Silence.
That was the first thing Rey felt as he plunged into the Blood Drain. Not the cold. Not the pain. Just… silence.
The river wasn't made of water. It was thick—viscous, polluted with the decay of centuries, and dyed a deep, poisoned red. Corpses had long dissolved into its depths. Souls may have still lingered. But Rey didn't care. He let himself sink, his broken body drifting like a dead leaf in a bloodstorm.
His ears rang. His limbs refused to move. The grafted monster organs inside him twitched, confused by the ancient magic in the water. His vision blurred, the red waves around him seeming like the inside of a living beast.
And yet…
He was free.
For the first time in seven years, no chains held him. No monster pressed its claws against his throat. No whip lashed his skin.
He floated.
Alive, barely—but alive on his own terms.
Rey closed his eyes. His memories returned in a blur. His parents. His home. The sound of laughter. The crackling of a birthday candle. His little sister chasing him through the hallway. Their faces were blurry now—like fading stars in a polluted sky—but the warmth… the warmth remained.
Then came the Abyss.
The monsters.
The castle.
Fianna.
He clenched his teeth until his gums bled.
They had broken his body.
They had tried to erase his will.
But he was still Rey.
And he would never forget.
He didn't know how far the river dragged him. Time warped in the Abyss. Hours could become days. He passed under bridges of bones, through tunnels of stone shaped like screaming mouths. Once, he thought he heard voices whispering beneath the surface—laughing, weeping, praying. Maybe they were the souls of others who had tried to escape.
Eventually, his body struck something hard.
A sharp stone. Jagged and cruel.
He coughed violently, thick black-red water gushing from his mouth. Every breath was agony, but the pain grounded him. He clawed at the rock, half-crawling, half-dragging himself onto a narrow ledge along the river's edge.
His skin was torn. His veins pulsed erratically from the corruption. The monster organs twitched inside him like worms, barely functioning.
But his heart—
That still beat.
"I made it," he whispered hoarsely, voice no more than a croak. "I made it out."
The air here was cold. Stale. Untouched.
Above him, a pale blood moon hovered over the horizon, bathing the cliffs in a dull red glow.
He laid there for hours, maybe longer, just breathing.
Then… something stirred inside him. Not pain. Not rage.
Conviction.
They thought they had broken him. They thought they had stolen everything—his pride, his dignity, his humanity.
But they had only buried it.
And now, it was rising.
Rey sat up slowly, muscles screaming with each movement. His body was a patchwork of failure and survival. His spine creaked. His knees trembled.
But his eyes—his eyes burned with fire.
"I'm coming back," he said, a whisper carried by the breeze. "And I'll return as something even you monsters can't imagine."
The blood river gurgled behind him, as if acknowledging his vow.
Rey tore off the remnants of the shredded prison robe. He dipped his fingers into the dark red water and smeared two lines across his face—his first mark of rebellion.
Then, like a crawling beast, he began to move into the shadows of the Abyss.
Not as prey.
Not as a slave.
But as something far worse for his enemies—
A survivor with nothing left to lose.
---