"…And in this Starless Realm, where only Perpetual Darkness lingered and shadows thrived, it came to be. It was not born, nor was it created. It wished to exist—and so it did. We call it the Crucible of Life, but those who were born of it know another name. To them, it is the Living Flame…"
- [Excerpt from "The Origins of Outer Immortals"by Alcyone Hesperos Au Asterious, Archduke of House Asterious]
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Asael had thought the stars blanketing the night sky would be the last sight he would ever behold. They shimmered faintly through the haze of pain he felt, distant and uncaring, but so terribly beautiful.
Their light wove through the night like threads of silver—each flicker a promise, each shimmer a farewell. He remembered watching them dance, and for the first time in his short life, he had felt something that close to peace.
It was the peace of acceptance.
He knew that he was dying. He could feel it in the way his chest rattled with every breath, in the warmth leaking out of him into the snow.
Death was close now, it stalked his every stilted breath—he could almost taste it in the air, sharp and cold like metal. But he knew that it was his mind playing with him. The taste was nothing but blood on his tongue.
It hurt, a terrible pain that pierced his core with every breath he took. But in that pain was a strange comfort. A quiet assurance, a hidden promise, that the suffering would soon, finally, end.
There was something wrong with finding solace in such thoughts. He knew that, and yet…he found that he did not care.
For so long, Asael had thought of himself as Atlas—the great Titan who carried the world upon his mighty shoulders and strained beneath a weight that would not stop pressing down.
He was tired. So very, very tired. Tired of the pain, of the hunger, of the world's indifference. He felt spent. He felt the kind of exhaustion that lived in the bones and never truly left.
So, in those final minutes as blood seeped into the snow and the cold wind bit through his blood-soaked clothes and the stars burned above him, Asael made a single, fragile wish.
He did not wish to live again, or for mercy, or for vengeance. He wished for something smaller. He wished for rest.
He had wished to close his eyes and never open them again. He had wished to stop hurting, to stop being. Asael had lived. He had suffered. One lifetime was enough for him.
Misery had been his shadow since the day of his birth—and now, he was ready, at last, to let it go. To let it rest as he soon would be.
As his blood bled into the snow, staining purity with the colour of chaos, Asael felt the final tethers of life beginning to slip away. He watched it for a while, those streaks of red that melted white, and thought, that maybe this was how peace was supposed to look like.
The world fading quietly around him, without either fanfare or cruelty.
He wondered, if this crimson offering would be enough to rouse the dead Gods from their slumber and make his wish come true.
When death collected his soul, it did not bring him to the pearly gates of Heaven nor cast him into the brimstone and fire of Hell. Instead, when he opened his eyes again, Asael found himself in a land bereft of light.
It was a world of darkness. A vastness which stretched around him with no perceivable horizon, beginning or end. It felt endless, boundless, infinite. And it was alive.
It had weight. It had silence so complete that it pressed against him like a hand over his mouth. There was not an up, nor a down. There was no time. Only the endless drift, like falling through a page stained with ink that never ended.
It held him, clumsily cradled him with hands that were too large and unsure of how to hold something precious. He was not a prisoner, instinctually, he knew that. But he also did not know what he was.
His body was gone, but his name lingered, a faint echo that sat suspended on the tip of a tongue that no longer existed.
Asael.
He floated in the dark. He was weightless, thoughtless, emotionless. It was peaceful, for a time. There was no pain, no hunger, no fear. He did not feel, or think, or grieve. The absence of everything felt almost holy—it was bliss to feel nothing, to be free of the mind, the body, the burden of living.
He did not know how, or when, or why, but soon, he let the emptiness cradle him like a child, and so, he slept.
In a world free of time and feeling, he rested. But sometimes, he awoke.
Because there, in the depths of that dreamless slumber, Asael felt it—an audience unseen. It felt as if there was a hundred, a thousand unblinking eyes, watching him from beyond the veil.
Yet when he looked, there was nothing but darkness and silence. So, he could close his eyes again, and surrender himself to the quiet, to the peace, he had longed for so desperately.
But peace was a fragile thing.
Even in this land of nothingness. His past found ways to come back and haunt him.
He remembered his mother. Her gentle voice, the kindness that she gave freely to those who did not deserve it. He remembered his father's shadow, the cruelty he wielded as a weapon, the curses he rained on the man, and how he hoped the man would one day experience them.
