Kabir was thirty-five, jobless, and done pretending life would ever get better.
His wife—the same woman who once swore she'd stand by him in every storm—had taken everything: the house, the savings, even their seven-year-old son. She left him with a stack of bills, a pile of debts, and silence thick enough to choke on.
Now, Kabir lived in a cheap, damp room that smelled of rust and regret. The wallpaper peeled like old scabs, and the kitchen was barely big enough to fit a stove and a single, buzzing refrigerator. He rarely stepped outside; the moment he did, the creditors would circle like vultures.
In this world, the Awakened were gods—humans blessed with power from the Abyssal Cracks that tore open twenty-five years ago. Those cracks had vomited demons and chaos into the world. Out of that chaos, some humans absorbed the strange energy and rose as heroes.
At least, that's what people called them. Heroes.
Kabir never believed all of them were. Some saved lives. Others just saved themselves.
When he was young, he'd dreamed of being one of them. But during his first energy assessment, the scanner flashed a single word that sealed his fate forever:
NEGATIVE.
No awakening. No power. No destiny. Just a lifetime of ordinary struggle.
So, Kabir built a small life the hard way—job, wife, son.
Until an Awakened man with too much power and too little conscience took notice of her beauty… and offered her a "better life."
She didn't even hesitate.
That night, Kabir lay on his narrow bed, staring at a photo of her and their boy. His voice cracked under the weight of it all.
"What kind of life is this?" he whispered.
"Can't even pay rent… can't even breathe without losing something."
The power had been cut again. He didn't care. He closed his eyes and drifted into uneasy sleep.
Hours later, he woke up with a dry throat. The clock blinked 1:03 AM in dim red light.
"Water," he muttered, dragging himself up.
He flicked the switch—nothing.
"They cut the power again," he said, sighing. "Guess the darkness isn't leaving me tonight."
He moved slowly toward the fridge, one hand feeling along the wall to avoid bumping into furniture. His bare foot hit the leg of the table.
"Aah! Damn it!"
The pain jolted him awake, but he kept moving.
He pulled the fridge door open—
—and froze.
There was no food. No shelves. No lightbulb.
Instead, the inside stretched downward into an impossible black staircase, vanishing into red mist.
Steps—made of stone, not metal—spiraled down endlessly, each one glowing faintly with heat.
Kabir blinked hard. "I'm dreaming. I have to be."
He slammed the door shut, stood there, breathing fast.
Silence.
Then curiosity crept in, cold and sharp. He opened it again.
The stairs were still there.
A low hum drifted up from the abyss—something alive, or ancient, or both. The air that escaped was hot enough to sting his skin.
Kabir's voice trembled.
"Where… did my fridge go?"
He stared into the glowing dark.
"And what the hell is down there?"
Kabir's trembling hand moved to shut the fridge door, trying to bury the impossible sight before his mind could catch up. But then—
A voice.
Soft at first, like an echo crawling up the stairs.
"Kabir… I'm down here…"
He froze. His breath caught in his throat. That voice—he'd know it anywhere.
His wife.
"Kabi… please. Save me."
His pulse slammed in his ears. "No… no, it can't be you. How—how is your voice coming from down there?" He leaned closer to the open door, his heart pounding like a drum in his chest. "What are you doing there?"
The voice came again, louder this time, dripping with pain.
"Help me, Kabir… save me, please…"
Something inside him broke. He wanted to shut the door and walk away—pretend this nightmare didn't exist. But his leg moved on its own. Love, guilt, or maybe both. The ghost of what he once felt for her pulled him down those impossible stairs.
He took the first step. Then another.
The air grew heavier with each one, like he was sinking into the earth itself.
Minutes—or maybe hours—passed. The steps kept descending endlessly. When he finally looked back, the top was gone. The staircase behind him stretched infinitely upward, vanishing into shadow.
Panic set in.
He tried running back, but the more he climbed, the farther the steps extended, warping like a nightmare that refused to end.
Finally, gasping, he stopped and stared into the abyss below.
There—far ahead—a faint light.
He moved toward it, each step echoing like a heartbeat in a tomb. The light grew brighter until it swallowed him whole—
And then he saw it.
Hell.
The air burned. The ground pulsed like living flesh, split with glowing cracks that leaked molten fire. Screams echoed through the red haze. Mountains of bone jutted from rivers of lava.
