Rose of Black Petals
"In the silence of an empty heart, evil doesn't ask permission: it takes root like a plague, whispers to the abyss— and the abyss trembles as it whispers back."
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The northern meadows were an emerald-and-sky deception, a canvas of wildflowers swaying beneath a warm breeze, as if the world were pretending innocence. Through the center of that farce walked Alicia—the perfect maiden, the kingdom's jewel. Her hair, white as polished bone, floated with the wind; her eyes, red as rubies, shone with a sweetness that fooled everyone. Her skin, pale as marble, was the moon's cruel reflection. The kingdom adored her: kings, nobles, peasants—everyone knelt before her smile. They gave her love, wealth, an ivory palace. They asked for only one thing: that she exist, that she be their light. And she knew it.
But Alicia was not light. She was a void shaped like a girl, a bottomless well that swallowed the life around it. As she plucked a white rose from the gardens—crushing it until red sap stained her fingers—her lips whispered:
— This world is a mistake. These flowers, these people… all so fragile. So disgusting.
No one saw the shadow in her gaze. No one heard the crack of her soul as it split. But something else did feel it: a faraway abyss, a black substance pulsing in the earth's entrails, watching her from a distance.
The First Petal: The Pleasure of What's Broken
"In the fragility of the living, delight is a knife that cuts without mercy."
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At five years old, Alicia already despised life. The birds singing in the oaks were an insult to her inner silence. One morning, she caught a sparrow with her small hands, her fingers trembling with an emotion she couldn't name. She held it before her eyes, feeling its tiny heart hammer against its feathers.
— Why do you sing? —she asked, her voice sweet as slow poison—. No one listens. No one cares.
With a slow motion, she tore out a feather. The sparrow shrieked. Alicia smiled. It wasn't happiness, it wasn't hatred—only a cold curiosity, like a god dissecting its own creation. She ripped off its wings, petal by petal like a flower, and let the bird writhe in her palm until the last spasm died. She tossed it onto the grass and stepped on it, the crunch of tiny bones ringing like a melody beneath her silk shoe.
— How boring —she murmured, wiping the blood on her white dress.
The servants blamed the cats. But Alicia didn't stop. Butterflies lost their wings beneath her nails. Frogs were split open with stolen forks, their insides gleaming in the sun while she laughed, fascinated by life's fragility. The palace gardens—so full of color—were her private cemetery, an altar of small deaths no one noticed.
One night, as she buried a gutted toad beneath a rosebush, she felt something. A whisper in her mind, a tug in her chest, as if the earth itself were calling her. Her red eyes lifted toward the distant valleys, where a forbidden cave waited. She didn't know its name… but her soul already did.
The Second Petal: The Abyss's First Whisper
"Where the earth breathes death, the soul hears promises it shouldn't."
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At eight, Alicia found the cave. She had fled the palace after setting a tapestry in her chamber on fire, staging it as an accident just to watch her mother cry. The servants searched for her, but she was already far away, crossing the valleys beneath a moon that looked like it was bleeding. The cave was a gash in the earth, a place the elders avoided even naming. The air reeked of rot—centuries of death stacked upon death. To Alicia, it was perfume.
She entered without hesitation. In the heart of the cave, she found the firstborn hemogen: a black, pulsing substance, like a living organ torn from the world's chest. It was neither god nor demon, but something older—something that breathed pure malice. Alicia knelt before it, not in reverence, but curiosity.
— What are you? —she asked, her voice echoing in the dark.
The hemogen answered not with words, but images: blood, broken bodies, a world reduced to ash. Alicia laughed, her laughter ringing like shattered glass.
— You're like me —she said, reaching a hand toward the substance.
The hemogen shuddered—not with hunger, but with something close to fear. Her soul was a deeper void than its own, an abyss that threatened to devour it. It did not accept her—not yet—but it left a mark on her. That night, when Alicia returned to the palace, the rosebushes along her path withered, their petals falling like ash. A black mist rose—barely a whisper—covering the sky for an instant. The servants blamed the wind, but Alicia felt power blooming in her veins: a gift from the abyss she did not yet understand.