He remembered the streets that raised him, that taught him how to survive. He remembered the summers that suffocated him, that burned his skin and marked him. He thought of the winters which nearly froze him to death, their sting when he hadn't eaten in days and of how the cold seeped into his bones.
He recalled the truck—the blue of lights, the sound of impact, the agony that tore him apart, the feeling of his body breaking. And above it all, he remembered the stars, always the stars—so bright, so close, so far—that watched in silence as his life slipped away.
Every time he thought of them, something deep within him stirred—a pulse, faint, and unwilling. It was a reminder that he still existed, no matter how much he tried to forget the fact.
It was that something, that pulse, that wound, which shattered the stillness.
And from that shattered stillness, did the land of darkness change. He saw it then, the thing which had watched him. It was an eye, singular at first—vast, white, and distant—then another. And another. Three turned to five, and five turned to tens, then hundreds, thousands, until they became uncountable.
They filled the void, or maybe the void filled with them, until the dark was no longer dark at all. Each one was as pale and dreadful as the last. They glowed like moons suspended in black water, they glimmered like suns, cold and milky.
They watched him unblinking.
The darkness peeled away like an old cloth—but it also parted slowly like a curtain—and revealed a presence so immense that it could not be comprehended.
If he still had a mind tethered to flesh, the sight alone would have driven him mad. But he was little more than a thought now, he was only a soul, lost in the void. But he could feel its presence, could taste it on tastebuds which no longer existed.
A gravity seemed to press upon me, as heavy as the weight that he had once carried in life. If he had a body, he would have drowned.
Finally, the eyes blinked—all at once, and a voice, or what resembled a voice, came from beyond the darkness, and spoke.
"Child of Lostbelt Tellus…" It whispered. The sound came from everywhere, surrounding him as the pale moons that were its eyes did. Its voice was like wind chimes swaying in a storm—soft `and melodic—yet beneath it scraped the grinding of metal on stone.
"…I have witnessed your life. I have tasted your anger. I have touched your joy. I have heard your mother's love…your father's cruelty. And I have lived your suffering."
The voice felt like the hum of stars being born, the groan of old worlds turning. It was soft, yet it filled everything.
"For this precious gift," the voice murmured. "I shall grant you another chance—another life. Among the stars that dwell upon my feathers, you shall live again."
Asael tried to protest, to plead and speak, to tell it that he was content—that he did not want another life, that this nothingness was all he had ever wanted.
But he had no voice to give, no mouth, only thought, and even that trembled before the infinite vastness of this being.
And so, the being did not hear him. Or perhaps it did and simply did not care to listen.
"I am sorry," it whispered, with something almost like sorrow. "For the suffering that will come. But you are needed, child. Your resilience and your love are weapons that should not be left to rot." It paused, and he felt the darkness hold its breath. "One day, perhaps, you will forgive me. For this is selfish of me."
As it finished speaking, something fundamental changed within this land bereft of light. Because suddenly—without any warning, a flame bloomed before him. Except, it was not light, but something wearing the shape of fire.
It licked through the darkness, and he heard the sound of a howl, of a pained scream that could only come from torture. He understood then that this was not fire, but instead, hunger.
It was the most basic principle of fire, the concept which devoured everything in greed, just as it devoured the dark. It reached for him, burning through the emptiness with not warmth but purpose.
When it reached him, when it touched him, sensation returned and he tried to scream. But he had no lungs, no throat, no mouth, so it was his thoughts that howled in agony—a broken replica of the darkness.
A soundless cry that tore through every fragment of his soul.
It burned him, consumed him, devoured him. Then, when that was not enough, it went further. It went beyond his soul and ate his thoughts, his memories, his emotions, his very being.
It was fire, and it needed fuel, so it took it. Greedily, it devoured everything that he was, burning through him like molten glass.
Before the oblivion consumed him entirely, before everything turned to fire, to nothing, he heard the voice whisper one last time—gentle, sorrowful, and final.
"Rise again, Flameborne…for the world is breaking, and only your light may temper its ruin. For it needs you to burn for it."
[-]END[-]
If you wish to read up to five chapters in advance for this story, check out my pa/t reon* / Verbane. I hope you enjoy, and appreciate any and all support. Ta!