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The silence was heavier down here. It wasn't just the absence of sound — it was like the stone itself was holding its breath.
Ashix groaned as he pulled himself from the jagged floor. Blood trickled from a cut on his brow, his arm ached, and dust clung to his skin like sweat. The drop had been brutal — not deep enough to kill, but enough to rattle every bone in his body. Somewhere above, the faintest echoes of shouting voices bounced through the tunnel walls. Elira. Marini. But they were too far.
He was alone.
And not for long.
The air shifted, colder. Something stirred. A whisper… not of wind, but of memory. The kind that clung to ancient places. Ashix stood slowly, eyes adjusting to the low orange glow of the crystal embedded in his wrist. The flames gifted by the spirits flickered faintly beneath his skin, not fully awakened, but present.
He took a cautious step forward — and that was when he heard it.
Scrape… drag… scrape…
A chilling, rhythmic sound like claws on stone.
Ashix froze.
Then it came. From the shadows ahead, a grotesque figure slithered out — long and wiry, shaped like a man but all wrong. Its body was twisted, skin gray and stretched, veins pulsing with black energy. Its mouth was stitched shut with iron wire, but its eyes burned with hate and hunger. It was once a guardian of this place. Now it was a prisoner of its own madness.
The creature lunged.
Ashix dove aside, rolling and narrowly dodging claws that struck the ground with a sound like cracking bone. He had no weapon — not even a rock.
"Come on, come on…" he muttered, holding his palm forward. A faint flicker of flame tried to ignite. Nothing.
The creature turned and screamed — the sound of its mind breaking echoed into the cavern like a banshee's curse. Then it charged again.
This time, Ashix let the fear fuel him. He raised both hands, and called the fire.
It erupted from his skin in a burst of wild flame, throwing the creature back. The flames weren't just fire — they carried the essence of the spirits, bright and white-hot. The creature screamed as the fire scorched its twisted flesh.
But it wasn't enough to kill it.
Ashix dodged again, kicking off a fallen pillar and flipping over the creature. He landed behind it, pressed his hand to the stone floor — and focused.
"Spirits of fire, lend me your will. Not just to burn — but to shape."
The ground beneath the creature glowed red — and exploded upward. Jagged spikes of molten rock impaled its legs, pinning it in place. It howled silently, shaking and thrashing.
Ashix was breathing hard, fire licking from his fingertips, eyes wide with primal energy. The spirit flames weren't just tools — they were becoming part of him.
The creature yanked free, tearing its own leg in half. Blood and ash sprayed. It crawled toward him, faster than it should've been able to.
Ashix backed up, but his strength was fading. He raised a wall of fire to slow it, but the flames were weakening — too much energy spent.
Then something inside him shifted.
The markings on his chest — the old ones that pulsed in dreams — began to glow faintly.
He didn't understand how.
But instinct guided him.
Ashix knelt, pressed both palms to the ground, and whispered words not his own:
"Eshu'vera… Kal'en dray."
The flames turned blue.
They flowed from the ground in a serpent-like arc and wrapped around the creature like a burning rope. The shrieking figure convulsed once… twice…
And then it crumbled to dust, pulled into the earth as though swallowed by time itself.
Ashix collapsed to one knee, chest heaving.
Silence.
But it wasn't over.
Because then he saw it — a mural half-buried beneath moss and cracked rock.
A massive wall, carved with old runes — and in the center, an image of a being cloaked in black flame. Behind it, the Void Star — the same one he had seen in dreams.
His voice caught in his throat.
The being in the mural had a mark identical to his, etched on its chest.
Ashix stepped closer. Beneath the figure was an inscription, half-destroyed, but still legible:
"The one born of ember and shadow shall either bind the flame… or burn the world."
His heart thudded.
What did that mean?
Was this… about him?
Before he could think further, he heard it.
Ashix stood shakily, glancing back at the mural one last time. His fate, it seemed, was written long before he ever knew how to read it.
And the tunnel was only just beginning to open its secrets.
Author 's note
I'm out of intro quotes lol
I pray I get inspiration soon enough
What do y'all think about the quotes tho?