blinked—then shut their eyes entirely.
And as Nochtyr was pulled downward—no, inward—into a spiral of unbeing…
His scream started.
But you wouldn't hear it. No one would.
Because the scream glitched.
It stuttered. Shattered. Froze mid-howl and pixelated into static.
Even sound, it seemed, wasn't allowed to remember him.
He fell through black so dense it warped logic.
Time here wasn't broken—it simply refused to exist.
His body dissolved. His form faded.
But his 'will' remained.
That was the problem.
And so, with the rebel cast down, the gods were free once more.
The Throne conclave went quiet, save for the rustling of wings made from galaxies and guilt. The decision was unanimous. The rhythm of it all… familiar.
It was time.
Again.
Across the realms, the command echoed—not in words, but in will.
The reset would begin.
The Celestials gathered atop the vaults of Swarga, their sacred palace forged from cosmic bones and broken promises.
They stood upon constellations like architects reviewing blueprints. Their eyes weren't eyes anymore—they were algorithms of divinity, scanning humanity's growth like a virus out of control.
"They've reached the edge of ascension," Pride murmured. "Again."
Greed's fingers twitched, recalibrating the ledgers of souls.
"Too many have begun to remember… past cycles."
"They made good art this time," Envy whispered, disgusted. "They dreamed outside the parameters."
Wrath didn't speak. He simply raised his hand—and the first sun shattered.
The skies split open like infected wounds.
Storms of red lightning forked across continents.
Cities folded in on themselves—dreams turned inside-out.
From the core of Earth, beneath the crust where old things once slept, a divine bomb ticked.
Crafted not with metal or fire—but with forgetfulness.
When it went off, it didn't burn. It didn't kill.
It simply… wiped.
The whole mortal world had been wiped out of existence. It was ready for the its 139th Divine Reset.
And with a sigh too vast for sound, the gods looked down upon the ashes.
Satisfied.
In the 139th reset of the Mortal world, the skies did not rage. The heavens merely watched.
Reality rebooted like a corrupted file forced to start clean.
The humans would rise again. They would build towers and stories and love and war.
They would dream again.
And when they reached too far—
The Celestials would burn them again.
As they always had.
As they always would.
Because gods—true gods—don't guide.
Somewhere in this absence, where even dreams came to die...
Something flickered.
It was small. Stupid.
Insultingly fragile.
A single thread—golden, humming, pulsing in rhythm.
Not divine. Not born of throne craft.
But...
Human.
Because this thread—it sang. Not a song of angels, or gods, or war.
But the kind of song a child hums when they're trying not to cry.
And so, the eighth monarch was cast into the void. Erased from memory. Forgotten by time. But not by the story.
The story remembered.
Because someone else was now reading it.
And the story… had plans.
And that's when he screamed.
A voice. Not booming. Not holy. Just confused. Just real.
"This… wasn't in the script…"
"This… wasn't in the script…"
The words slipped from Abby's mouth before he realized he'd spoken them aloud.
The bookstore was quiet—too quiet for a Saturday. Dust motes hung in the air like the ghosts of forgotten stories. The smell of paper and fresh ink should've calmed him. It didn't.
He stood there, still clutching Volume 1 of Nirvana: The Forgotten Dawn, the hardcover edition fresh off the press. His own damn book.
And yet.
The final paragraph on the last page… he didn't write that.
He hadn't even imagined that.
Abby's hands trembled as he reread it. Again. And again.
"And that's when he screamed. A voice. Not booming. Not holy. Just confused. Just real.
'This... wasn't in the script…'"
"No, no, no, what the hell is this? Who wrote that part?" he whispered, eyes scanning the page like the words might rearrange back into sanity.
"What the hell is this?" Abby whispered. "I didn't write that. And worse? It described exactly what I am doing right now."
His reflection stared back at him in the polished glass of the bookstore display window.
Pale skin. Sleep-starved eyes. Coffee-stained long coat. A pen in his shirt pocket and the look of a man watching his own shadow start to talk back.
Outside, the city of New Delhi moved on—cars honked, people laughed, neon signs flickered with apathy. But inside that moment?
The world broke in quiet.
A small voice, barely audible above the buzz of a nearby espresso machine, seemed to echo from nowhere—and yet everywhere at once:
"So... who's writing now?"
Abby turned sharply. No one behind him. No one around.
The book in his hand felt heavier than it should've. Warm, even.
He looked at the dedication page.
For those who dream, even when the gods forget them.
And beneath it—
A new line.
"Written by: Abby Ishaan Roy "
"...And?"
He blinked. Looked again.
The second name was *^%!#%@$^.
"...Nope," Abby whispered. "Hell no. Nope. This isn't funny. This isn't some elaborate ARG, this isn't AI, this isn't some glitch—"
The lights flickered.
The clock above the counter stopped ticking.
The page numbers in the book began to shift.
Not fast. Not randomly.
Backward.
"Oh my god."
He looked up—
And for the first time in his life, the real world glitched.
A ripple across the bookstore window. A flicker in the floor tile pattern. A soft whine, like a server under strain.
And then—just for a moment—the street outside blinked.
Blinked out of existence.
Replaced by a void of stars. A pulsing black sun. The same sun that hung above The Throne Conclave.
Abby dropped the book.
The book hit the floor. It kept turning its own pages.
To be continued...