The Third Petal: The Mask of Cruelty
"A smile hides the edge, and the heart lies while the earth suffers."
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At twelve, Alicia perfected the art of lying. Her smiles were daggers wrapped in silk; her tears, a performance that bent hearts. When her mother held her, she sobbed with a precision that fooled everyone.
— My sweet girl, my angel —the queen would say, stroking her hair.
— I love you, Mother —Alicia would reply, her red eyes shining with venomous sweetness.
But alone in her chamber, she mimicked her mother's cries, laughing until the tears became real—not from sorrow, but from a twisted joy. That same night, she returned to the cave barefoot, her dress torn by thorns. The hemogen awaited her, its surface pulsing faster, as if it feared her arrival.
— Why are you trembling? —Alicia asked, plunging a hand into the black substance.
The hemogen showed her darker visions: burning cities, rivers of blood, a starless sky. But it also felt her essence—an emptiness that did not beg, only destroyed. The substance recoiled, but not before a thread of its power seeped into her. When Alicia stepped out of the cave, the grass beneath her feet dried up, and a bird flying nearby dropped dead, its wings disintegrating in the air.
— How beautiful —she whispered, staring at the sky as a black fog smothered the stars.
In the palace, the servants began to whisper. The gardens died. Animals fled. The air grew heavy whenever Alicia passed.
— It's like the earth hates her —a cook said, trembling.
But it wasn't hate.
It was fear.
The Fourth Petal: Blood as Canvas
"In every wound, a verse; in every scream, a canvas for chaos."
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At fourteen, Alicia discovered humans were more interesting than animals. Their screams were symphonies, their pleading a poem. A young guard—a man with green eyes who looked at her with devotion—became her first masterpiece. She lured him to the stables with a smile, her voice soft as a funeral hymn.
— You're special, you know that? —she said, brushing his cheek—. Do you want to be mine?
— Y-yes, my lady —he stammered, his face flushed with hope.
Alicia drew a dagger hidden in her sleeve and slid it along his arm—a slow cut that barely broke the skin. The man screamed, more in shock than pain.
— Shhh… don't move —she whispered, licking the blood from the blade—. This is only the beginning.
She tied him with stable rope, her hands moving with inhuman precision. Each cut was a brushstroke; each wound, a verse on living canvas. The man begged, but Alicia hummed a childish melody, her red eyes glowing like embers. When she finished, the body was a map of blood and bone. She covered him with hay and returned to the palace, her white dress immaculate, as if death had never touched her.
That night, she visited the cave for the third time. The hemogen didn't merely tremble now—it retreated, its surface churning as if it were trying to escape.
— Are you afraid of me? —Alicia asked, laughing as she plunged both hands into the substance—. You're weak. I'm more powerful than you'll ever be.
The hemogen shrieked—no sound at all, but an echo inside her mind. It couldn't resist her. A fragment of its power fused with her—deeper this time. When she emerged, the earth around the cave cracked, trees bowed until they snapped, and a black mist covered the sun—an impossible eclipse that lasted minutes. Animals within a kilometer fell dead, their bodies dissolving into the soil. Alicia felt the power in her veins: a cold current that made her more than human.
— Soon —she whispered to the darkened sky—. Soon, everything will be mine.
Last Petal: The Kingdom's Massacre
"When love rots, blood dances beneath a lightless sky."
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At fifteen, Alicia was ready for her final work. Her family, her court, her entire kingdom were pieces on a board only she understood. There was no rage. No vengeance. Only the pure desire to watch the world bleed beneath her hand.
The night began with a banquet. Alicia, dressed in white like a bride of death, smiled at the nobles, her lips red as the blood she would soon spill. Minstrels sang her name. Servants filled goblets. Her father raised his cup, his voice booming through the hall.
— To my daughter, the light of our kingdom —he proclaimed.
— To the kingdom —Alicia replied, her voice a whisper sharp as glass.