And in the middle of it all stood a pillar, black as obsidian.
Chained to it was his wife.
Her head hung low. Her body was covered in wounds, raw and bloodied. Kabir rushed forward, horrified.
"What happened to you? Who did this?!" he shouted, his voice breaking.
Slowly, her head lifted.
"You came, Kabir," she whispered. "You came for me."
But something was wrong. The tone shifted—her soft cry twisted into a sound that didn't belong in any human throat. Her mouth stretched into a smile too wide, too sharp. Her laugh cracked through the air, echoing like breaking glass.
Her skin began to burn away, revealing red muscle underneath. Her teeth glistened—long, jagged, bloody.
"I'm not your wife, you fool."
Chains shattered like paper. She stepped down, her form twisting and warping into something monstrous.
Her voice dropped to a guttural growl.
"But now that you've come… you'll be the one to free this land. You'll show those outsiders their place."
She lunged.
Kabir's instincts screamed, but his body wouldn't move. Fear froze him in place.
Pain exploded through his stomach. He looked down. Her hand had pierced straight through him.
Warm blood ran down his body, dripping to the cracked floor below.
He coughed, red bubbling from his mouth. "So… this is how it ends," he whispered, almost laughing.
Then everything went dark.
When his eyes opened again—
He was in his bed.
Sweat drenched his face. His breathing came in ragged gasps. The clock read 3:17 AM.
He touched his stomach. No wound. No blood. Just skin.
His throat burned dry.
The fridge stood silent in the kitchen corner.
He forced out a shaky laugh.
"So… it was a dream after all."
But the moment he said it, a searing pain lanced through his skull.
It wasn't normal pain—it felt like something clawing inside his mind, tearing its way through thought and bone.
Then a voice thundered through him—so loud it made his vision tremble.
"NO, YOU FOOL."
Kabir clutched his head, falling to his knees.
"Wh–who's there?!"
"IT WAS NO DREAM." The voice reverberated in his skull, each word like a hammer.
"YOU WERE ABOUT TO DIE. YOUR SOUL WAS CLAIMED BY THE PIT. BUT THE WILL OF ALZARK SAVED YOU."
Kabir froze, his heartbeat going wild. "Alzark? Who—who the hell is that? Show yourself!"
The room seemed to darken. Shadows twisted, curling along the walls like smoke given life. The air grew thick—heavy with a pressure that made it hard to breathe.
"YOU DARE COMMAND ME?" the voice roared, shaking the windows. "I AM A FRAGMENT OF ALZARK—THE WILL THAT DEVOURS WORLDS. YOU EXIST BECAUSE I ALLOW IT."
Kabir's body trembled, but somewhere inside, the years of humiliation and loss stirred something bitter. His voice cracked but held a spark of defiance.
"So what do you want from me?"
Silence. Then—like a whisper dragged across eternity:
"TO RISE."
"TO RECLAIM."
"TO WALK HELL AS ITS HERO."
Kabir laughed weakly, a painful, broken sound.
"Hero? You're talking to the wrong man. I'm a failure. A coward. My wife left me. I can't even pay rent."
"AND YET YOU LIVE," the voice replied, calm now—cold and absolute. "YOU WERE PIERCED THROUGH THE HEART AND STILL DRAW BREATH. DO YOU STILL THINK THIS IS A DREAM?"
Kabir's breath caught. His hand trembled as he touched his stomach again. The skin was smooth—but underneath, a faint warmth pulsed, like something alive was moving there.
He whispered, almost afraid to hear the answer:
"Then… how?"
"YOU WERE CHOSEN," the voice said. "YOUR DEATH FED THE GATE. YOUR PAIN AWAKENED WHAT SLEPT WITHIN. YOU WILL CARRY MY FRAGMENT UNTIL THE DAY YOU ASCEND."
Kabir swallowed hard. "Ascend? Into what?"
A low, almost amused rumble filled his skull.
"INTO WHAT YOU WERE ALWAYS MEANT TO BE."
The bulb above him flickered violently, then burst.
Darkness swallowed the room.
And in that dark, Kabir felt something crawl beneath his skin—warm, burning, divine.
His veins lit faintly under his skin, glowing the color of molten gold.
Somewhere deep below the world, something vast stirred—and whispered his name.
Somthing had awakened within him.