On the other side of the screen, the room went quiet, broken only by the sound of uneven breathing and the soft, choking sobs coming from Ethan by the wall. The boy was curled in on himself, hands tangled in his hair, refusing to look at the image of Evodil's limp body pinned to the spike. His whole frame trembled as his silver eyes darted across the floor, searching desperately for something solid to focus on, anything to anchor himself until it was over.
One of the four screens mounted on the pillar in the center of the Manor's entrance hall was shattered completely. The shadows no longer protected it. Shards of glass littered the floor beside a warhammer that no longer burned with fire, reduced to a dull, obsidian-like weapon. Its owner stood turned away from the wreckage, a cigarette held between his fingers as he drew from it slowly. James' shades hid his eyes, his face angled just enough to make it clear he wouldn't look at the screen again, not if this was going to be the last image burned into his memory.
Jasper remained seated nearby. He wasn't watching the screen anymore. He took a deep breath, steady, controlled. No shaking. No jokes. His gaze rested on his knee, where a jagged shard of glass had caught in the fabric of his pants, grazing skin but not breaking it. A small mercy. He flicked it away with his fingers and sighed, the sound sharp in the silence. "So that's it," he muttered, more breath than voice, before lowering his eyes to his hands, choosing to follow James' lead and look anywhere else.
Only Noah was still staring at the screen.
His eyes were wide, unfocused, hands gripping his hair as his fingers twisted into it, pulling hard as if pain might wake him from what he had just seen. His mind spiraled backward through memories he couldn't stop. Evodil fighting James in the Citadel, again and again, never winning. Bursting into the underground and tearing a hole through the cavern ceiling. Inviting them to the Manor. Jasper arriving late. Being thrown through a window.
What happens now.
The thought lodged itself deep and refused to move.
What happens to us if we're still alive.
His gaze didn't leave the body hanging on the screen. Does it come for us.Does Azraem kill us one by one.Does it start with Ethan.Or does it reset everything anyway.
His chest tightened. How does it feel.Does it burn.Is there nothing.Do we remember it next time, like he did.
There were no answers. Just the image of his friend. His brother. Suspended there because he believed he could save everyone. Because he convinced himself he had to be the hero of a story that never asked for one. Because he couldn't accept the idea that he might be weaker than someone else.
Noah's hands slipped from his hair and fell limp at his sides.
And now they were all going to die for it.
Because Evodil acted without thinking.
And because Noah had thought too much.
The moment stretched into an eternity and vanished all at once. No one spoke. Breathing, crying—those were the only sounds left in the room. The television screens were the sole source of light, casting pale reflections over their faces, enough to reveal desperation, frustration, fear.
Ethan's sobbing faltered for a brief second. His glasses slipped from his sharp ears and clattered onto the floor beside him. The world blurred, but the image on the screen didn't fade. It was burned into him, carved so deeply into his mind that he wondered if he had already died. After all, he had never really been alive, had he? Just a child Evodil had pulled from a dead mother's womb and given a second chance. And now, because he couldn't help him, they were all going to die.
James' cigarette snapped in half in his grip. Ash spilled onto his suit before the broken pieces fell to the floor. He crushed them under his shoe, the floorboard creaking, wood groaning as if it might split beneath the pressure. He reached for another cigarette, hands shaking just enough to betray him. The pack slipped from his fingers, scattering across the floor. He shouted—raw, wordless—and stomped them again and again until nothing remained but loose tobacco ground into the wood. Jasper flinched behind him.
Jasper himself kept his eyes lowered, staring into the darkness of his own hands. He said nothing. He didn't want to see their faces. Didn't want to watch them break, or rot, or twist into something unbearable before the end came.
Noah stood.
He didn't announce it. He didn't speak. He simply walked forward until he was standing in front of the screen. He drew in a slow breath and placed his hand against the glass. It was cold. Really cold. For once, he felt something instead of nothing.
If this is the last thing I feel, he thought, then let it be the same thing he felt.
He didn't smash the screen. He didn't scream. He just stood there, eyes wide, accepting what was coming with the little grace he had left. A faint smirk tugged at his mouth as a memory surfaced—something Evodil had once told him in the White Palace, back when they were searching for James and Jasper among the city's ruins.
Probably a lie, he realized now.
It took a few steps back and tilted its head upward, its damaged eye locking onto the hovering drone. The mood around it was sickeningly happy, so intense it bled through the screen and into the Manor itself. It stared directly into the lens—into them—as if daring them to try their turn.
