The victory still trembled in the heavy. The ritual circle glowed faintly, its cracked sigils pulsing like the faltering heartbeat of something both broken and alive. For a moment, the world seemed caught between what had been lost and what might yet be saved, balanced on a razor's edge of hope and despair.
The storm had passed. The wind had stilled, and the distant cries of the forest's creatures were beginning to return, cautious and uncertain, as if nature itself were hesitant to believe the nightmare had ended. Light filtered through the shattered canopy above, pale and trembling, casting long shadows across the scorched ground.
Shanane sagged into Eoghan's arms, trembling but steadying beneath his steadying grasp. His breath was ragged, but his eyes shone with a fierce relief, a fragile light kindled from the ashes of all they had lost. He tightened his hold as if to shelter her from the lingering darkness, from the weight of the impossible moment they had survived.
For the first time in weeks, the silence was not heavy with dread. It was a quiet hymn of survival, of small, fragile hope.
Their bodies, once scorched by shadows and despair, now burned with a fierce, fragile light,hope kindled in the face of oblivion.
Slowly, from the shadows, the woman emerged, her ash-colored robes whispering softly against the hush of the forest, like the breath of forgotten spirits. Her talisman pulsed faintly, casting pale light across the cracked stones of the circle as she knelt beside it. Her voice was low, hoarse from the ritual, but steady as she murmured prayers of protection, words delicate but resolute, weaving a fragile shield around the remnants of their shattered world.
Eoghan's hands were gentle as they helped Shanane to her feet, grounding her in the present.
__Eoghan: "You did it." he breathed, voice trembling with exhaustion and wonder. "We're free."
Shanane's gaze fell to her hands, trembling and stained with blood and earth, marks of sacrifice and survival. No words came at first. Her chest rose and fell unevenly, the weight of all they had endured pressing down like a silent storm. But when her eyes lifted toward the woman, her voice returned, soft and reverent, a fragile offering in the quiet aftermath.
__Shanane: "Thank you. You saved us both."
For a moment, hope bloomed like a fragile flower in the ashes of despair. The night felt suspended in that breath, poised on the edge of something new, something tentative and precious.
The woman's lips parted, as if to speak comfort, but no words came. Her breath caught, faltered, stolen by some unseen force. A thin ribbon of blood slid slowly down her chin, catching the pale light of the red moon that still lingered in the sky.
The fragile joy in the clearing shattered like glass.
A terrible stillness, sharp and unnatural, rippled through the air like a blade slicing through cloth.
Shanane gasped, breath caught tight in her throat. Eoghan moved instinctively, eyes wide with sudden alarm, stepping forward to shield her.
The woman's body jerked violently, an involuntary spasm twisting her spine in ways it was never meant to bend, as though something deep inside had snapped.
A second convulsion seized her, stronger and more brutal. Her arms flailed wildly, her head snapped back, eyes wide and glassy with silent agony, mouth frozen in a scream that would never find voice.
And then, with sickening force, her entire frame arched grotesquely, lifted from the earth by some invisible power, a cruel force no mortal could name.
Like parchment torn by unseen claws, her body split down the center with a wet, ripping sound that echoed through the silent forest like a curse unleashed.
Blood sprayed in a fine, haunting mist. Flesh and bone parted with cold precision, collapsing in two lifeless halves onto the soil below.
There was no cry. No final breath. Only a deep, dreadful silence and the slow, terrible realization that something ancient and malevolent had returned.
The air hung heavy with dread, thickening around them like a suffocating shroud. The forest, once still and seemingly at peace, now seemed to hold its breath, waiting and watching. Shanane and Eoghan stood frozen, the horror of the woman's violent death sinking deep into their bones, twisting hope into despair.
Their hearts pounded in the hollow silence, each beat a desperate prayer for something, anything, to undo the darkness that had just been unleashed. But the night offered no mercy, no reprieve.
Then, from the bleeding shadows beyond the shattered circle, a shape began to take form. At first, it was little more than a ripple in the darkness, a distortion like heat rising off a blackened field. But it grew, expanding, twisting, reshaping itself in ways that defied reason and nature.
Atheramond stepped forward from that living darkness, a presence so vast and unnatural that it seemed to warp the very air around him. This was no longer the demon lord they had faced before. This was something far worse, something ancient and unbound, transcending flesh and bone, a nightmare birthed from the rotting core of the world itself.