When the moon reached its peak, the air thickened. A black mist rose from the floor, shrouding the palace like a burial cloth. The sun—still lingering at the horizon—went out, swallowed by an eclipse that obeyed no law of heaven. Flowers in vases withered. Horses screamed until they dropped. Servants shrieked, clutching their chests beneath a weight they couldn't explain.
Alicia stood, a ceremonial knife in her hand.
— Father, Mother, brothers… thank you for giving me everything —she said, her voice sweet as poison that kills slowly—. But this world doesn't deserve to exist.
The first cut was for her father. The blade went through his throat, a geyser of blood splashing the table. Screams erupted—but Alicia was already dancing between bodies, moving with inhuman grace. Her mother tried to run; Alicia caught her, ripping out her heart in a single motion. Her brothers, her cousins, the nobles—everyone fell beneath her knife, their bodies piling like offerings on a pagan altar.
The hall became a lake of blood, the air heavy with iron and death. Alicia—naked after tearing off her dress—danced among the corpses, her pale skin gleaming under moonlight filtered through the black mist. She sang, her voice a lament that froze the soul:
— Fury, pain, frustration, and sorrow…
— Guilt, madness, terror, and misery…
— The stench of blood, the taste of affliction…
— Things that fill my good heart's condition.
At dawn, servants found the massacre. Bodies floated in the palace well—throats slit, eyes empty. The kingdom mourned its "missing princess," never knowing she was already running toward the cave—her final destination.
The Coronation: Mother of the Black Blood
"From the abyss a goddess is born, and the world kneels before her nothing."
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In the cave, the hemogen waited—but this was no longer a meeting. It was surrender. The black, pulsing substance recoiled from her presence, its surface churning as if begging for mercy. Alicia laughed, her laughter an echo that fractured stone.
— Do you fear me, abyss? —she asked, sinking her entire body into the substance—. You're nothing. I am everything.
The hemogen shrieked—a scream that wasn't sound, but a wound in reality. It tried to reject her, but her soul was a deeper void, a malice so pure the abyss itself recoiled in horror. Alicia was not a host.
She was a conqueror.
The substance yielded, melting into her, shaped by her will. The cave trembled. The earth cracked. A black mist rose, covering the sky in an eternal eclipse. Trees withered. Animals died. Life itself snuffed out within a kilometer.
When she emerged, she was no longer Alicia. Her white hair gleamed like bone; her red eyes burned like infernal embers; and the ground beneath her feet rotted with every step.
— My name is no longer Alicia —she declared, her voice an echo that made the world tremble—. That name was given by weak humans—the ones I killed. I am Alicetroemeria Ashida. Genocidal Goddess. Mother of the Black Blood.
Her will was broken crystal—sharp, flawless:
— I will eradicate every living creature.
— For not being like me.
— For not deserving to exist.
— Because life that crawls beneath the sun never deserved its light.
Standing over a field of corpses, she recited her creed—learned from impossible memories the hemogen had whispered to her, trembling before her power:
— When the song of the last bird sinks into the mud,
— and the wind's own breath finds no way, no blood.
— When moss turns rancid, when flowers twist in pain,
— and the world's sap goes inert—perverse, profane.
— When worms can find no flesh, no bone to claim,
— and roots wither out, unable to return the same.
— When the last wolf falls, emptied of breath,
— and the lamb rots quiet, with no sacrament left.
— When bacteria die of starvation's cruel decree,
— and the soil vomits its final decay to the sea.
— When the stars go out, one by one, undone,
— and there is no sun, no shadow, no moon… none.
— Then I will dance in silence—no law, no faith—
— crowned with nothing, as I always craved.
— My perfect world: hollow, without skin, without sound,
— an altar of corpses… beneath my black shroud.
Alicetroemeria Ashida—crowned with nothing, queen of a kingdom with no subjects, goddess of a cult that did not yet exist—took her first step into the world. Wherever she walked, life died, the earth groaned, and the sun hid behind black mist… as if it knew the end had begun.