Neriah Vale Pov:
Darkness swallowed me whole.
"Where the hell am I?" My voice didn't echo it just vanished into the black, thick as tar, heavy as memory. I stood there, lost, swallowed by nothingness.
The cold in there wasn't skin-deep.
It sank into bone, into marrow, into the silence I thought I'd outrun. But this same darkness always finds me.
A faint light appeared ahead, like a doorway slowly opening gentle, familiar. Not blinding, but the kind that made me believe, for a moment, that maybe this time it would be different.
I walked toward it slowly, each step soundless, deliberate. As I crossed the threshold, I wondered… maybe this time, I'd step into something like heaven's lie.
But the moment my foot crossed over, I knew.
A nightmare etched into memory
unchanging, unyielding, returning night after night, a curse that refused to fade.
I entered a playground I once ran to for joy, now drowned in dark blue.
The air reeked faintly of rust and rain.
The swings creaked like old bones, moving on their own. Ghosts with nowhere else to go rode them.
Then there they were.
Two bodies, laid out like broken prayers massacred beyond mercy.
I was only fifteen.
Too young to see that kind of cruelty.
Too old to ever forget it.
Most kids would've cried. Screamed. Begged for answers:
Why them? Why now?
But me?
I just stood there. Watching.
Cold. Unmoved on the outside… even as something deep inside shifted forever.
Then the voices came.
Unfamiliar. Unknown. Whispered.
"Kill them all." The first voice spat venom like poison. "Spill their blood for what they did. You're their son!."
"No." The second chilled my blood — cold and distant. "Let it go. They abandoned you for fifteen years. They don't deserve your love… or your revenge."
The last was barely a breath, soft as a falling leaf. "End it. Join them. You don't deserve this life. Just… stop breathing."
"Shut up," I said, calm, not pleading.
They only laughed, echoing louder until the sound pressed at the edges of my mind.
"Shut up!" I screamed.
The air quivered.
A pulse built under my skin, faint at first, then pounding like a second heartbeat.
Blue-dark energy ripped free, writhing like shadow shot through with lightning.
It hissed and coiled, tendrils lashing outward, hungry for release.
The air thickened, sharp with ozone,
as if the world itself was bracing to break.
---
I sat upright, my breathing steady, heartbeat already at its usual rhythm.
Sunlight slipped through the blinds, painting my room gold. The scent of coffee drifted faintly from the kitchen downstairs.
It was morning already.
This dream never fades, but i hope one day it will. I just hope the voices don't crawl back into my reality again.
I let a few slow breaths pass, the tension flowing out like smoke. My hands were still. My heartbeat slowed. The cold from the dream stayed lodged in my bones, but it was mine to carry, not the other way around.
There were tears in my eyes not from breaking down, just from the memory forcing itself through. I wiped them away without a second thought.
I looked around. Yeah, I was back.
Back to reality.
Back to the silence of my big, room.
A bed shoved into the corner.
A desk buried in books I never opened.
A closet of untouched clothes.
The console under the TV still in its box a gift from my parents the week before they died. I'd never touched it.
The room looked lived in, but not by me.
Death is a fate everyone will face whether you go in silence, surrounded by people, taken by accident, or torn away violently. In the end… you're forgotten. No echoes of your laughter, no traces of your pain, no one left to hold on to the moments you lived for. The world just keeps moving, like you never even existed.
But my parents… they was a different case. They were the greatest heroes this world had ever known. They didn't vanish into silence their names still burn on the lips of the people they saved they are unforgettable.
And the strange voices that once found me… they always clawed at my silence, haunted my sleep, and burned into the marrow of my nightmares and my days. Whispers in the dark wrapped around my thoughts until I couldn't tell which ones were truly mine.
I glanced at my hands. No shaking. No weakness. Just the frost of the dream clinging faintly to my skin.
But what if the voices weren't strange at all? but my own thoughts, split and screaming back at me? That terrified me more than anything. So much that even breathing felt like defiance. Every step forward felt like walking into a storm I couldn't survive.
Who knows what fate waits in the shadows, patient and relentless, ready to claim me the moment I let my guard down.
Legs swung over the edge of the bed as I stood, taking a step. Blue-dark light flowed across my body, smooth and quiet, wrapping me in a soft, living glow. It drifted like smoke in gentle currents, weightless and serene, tracing my form with the grace of moonlight on water. For a heartbeat, the dream pressed close, but the aura moved before I did, settling around me like a protective veil. I let it linger, delicate as breath, shimmering faintly along my skin. And then, as if it had never been, it slipped away vanishing into nothing, leaving only the faint echo of its presence behind. Hands moving well, mask back in place, every movement precise, deliberate. Nothing not even the shadows in my mind could stop me.
I strode into the bathroom, splashing cold water on my face, and lifted my eyes to the mirror. For a moment, I just stared at the droplets sliding down my skin, at the stranger staring back at me.
Tired black eyes, deep, sharp, and watchful, shadowed by sleepless nights and quiet pain.
Grey-black hair, carefully kept straight and neat, like a mask of order over the chaos inside.
My skin was pale, almost smooth, a shield I wore to keep the world at bay.
The lines around my mouth were tight, lips pressed as if holding back words that could break me.A face that could pass, but only barely like a photograph faded by time, still familiar but weighed down by what I'd lost.
I took a shower and After I was done, I went back to my room. The quiet of the house pressed around me, soft and familiar, yet heavy with the lingering echoes of the morning. I pulled on a blue-light hood and plain black trousers, the fabric settling like armor over my skin. Every movement felt deliberate, measured, as if preparing for something unseen.
"Neriah? Are you awake?"
Her voice was soft, almost hesitant, followed by a light knock at the door.
I moved and opened it. She stood there, concern and curiosity shining in her eyes, and her long black hair spilled like ink over one shoulder, catching the light in strands that seemed almost alive. The black-and-white maid uniform she always wore framed her with quiet elegance, making her presence steady and reassuring fitting for someone who had always been my caretaker.
She smiled, brightening at the sight of me.
"Good morning, Mira," I said softly, my voice low.
She blinked, a little surprised I hadn't greeted her like that in the past years.
"Good morning, Master," Mira said, recovering quickly. "Breakfast is ready."
"Thanks,I really appreciate it," I replied evenly, my voice carrying a brightness it hadn't held in a long time.
Her eyes widened slightly, a small smile tugging at her lips. She hadn't expected this sudden warmth from me.
"I don't need you to thank me. You are my master."
The words always landed wrong, but I didn't let it show.
"Can you do me a favor and not call me 'Master'?"
Her smile faltered, but her posture remained steady, eyes meeting mine with quiet resolve. "i can't do that. You are my master, and that is the only way I will address you."
She had been with me since I was a kid, caring for me under my parents' orders. But when they died, she stayed. Through every dark moment, she never left. Her presence was steady, quiet, and motherly a constant I could rely on when the world offered none.
"Call me by my own name, Neriah," I said, softer now. "And… if it bothers you, just think of me as your son."
That would be fair. I think i should have told her sooner.The thought settled in my chest, steady and small, like a quiet pulse of comfort.
Her eyes widened, the words hitting her deeper than I'd expected. A warmth flickered there, as if she'd been waiting years to hear them.
"If that's okay with you, then fine. I'll call you by your name," she said softly.
"Good," I replied as i nodded.
Her smile broke then small and fragile, but real. For the first time in years, I felt like I'd given her something, instead of just taking.
"Hurry up, before your breakfast gets cold," she said, turning back toward the kitchen.
I gave a faint smile, small but real. "I'll be done in a minute."