After a moment, it grew bored.
Its gaze dropped to the empty space beside its hand. A small, white glowing square materialized in the air. One clawed finger extended and pressed against it.
Everything shot into white; the walls of the manor were the color white, the chairs and the screens, the darkness was no more anywhere in the world as it became a giant lightbulb across the darkness of the multiverse, one of many that Azraem has already made to keep the world to being his only with no one else being able to control it, not even the man, the GOD he hated the most could stop him now, not in combat as long as he was inside of his domain.
Everything was a stainless, white void with absolutely nothing in it, no one could be seen inside of it, it seemed for a while like everyone was gone and Evodil had fought for nothing until.. he himself appeared. The fully black-clothed god was a stain in the void with no mistakes at all; of course, as always, he was a mistake that reality refused to acknowledge, not even wanting to erase him with everything else, letting him stay and feel his actions, but he didn't even stand up.
He just sighed, covering his eyes now without the blindfold on since Azraem had ripped it away from him. He used his elbow as he took a breath and sighed again, seemingly not wanting to stand up or move from the place of his rest, being content with doing nothing at all ever since he had woken up to the lies that his reality told him. Just breathing, even though he didn't need to due to his utterly unique biology, maybe it made him feel more human, or maybe it made him feel like he was alive when he was just an imitation of it, locked in a body that was never his.
But what he didn't see was that a figure stood right next to him, not saying anything yet as it stared down at him with a smirk on its face, finding the fact that a lesser god could fit itself at death's door and get into their domain of peaceful white, stainless, memoryless white. It was dressed in a white robe with golden etching at the edge, the fabric flowing all the way to their feet and ending right before hitting the glowing white floor. Its face was covered in a half-mask that looked like a masquerade one but only the happy half on the right side of their face; on top of its head, covered by the robe's hood, stayed a crown that looked like a halo, spikey at the edges like a star. The robe wasn't buttoned; it exposed a simple white shirt with a golden chain surrounding its waist, and its right thigh had another golden chain around it. The figure's eyes were heterochromatic: one sky-blue, the other a violet so bright it almost looked like a fake image of the cosmos.
The figure didn't do anything to move Evodil, other than a gentle light kick to his feet with its own, chuckling as it looked at him with its interest increasing. Could the god have died already before even saying a hello to the owner of the domain it has died inside of?
"It wonders if the guest is simply waiting for an invitation to exist," the figure said, its voice maintaining the exact same cadence as the air around them. "Or perhaps the traveler is too exhausted by the white to notice the figure standing right over him."
The figure leaned down, the golden chains clinking as it tilted its masked face toward the man on the floor.
"It sees the way the shadow clings to him," the voice continued, smooth and detached. "A stain that refuses to be bleached. It finds the persistence quite fascinating, really. Does the guest intend to speak, or will it be forced to watch the guest breathe until the end of time?"
Evodil finally groaned, taking his elbow off his eye sockets and looking over at the creature. He raised himself on a single arm, not bothering to stand, and pointed a finger at the figure standing in front of him.
"Could you shut the hell up and let me die in peace?"
He glanced around the place for just a moment, then let himself drop back onto the floor with another groan.
"Where are we?"
The figure didn't answer. It went quiet this time.
Finally, the figure blinked. Once. Then twice. Its grin stretched wider as it looked down at the god below it, lower in both rank and height. It lifted its hand and waved slowly, almost lazily, like someone acknowledging an animal behind glass.
"Can you hear me?" it asked. "Have you been hearing me this whole time?"
"Yes," Evodil replied flatly. "I heard you since you started talking about everything going white in the manor. About the universe turning into a giant lightbulb or whatever that was."
The figure chuckled.
"My apologies," it said. "I do tend to talk. I like to narrate things. Lots of things. Almost everything I see. Sometimes even myself, when I'm bored." Its head tilted slightly. "And you're keeping me from getting bored right now."
It spread its arms just a little, gesturing to the endless white around them.
"You're inside my domain," it continued. "I haven't had a guest in quite some time. The last one… well. She didn't visit so much as linger. A goddess. Endless, meaningless company." It waved the thought away. "But that doesn't matter now. I have a new guest to welcome."
Evodil raised an eyebrow at the theatrical way the figure spoke, all gestures and posture, but didn't answer. He leaned back down onto the cold, glowing floor instead. He took another breath and stared upward. Closing his eyes didn't really work, so he settled for looking at the white sky.