His form flickered and flowed like molten tar, a shifting mass of burning oil, never still, never whole. Jagged horns spiraled from his head, tripled in size and crowned with the decay of dying stars, blackened roots twisting endlessly into the void.
Silence shattered under the weight of his arrival, his voice was not sound but the fracture of existence itself.
And then he laughed. It was a slow and cruel sound that coiled like smoke around them, swallowing their breath and hope alike.
The forest seemed to recoil in agony, the trees bowed and shuddered as if mourning the shattering of some ancient balance. Leaves wept bitter droplets, dripping like tears of sorrow onto the scorched earth. The sky itself darkened, the moon bleeding back into its cursed red glow, pulsing slow and heavy like a dying heart trapped in endless agony. The air turned thick and acrid, carrying the sharp, foul scent of burning stone and smoldering ruin.
They had not won. The victory had been a fleeting illusion, a thin veil peeled back only to reveal a deeper, darker horror lurking beneath.
Atheramond's laughter slithered through the clearing, low, slow, and venomous, coiling around their minds like tendrils of smoke that choked hope itself. They were no more than insects in his eyes. Not even worthy prey, only a fleeting distraction, a cruel joke on the fabric of existence. Their struggle, their courage meant nothing to him.
His voice did not pass through lips, but struck directly into their skulls, sharp and undeniable.
__Atheramond: "Did you truly believe you could slay me?
I who molded damnation as clay in my hands?
I who taught the first witch to curse?
Fools! That dagger you wielded, the cursed blade was forged by my own design.
Not to kill men, nor mortals, but to cull my own kind, traitors to the pit I cast down.
It was never meant to destroy me. It was a tool for my vengeance against fellow demons who defied me."
He stepped over the woman's broken remains as though they were mere ash beneath his foot. His eyes, impossibly vast now, twin furnaces burning with the fury of endless time and unyielding hatred, bore into Shanane's soul.
__Atheramond: "I am no mere demon. I am the architecture of sin itself. The breath that stirred your gods to life. The dark throne upon which the world turns."
With a casual, almost bored flick of his wrist, a force invisible yet undeniable hurled Eoghan through the trees.
The sound was sickening, a brutal crack of bone against bark, sharp and final. Eoghan's body struck a massive trunk like a ragdoll, spun violently through the air, and collapsed to the earth in a heap. He lay still, breath shallow and ragged, blood slowly pooling beneath his chest, staining the earth with a silent testament to his pain.
Shanane's cry tore through the storm's rising howl, but the sound was swallowed by the tempest. The wind howled anew, a furious beast awakened. The earth trembled beneath their feet. The summoning circle ignited once more, not with the power of hope, but with the cruel mockery of despair.
Atheramond stretched his colossal arms wide, and the sky above fractured like splintering glass.
__Atheramond: "You should have given me your soul when you had the chance.
Now, I will take everything you hold dear."
His shadow stretched out first, slow, deliberate, like the dark fingers of night reaching across a dying world. It moved with a patient malice, curling and twisting through the thinning air, inching ever closer to her as if it hungered for something beyond flesh.
The storm did not burst immediately; it began as a murmur, a low growl beneath the wind, a shudder rolling through the trees. The sky darkened, folding inward like a wound reopening, and the very earth seemed to hold its breath. A heavy silence pressed on them, thick and suffocating, before the storm finally tore itself loose.
Then it rose, slowly at first, like smoke billowing from a long-smoldering fire, then gathering speed and fury. The wind howled with a terrible voice, tearing leaves from branches and sending them spinning like desperate cries. Lightning forked across the sky, illuminating the chaos in jagged flashes, while rain began to fall, not gentle drops, but a cold, stinging torrent that seemed laced with the iron taste of blood.
Around Shanane, the air thickened with dark energy, coiling and twisting, alive with a terrible purpose. The storm grew taller, a towering wall of shadows and flame, rage and ruin, a living barrier that rose to claim her.
She stood at its edge, heart pounding, breath ragged. The creeping darkness inched closer like a serpent poised to strike, promising oblivion with its touch.
It wrapped around her like iron chains forged from night itself, dragging at her very soul. She fought with all her strength, desperate to break free, to tear through the endless black that sought to consume her.
Her hands grasped blindly through the void, reaching for something solid, something real but found nothing.
The world had slipped away, swallowed whole by the ravenous storm. Wind screamed with agony, carrying the bitter, metallic scent of blood and scorched earth. The clearing became a maelstrom of pain and loss, where time itself twisted and cracked like fragile glass.
