A fragile will pulses through water, its throb resonating in the ink-black deep. Agony and despair drip around me, staining this endless void.
A hand bursts through the dark water, fingers clenching the fluid as though it were solid ground.
I emerge—gasping, lungs aflame—unable to draw a full breath. Crawling across the unseen surface, I claw at my throat, thrashing and pleading for just one clean inhale of air.
Then stillness. A blaze of symbols ignites across the nape of my neck, burning into flesh and soul. I feel them —fissures in my being, corrupting, claiming—I become stained, marked.
My skull shifts, widening then compressing, as though something ancient is reshaping me from within. My head balloons, then contracts, then returns. A grotesque metamorphosis mired in silence.
I awaken, hands pressed to my chest. A flood of oxygen sears through my lungs, then steadies. I kneel, each breath a tremor, each heartbeat a roar.
All around me is darkness, endless and hollow. Beneath my knees lies a mirror of jet‑water, perfect yet alien. Small ripples spread outward, symbols dancing in patterns I cannot name.
A low hum rises — a vibrating chord that drags solitude into sound. Footsteps fall: one, then another, then many. They are close, and yet impossibly distant. The void listens.
I shift toward the sound; the water quivers. A primal fear seizes me. I bow my head, compelled into submission.
"What is wrong?" whispers a voice, soft and terrible. "Look at me, my little Nekeili."
A transcendent being stands—a half‑figure, lower half visible, clothed in black. Smoke coils from the hem of its pants. Even that is obscured. Vision warps. I should not see this.
It chuckles, a sound deep as epochs. "Darling son. Student. Still clinging to reason. Why? Look around you." Its voice is gentle — the lullaby of doom. "This emptiness is my cradle and my prison. Do you still believe you are human?"
"Who are you?" I manage.
It hovers there, timeless, its silhouette bleeding into the void. My knees press into ink‑water. I feel the weight of all inferior beings kneeling in its presence, recognizing a god.
I glimpse its true form: tentacles, smooth dark flesh, monstrous size beyond comprehension. Its eyes—two pits of void—open in the darkness. My mind fractures.
A ripple pulses. Its avatar steps forward, tapping the water. The monstrous visage recedes. In its place, a man in a void‑suit stands — handsome, certain, terrifying.
"You shall not die yet," it says, voice both soft and absolute. It dispels the aura that obscured this avatar. It smiles.
"I am an Elder God of the Dark." Its eyes bore through me.
My thoughts a tangle of awe and terror. "You are myth. Eldritch horror."
"Something like that," it replies. "Call me… Leviathan."
The name hangs in the void. I sense all I was is gone, replaced by something raw. Still trembling, I whisper, "Leviathan."