"What's your name?" he asked.
The figure's grin sharpened at the question. It repeated it under its breath, as if tasting the words, then stroked its chin for a moment. Stepping back, still facing Evodil, it bowed. A white top hat appeared in its hand as if pulled from nowhere, mockingly formal.
"I am a god of stories," it said, straightening. "And of peace. I have collected many names. Enough that it hardly matters which one you choose." It paused, then smiled wider. "But if you insist… refer to me as The Fallen. Or just F, if you prefer."
It stepped closer and crouched beside him, the white fabric pooling against the floor.
"And you?" it asked. "What brings you here?"
Evodil sighed. He tried to wiggle away without standing, curling onto his other side so his back faced The Fallen.
"I've heard your name before," he said. "In a palace. Once or twice. People mistook me for you, so I used it."
That made the figure laugh.
"Who would confuse us?" it asked. "I have white hair. Yours is black. Mine doesn't trail half as long as yours does."
Evodil rolled the white pinpricks of his pupils within the darkness of his eyes.
"Then you're nothing like what people imagine a god of peace to be," he muttered.
He went quiet for a moment, then finally answered the question.
"I'm probably dead," he said. "Or dying. Maybe neither. Who knows." His voice was tired, stripped down. "I've lost too many times for it to matter anymore. When, where, or to who. I lose. That's all there is to it."
The figure stared blankly at Evodil's sudden somber mood, straightening as it continued to look down at him. Evodil could feel the weight of that stare pressing into him before he felt the kick to his back, sharp and deliberate, followed by the figure's laughter.
"You really do change moods fast," The Fallen said, amused. "First you're rude, then you start confessing your deepest fears like I care."
It chuckled again, circling to the side Evodil was curled on and crouching once more.
"Tell me about that palace," it said. "The one where you heard my name."
Evodil sighed and nodded. He shifted again, laying on his back, and began to speak.
"It was white," he said. "A palace. I never figured out its real name, not even after stepping inside it. The last time I was there was long ago. Very long."
The Fallen nodded along as he spoke, stroking its chin. Its eyes widened slightly, a smirk forming as it snapped its fingers and stood up, spinning in place before turning back toward him.
"Did it have a beam of energy in one of the rooms?" it asked.
Evodil answered with a short nod.
That made The Fallen smile. It turned away, twirling again as it thought for a moment.
"And did it have a chair," it continued, "with a star set into the headrest?"
"Yes," Evodil said, this time pushing himself up on one arm. "What does any of this have to do with you? And why are you asking so much if you clearly know what I'm talking about?"
The Fallen let out a huff and turned back to him.
"You really don't understand suspense," it said. "Or how to play a role you're given."
It raised one finger as if making a point.
"You were in Albedo Castle," it continued. "A palace, if you insist on calling it that. Though it never defended anything. Never protected anyone. It was a house. For all of them."
Evodil opened his mouth to ask what it meant by "them," but The Fallen cut him off. It leaned forward, its masked face far too close to his.
"Then why are you still here?" it asked. "If you died, you should have vanished already. Left me alone to deal with higher things. God things. Stories. Endings. Suffering, on repeat."
Evodil groaned but didn't try to push it away. He leaned back onto the floor instead, putting what little distance he could between them.
"What does it matter?" he said. "I'm impaled on a spike, bleeding out. If I'm not gone already, I will be in a few seconds. Then I'll be out of your hair."
The Fallen rolled its eyes, looking again at Evodil as it sat down beside him. It smoothed out its robes, meticulously removing any wrinkles and ensuring the lesser god didn't touch it.
"That was not what I meant to say to you," the Fallen said. Its voice was steady, watching as Evodil slumped. "I want you to acknowledge that since you aren't dead yet, there is a chance of living through this. If Azraem hasn't killed you, the loop isn't over. You have a chance to fight back one more time."
How the hell does he know who Azraem is?
Evodil didn't ask. The Fallen was called the God of Stories for a reason. He had been watching them for a long time, perhaps existing in two spaces at once just to see how the tale ended. Evodil laughed at the god above him.
"Even if I somehow came back to that body, I couldn't get the spike out," Evodil said. "I can't regenerate in that place. There are no shadows. My abilities are useless." He coughed, the sound hollow. "Besides, I lost the battle of mentalities too. I'm not stronger than Azraem in anything. I'm going to lose if I come back, again and again. No memory or knowledge is going to help that."
