From the hollow remnants of a dying cosmos, where galaxies unravel like frayed memories, the realm of Oisdara emerges.
Lanterns flicker—glowing like the last breath of a dying fire.
Few would believe it: Where galaxies come to die, a lone Ossuary Stage.
Half-ruined, yet eerily elegant, it clings to the edge of oblivion. Its bone-white seats—carved from cosmic marrow and veined with frozen starlight—wait, cool, and whispering, beneath your touch.
And in those seats, the dead sit.
Frozen. Disordered. Twitching in forgotten spasms. Others slump headless, necks torn, their decay perfuming the air with a sweet, rancid rot. They lean forward in crooked silence, skin pulled too tight across bone. One jaw clicks open—then shuts, like a puppet waiting for its cue. Another's neck jerks. Empty sockets peer into the gloom—not with sight, but with hunger.
None blink.
A wet rattle escapes a sunken chest. Fingers flex. Bone grates against bone. What remains of their eyes glisten wide and unyielding—windows that have long since forgotten the sun.
And then... she arrives.
At the heart of this cathedral of ruin, she emerges—as if memory itself had conjured her back from oblivion. A throne of horror-bones, bleached by starlight and terror, awaits her.
The sound reverberates through time, raising gooseflesh across what skin remains. The air vibrates with its icy echo.
From the shadows, a figure steps forward.
The faint rustle of silk precedes her. The cold of the stone steps kisses her feet. Her eyes—glowing violet, flickering like embers behind a cracked raven-shaped skull mask. Her hair flows like ink through bone, cascading in mist and memory.
Her body is an elegy: a goddess reimagined through rot. Bones dark as void ivory. A dress of black lace and layered leather cloaks her form—shaped not by life, but by death's grace. She moves like smoke, like sin, like a ceremony.
And she speaks:
"Hello, my little nightmares..."
She says it like a secret tell between lovers—or the whisper of a blade drawn down your spine.
Her voice—raspy, smooth, rich with the ache of unspoken things—lingers like perfume in a crypt.
Then she steps into view and grins. The corpses shift.Some lean forward. One clap. Another moan.
The theater comes to life.
The air grows taut with unease as the skeletal audience applauds—a chilling, syncopated echo that should not be.
"It is an exquisite delight to make your acquaintance," she croons, her voice a velvet curse laid upon the void. The dead tremble.
A spotlight explodes at center stage. Shadows twist and shriek. Phantom scenes flicker into being. She laughs, a sound too old to belong to anything alive, and walks to her throne.
"I am Hela Grimm—older than the void, deeper than the first whisper of time. The Ascendants, the gods you've forgotten, were still young when I was carved from the scream between stars."
The corpses shudder. Skeletal heads tilt.
She leans forward. Her heel grinds into the stone beneath her, and the asteroid groans under her disdain.
"And you," she sneers. "You pitiful husks... you've been dead so long you've forgotten our gods. Not the ones fed by prayers and fear—but those who shaped existence itself.
Her eyes ignite—twin infernos of carnal, cosmic fire.
"Time. Light. Magic. Gravity. Passion. Death. These were not worshipped. They awoke. And one among them..."
She breathes, though she does not need breath—only drama.
"One... became everything."
The shadows behind her swirl. Images form: the clash of titans, a burning crown of eyes, a flame that devours light itself.
"Qaritas," she whispers—a name like a curse and a promise.
"Ascendant of the Void. First King. Father of gods. Husband to the cosmos. Champion of dying worlds."
The corpses still. Even the twitching halts. The dying galaxy outside moans, its light curdling.
"But we begin," she continues, her voice now silk soaked in blood, "not in glory, nor in ruin—but in a cradle of ash."
A skeletal child claps. Another drops a heart-snack.
"Born from the corpse of a universe," she intones. "Qaritas emerged after a war between the True God and his son—the First Evil. A war that shattered the 1,999 universes."
The spotlight dims. Her hands rise.
The void trembles like a curtain ready to be torn.
"And from that destruction... something impossible began."
She leans close. Her words vibrate through you—like a scream remembered, not heard.
"This is the story of Qaritas."
She spreads her arms.
"So take your seat, loves. Get cozy. You're already dead, anyway."
A seat of starlight and jawbones awaits.
The stars part.
The curtains draw back.
Hela curls a finger between her ribs—and grins.
"Because when the god of Nothingness wants something... the universe has no choice but to tremble."
And as her tale unfolds, we return to that first crack in time.