The hut was suddenly awash in a cold, sapphire light that seeped through cracks in the stone and settled on the floor as a shimmering veil. Screeches—low, guttural, and maddening—filled the space, echoing off the walls with a timbre that seemed to come from every corner of existence. These sounds were not merely noise; they were emotions—madness, despair, anger—congealing into something tangible.
From the shadows emerged revenants: skeletal forms draped in tattered garments, their eyes glowing with an unholy light. The purity of the mana that birthed them was astronomical, and each step they took sent ripples through the blue mist as if it were liquid glass. Elise felt her own fear coalesce into a tangible force, threatening to pull her deeper into darkness.
Blue light poured into the cramped hut, turning everything it touched to a cold, almost liquid glow that seemed to vibrate against the walls. Screeches of madness and despair erupted from every corner, each one echoing like the wail of an animal trapped in agony. The negative emotions—fear, grief, rage—condensed into shapes that shimmered with a faint, sinister pulse, taking on the form of revenants. Yet the mana that birthed them was beyond any ordinary measure: pure, immense, almost obscene in its sheer magnitude.
"Impossible!" Anna screamed, stepping out of the darkness with the speed of someone who had just broken a spell. Her black hair fell in waves around her face, streaks of silver that glinted like moonlit obsidian. The blue light seemed to bend around her as if she were a living aurora.
She stared at Elise—her eyes, still glowing faintly blue, and the way Theo's body trembled beneath his skin. "I knew it wouldn't hold her for long," Anna whispered, almost reverent in her awe. Her voice carried a strange mixture of triumph and terror. The newborn revenants sputtered like dying stars, their forms dissolving into nothingness.
"Elise," Anna murmured, her tone softening into something almost maternal. "I knew it wouldn't hold her for long. But this—this awakener's energy—it's unprecedented." She smiled—a crooked grin that was half‑laugh and half‑sorrow—and tears began to stream from her eyes. The liquid that fell was thick as molten metal, dark as a midnight sky, soaking her cheeks in a silent prayer.
"Girl," Anna said, patting Elise's head. "You still have some spark left in you. Don't let it die. At least not yet" She watched Elise's gaze flicker between despair and determination; faint shadows of killing intent twitched at her edges. "Just a little more," she whispered, almost to herself.
A familiar presence made Anna's eyes widen. Anticipation flooded her pupils as the scent of impending death brushed against her senses. A voice, strained with worry, broke through the murmurs: "Elise!" It was his—her father's—voice, thin and desperate. Elise's resolve wavered; a flicker of fear crossed her features.
"Father," Anna said softly, as if offering comfort to a child. She stood, walking toward the hut's narrow entrance, then turned back toward Elise with an eerie smile that made the room feel colder. Elise shook her head frantically, trying in vain to wrench herself free from the invisible bonds that clung to her.
"Elise! Where are you?" A man's voice echoed into the hut as Anna opened the door. "Father, I am here," she answered, her tone perfect with fear, watching Elise shake in despair and enjoying the torment of her own daughter's suffering.
Anna chuckled as she exited the hut. "She is still just a child," she said, the words laced with bitterness. "If she was grown… The moment she laid her eyes on me, I would have been dead." She laughed—a sound that echoed through the walls like a dying laugh—before stepping back into the darkness.
Elise opened her mouth, words failing to come out of her. She wanted to warn her dad, to tell him to escape and live. Her mother had died; he was the only thing left. The weight of his fear pressed on her chest, but she could feel nothing but despair, no tears falling from her eyes.
She then surveyed her surroundings, looking for a way out. Nothing seemed to help. Until finally, her gaze fell upon Theo. He stood before Grandma's corpse, shedding tears as if he were a lifeless husk. Elise snorted at him. "This is all his fault," she muttered. "First my brother, then my mother—now it's time for him to lose something too."
Theo in front of his grandma was shedding tears as his face was straight as if he had become a corpse. Elise thought: "Now we have to get out." She felt a fluctuation that drew her attention toward the three mist screens.
On the first mist screen, she saw enforcers sticking out of their tents; wooden spikes pierced their bodies. In the middle of the encampment was --- a blonde pregnant woman—her white dress stained with blood—was bound by more spikes. They forced her arms and legs apart, lifting her like an unwilling puppet. Her screams cut through the mist like a knife… She squirmed as she watched the horror of all the enforcers being penetrated by wooden spikes.
The purple pulsating wooden spike spread the blonde woman's legs; another wooden spike penetrated her body through her vagina. The blond woman screamed in pain as her skin began to peel off, looking rotten. Elise watched these events in horror bile surrounding formed at her throats. She turned her face toward the second screen and saw survivors hidden in the underground bunker of Garrick the alchemist were killing themselves and eating themselves. Their eyes crazed with madness as they turned into a giant meatball that chewed up other people. A grotesque, cannibalistic loop of self‑sacrifice. Their eyes—once bright and full of hope—had gone crazed with madness; they turned into monstrous meatballs that suffocated the living.
On the third screen, a pair of blurred figures approached the encampment. A blonde‑haired man, a dark‑haired man—leaders who had once commanded the enforcer's army—stared at Elise. She realized with a shiver that they were the ones who would now have to face whatever fate she was trying to warn them about. Elise's began to squirm again this time more aggressively. She had to warn them "D..... D…. Do… Don't…. G… Go." She said her throat burned, causing her blood to flow toward her tongue.
After this round, she was spent as she sighed. They couldn't hear her. She then remembered she had forgotten something. Her eyes widened as she remembered the fourth mist had vanished. Her face fell in despair: "N… no."
Anna stood there, ravenously consuming Elise's fear and despair mingle with the black liquid that flowed from Anna's eyes. Elise saw the village she had once loved, now nothing but ashes and memories—enforced by a curse that had turned her mother into a husk and her brother into an unknowing vessel.
She heard Theo's voice echo through the hut, calling out his grandmother, talking to her corpse with a mixture of love and happiness: "Father… I am here." She wanted to warn him—to save his life. But Elise was bound—her body unable to move; her mind still trapped in the curse that had consumed Theo's soul.
Elise tried to cry, but no tears came. Her despair was so thick she could taste it on her tongue. The only thing left for her was her father. She wanted him alive and free from this darkness—but the world had other plans.
She coughed as a large surge of dark aura spread through the air, surrounding the hut.