The Fallen didn't answer for a while.
It just stared down at Evodil. As its eyes narrowed, they began to change, mimicking the darkness around Evodil's own pupils. The void surrounded the violet and blue eyes of the figure until the reflection was perfect.
"Is this all you wanted?" the Fallen asked. "Just to brag about your strength instead of saving your brothers and your new son? The son that you promised you would stay for? You told him you would put an end to the loops."
Evodil didn't laugh this time.
His eyes narrowed back as he stared at the Fallen. His pupils widened, turning into small spheres inside of the darkness instead of the needles they had been during the fight with Azraem.
"You have no idea if I care about them at all or if I ever did," Evodil said. "I always wanted to be the strongest there is and now Azraem beat me at my own goal. I have nothing to live for. I'm going to wait until my body bleeds out and I disappear to suffer once more in the endlessness of loops."
The Fallen didn't react.
It simply stared at him before straightening its back and turning away. "Maybe you're right," it said. "Maybe I don't know if you care. Maybe I know nothing but how to humor myself. But that would make us both more alike than you care to admit."
The Fallen turned back. Its eyes had returned to their natural colors, the mimicry gone. Its hand extended forward.
"It's time to get to the true reason why you are even alive for now," it said. "But that could very quickly end."
The crowns on its head began to slowly raise. The white hair beneath the hood puffed up, no longer weighted down by the heavy material. The crowns began to spin in circles, stationary like a moon to a planet, like a clock ticking off the remaining time. Its hand stayed out, waiting for Evodil to grab it.
"It's not easy to change a higher being's opinion," the Fallen said. "As far as I can see, you care about your family. If you didn't, you would have used everyone else's strength to fight for you. You would have let them weaken Azraem, or gotten him out of his domain and fought him only after they had all died. Instead, you let yourself die."
The Fallen looked him in the eye.
"Do you find yourself having trouble finding your own life's purpose or a goal to reach for? I could help you find one. Serve under my guidance as I lead you towards the best path I can see. In exchange, the road will be anything but easy. If you take this deal, you will have to make the most interesting story that the God of Stories ever saw. Nothing else and nothing more."
Evodil finally looked at him. The Fallen was no longer sitting, standing over him now with a hand extended. Evodil didn't move at first, choosing to stare past the figure and into the colorless, soulless sky of the domain. It was a hollow place for a God of Stories to live. A creator existing in a complete and utter void.
Maybe he's lying. Maybe he isn't going to help me at all.
It didn't matter. He had nothing left to lose. If he died here, the loop would reset, or perhaps it wouldn't. Both endings felt equally empty. Evodil sat up in silence, his gaze fixed on the hand staying perfectly still in front of his face. He sighed, decided to risk it all one last time, and reached out.
He stood up and shook the hand.
He looked directly into the Fallen's eyes. His own pupils were no longer shrinking or consuming the darkness around them; they were just two small circles in the ink. The white void of the domain felt too familiar, too much like the emptiness inside his own body. I hate this. It's like this place understands me when I don't even understand myself.
Evodil looked down at their interlocked hands. He had sold the last thing he truly owned for a victory that, in the long run, felt practically meaningless. He looked back at the Fallen. The higher being smirked at him.
"Good luck on the writing," the Fallen said.
"Do whatever the hell you want," Evodil answered.
It took a few steps back and tilted its head upward, its damaged eye locking onto the hovering drone. The mood around it was sickeningly happy, so intense it bled through the screen and into the Manor itself. It stared directly into the lens—into them—as if daring them to try their turn.
After a moment, it grew bored.
Its gaze dropped to the empty space beside its hand. A small, white glowing square materialized in the air. One clawed finger extended and pressed against it.
But nothing happened. Azraem pushed the white button again, but the universe around it didn't flinch. There were no screams. No land fell apart or collapsed in on itself. There was only the darkness of the abyss where it had just fought Evodil.
Azraem's eye was still slowly healing from the stone. The crack in the center of its chest was still closing, the same wound it had used to finally put Evodil down and hang his body on the boulder's spike.
How is this happening?
Evodil was dead. No one was left to defeat it. The timeline should have reset to the moment of birth. Everything should have restarted so that the only thing that changed was the way it killed him. Azraem pushed the button again. It made nothing but a faint tapping noise.
Then it heard the silence.