Her lungs burned as she gasped for air, each breath a desperate battle against the void tightening around her throat. Her eyes, wide with terror and defiance, searched for a spark of hope, a glimmer of light in the consuming darkness. But there was none.
With a sound like thunder cracking in reverse, a fractured echo of a world unraveling, the storm claimed her. In a final, breathless instant, their forms shattered and dissolved into the tempest, swallowed by a merciless force older than fear itself.
Then, just as suddenly as it had risen, the storm collapsed in on itself and ceased.
An unbearable silence settled over the clearing.
The wind died, and the trees stood broken and still, their branches twisted like the fingers of mourners grasping for a lost soul.
In the very heart of the ritual circle, where Shanane had stood, fierce and unyielding, there was nothing left to mark her presence.
No body remained. No blood stained the earth. No trace of breath, no whisper of warmth lingered.
Only a dress lay there, shimmering faintly like a ghost trapped between worlds, fragile and haunting, a silent testament to a soul vanished beyond reach.
________________________________________
∆ ☆ ATHERAMOND ☆ ∆
________________________________________
The storm had passed, but the horror lingered, thick and heavy in the scorched air like a shadow too deep to banish.
All around, the trees moaned with a voice sculpted from grief. Their limbs swayed and cracked like old bones remembering pain.
Above, the cursed moon had begun to fracture. It burst open, releasing a torrent of crimson rain that poured from the sky like the wrath of fallen gods. The blood hissed and steamed as it struck the earth, scalding the soil and painting the world in fire. Amidst the storm of blood and flame, the demon lord advanced toward Shanane.
Each drop landed with purpose. It came slow, thick, heavy. Each one was a judgment, a scream from the divine that had no voice left.
It painted the forest floor in violent red.
It drenched the trees until their bark ran like flesh.
It soaked the scattered bones of the dead woman, abandoned in a crooked sprawl where her body had collapsed. And it bathed Eoghan as he crawled through the ruin.
__Eoghan: "Shanane…"
Her name bled from his mouth like a wound.
He dragged himself forward, breath ragged, body twisted in agony. His ribs cracked with each motion. His left arm hung useless. Blood streamed from a gash above his brow, blinding him. But he clawed through the muck and ash, pulling himself by his fingertips toward the place where she had vanished, as if his touch could reach across dimensions and pull her back.
He reached the torn fabric of her dress and seized it as if it were the last thread tying her soul to the world. Its silk clung to his fingers, damp with rain and ash, warm from the fading memory of her body. Her scent still lingered, faint, haunting, tangled with blood and burned roots.
He pressed the dress against his chest, knuckles white, and sobbed without shame.
Tears streaked down his blood-soaked face in fierce, desperate torrents. They fell loud and wild, raw as the pain that ripped through his soul. These were the cries of a man torn from within, gutted by loss, consumed by absence.
His voice broke as he spoke her name again, louder each time. No answer came to his desperate call; only the relentless blood rain answered, falling heavy and unyielding.
The ritual dagger lay beside him. Its blade, once alive with cursed light, had split down the center like something shattered from within. The runes carved along its surface were silent now, hollow, as though even the magic had recoiled in fear of what had taken place.
He stared at it with wide, fevered eyes. His fingers trembled as he reached for it to feel the last thing that had touched her hand before the storm claimed her. He gripped the blade tightly. Blood welled between his fingers.
Thunder rolled in the distance, slow, grieving, like the sky itself remembering her scream.
He lifted his head and looked toward the heavens. The moon transformed into a raw, open wound. It lost its roundness and wholeness, stretching across the night in ragged streaks of crimson that pulsed with fierce life.
Clutching the torn dress tightly, he lifted it toward the darkened sky, as though presenting a plea to the merciless gods who had claimed her. His voice broke through the swirling storm of blood and ash, raw and desperate.
__Eoghan: "You took her! Bring her back! Take me instead...!"
His cry cracked the stillness like lightning with no flame to follow. He collapsed over the cloth, clutching it to his chest, his body wracked with sobs that tore from his throat like curses.
He lay there, broken and still, while the world continued to bleed.
~~~~~~~~~
Somewhere beyond the veil, a shadow stirred. It whispered his child's name with a voice drenched in possession, claiming her as its own with reverent finality.
Far beneath the earth, deeper than roots and older than bones, something ancient let out a slow, echoing laugh—a sound that rumbled through the dark like a promise carved in stone.
~~~~~~~~~~~
The End!