The melody of Evodil's blood dripping onto the dark floor had stopped. The shallow, croaking breathing had vanished. Before Azraem could turn around, a fist connected with its jaw.
The blow sent it flying. Azraem slammed into a boulder with enough force to crush the stone. Sharp fragments penetrated its marble skin, tearing into its back and the dark sections of its hands and head.
Evodil stood where the creature had been.
He used the sleeve of his cloak to rub the blood from his mouth, a smirk returning to his face as he watched Azraem struggle to stand. The giant eye widened at the sight of him. Evodil stood tall, his black hair flowing as he straightened his posture. He looked at his hands; the hole in his palm was gone. His shoulders were whole, the wounds from the hair spikes completely vanished.
The Fallen had held up its end of the deal.
Now I just have to finish this.
Evodil cracked his knuckles, the smirk on his face widening as he looked straight at Azraem, its eye still lying on the ground, twitching as if it hadn't fully processed what had just happened. He tilted his head slightly.
"You've got something in your eye," he said flatly. "Actually… no. It looks worse than that. You might want to get that checked."
He laughed on his own, short and sharp, then glanced back over his shoulder. The Fallen stood behind him, its presence faint, distorted, almost like a hologram flickering in the darkness.
"Stagger it," the Fallen said calmly. "Just enough. I'll open a pathway."
Evodil nodded once. He turned back, fist clenched and extended forward, grounding himself. Memories flooded in uninvited. All one hundred sixty-six versions before him. Every James. Every Jasper. Every Noah. Caroline. It felt like this moment had been waiting for them, all of them, piled into a single point. The point of no return. The moment he could finally act as himself again, even if it was for someone else's sake. Even if it was to make a story no one had ever seen before. Not even the God of Stories.
He started walking.
Azraem forced itself upright, one clawed hand pressing against the side of its head. For a brief moment, it genuinely believed this was a hallucination. A concussion so severe it was seeing Evodil standing where a corpse should have been. But the closer he got, the clearer it became.
He was real.
Azraem's eye narrowed. It tried to speak, to mock him for trying again, but Evodil didn't even look at it. He just kept walking.
Azraem stepped forward as well.
Evodil smirked.
Two more Evodils appeared beside Azraem, their footsteps silent. Before it could even turn its head, they were already moving. One grabbed its hair and yanked it down hard. The other drove a fist into its gut. The mouth beneath its jaw split open as it groaned, sound tearing out of it raw and uncontrolled.
Then the real one hit.
Evodil's punch connected cleanly with Azraem's face, snapping its head to the side. It staggered back, barely dodging the next strike. It was taller, harder to reach, so Evodil dropped low and drove his fist straight into its knee. The joint buckled. Azraem screamed again through the jaw-mouth, claws reaching out, but too slow.
A kick slammed into its side, sending it skidding into another boulder. It caught itself just before a jagged spike could tear through its torso.
Evodil watched it steady itself.
"As much as I've enjoyed our little tea party for the last few trillion years," he said, voice even, almost bored, "I prefer coffee. Alone. In my manor. After getting rid of useless vermin."
Azraem tried to answer, but the sound that came out was a low, animal growl. Then it screamed.
The abyss shook.
Evodil clamped his hands over his ears as the sound tore through him, pressure building until his skull felt like it would split. The scream dragged on, Azraem's jaw tearing wider, wider—
And in the distance, beyond the void, something shifted.
In the endless white, the Fallen found them.
The scream ended, and Azraem lunged. Claws out. Hair snapping into spikes, ready to pierce him again. Evodil saw it then—a glowing white pathway opening behind Azraem, leading out of the void, into a forested area beyond.
He didn't hesitate.
They collided head-on. Six spikes punched straight through Evodil's chest. Two claws dug into his flesh, tearing, pulling. Black essence spilled from the wounds, splattering between them.
He didn't stop.
Evodil wrapped his arms around Azraem and drove forward, dragging it with him toward the portal. Azraem realized what was happening too late. It tried to pull back, claws retracting, body twisting away—but they were already crossing through.
They hit grass.
The portal began to close.
Azraem screamed and tried to retreat, scrambling back toward the white edge, but it snapped shut before it could escape. A massive chunk of its left arm was severed cleanly, left behind as the portal vanished.
Azraem collapsed, screaming again, the wound at its shoulder a gaping hole ringed with teeth, thrashing in agony as the void was sealed off behind it.