Eros woke to heat.
His body shuddered as if torn from the jaws of fire, lungs dragging in thick air that seared his throat. He found himself kneeling on a plain of ash, the ground powdery and dry beneath his fingers. The sky above bled with light, a furnace of reds and oranges that burned without a sun.
For a long moment he didn't move. The world felt wrong, too vivid, too heavy. Every breath pressed down like molten stone.
Then he noticed the rock in front of him.
It jutted out of the wasteland like the spine of a mountain, tall and cracked with scorch marks. Chains dangled from it, their iron links blackened and broken.
He blinked. His wrists ached, the skin raw and tender. He touched them and flinched.
He had been bound here.
The thought clawed down his spine. Whatever had held him was gone, but the pain remained.
He stood shakily, expecting his body to crumble under the heat. Instead, a strange strength ran through him. His limbs felt steadier, his back straighter. Even his height seemed different, though when he leaned toward the reflective surface of the chains, the face staring back was still his own—pale skin, wild black hair, green eyes.
Except now there was something sharper in them. Something more resilient.
He wasn't sure if that comforted him or terrified him.
A sting in his side drew his attention. He pulled up his shirt—or what little rags clung to him—and froze.
A fresh scar ran across the upper right of his abdomen, red and jagged. The skin throbbed with dull heat.
The moment he touched it, pain flared like a blade sliding into his gut. His knees buckled, and images ripped through his mind.
A shadow of wings. A scream that shook the sky. Talons sinking deep. A monstrous eagle, twisted beyond recognition, tearing into his abdomen with its beak. He felt his flesh rip, his organs torn, his blood pouring out.
He gasped and fell to the ash, clutching his head. The vision vanished as quickly as it came, but the phantom pain lingered, crawling beneath his skin.
«What… what was that?» Eros felt a deep pain in his head, trying to assimilate what he had seen.
When he managed to lift his gaze again, he saw something that turned his stomach.
Not far from the rock lay a skeleton. The bones were massive, spread wide as if they had fallen mid-flight. A bird, or what had once been one. Its skull was caved in, a single arrow lodged in the center like a cruel nail.
Eros staggered to his feet. He didn't need to look at it longer. His gut told him the bones belonged to the creature from his vision.
And if it had died here once… there might be more.
He forced himself to move.
The landscape stretched endlessly in every direction. Crumbling columns jutted from the ground like broken teeth. Shapes of temples rose in the distance, their stones fused with bone. Trees without leaves dripped molten fire from their branches, each drop sizzling as it hit the ash.
It was a nightmare built from myth, as if every story he had never bothered to learn at school had come back to strangle him.
He walked without aim, but the air itself carried hostility. He felt watched. Hunted.
Amanda's face flashed in his mind, bright against the dark. Was she here too? Was she walking through this same hell? Or had the book already consumed her completely?
The thought dug into him harder than the heat. He had escaped detention, risked everything, because she was the only thing left that mattered. If she was gone… if he found nothing but bones like the eagle's…
His steps faltered. He couldn't bear the idea. He pushed it down. Kept moving.
Movement in the distance caught his eye.
A wolf. At least, something shaped like one. Its body was stretched thin, patches of fur hanging like rotting cloth. A foul stench seemed to roll from it even at a distance.
It crouched low over something, tearing flesh from a carcass he couldn't see.
Eros' pulse raced. Every instinct screamed at him to freeze, to vanish. He crouched behind a shattered pillar and forced himself to breathe quietly.
That was when he realized.
He was naked. Completely. Well, apart from what was once a T-shirt or something similar, now hanging in tatters around his neck. He took it off and threw it to the ground.
A flush of panic went through him. It was ridiculous, compared to the monsters around him, but the vulnerability cut deeper than he expected. No protection, no tools, no dignity. Just exposed flesh.
«This is ridiculous…»
He remembered the survival camp his mother had once sent him to, back when life still had fragments of normalcy. Boy Scouts. Tents, campfires, rope knots he never bothered to learn. The instructor had said the same thing over and over: Water, shelter, food, tools. Without them, you die.
He clenched his jaw. Right now, he had none of those.
By some miracle, he found a narrow stream cutting through the ash. The water shimmered, impossibly clean. He dropped to his knees and drank greedily, the cool liquid sliding down his dry throat. He splashed it on his face, wiped his eyes, tried to feel human again.
Nearby, tall reeds swayed. He tore them up and clumsily knotted them around his waist, fashioning a crude loincloth. It wasn't much, but it gave him a shred of comfort.
He scouted further and found a fallen tree wedged against a rocky outcrop. The hollow beneath looked deep enough to hide in. Shelter. Finally.
A distant howl rolled across the ash. He didn't wait. He crawled into the hollow, curled up, and closed his eyes, praying to all gods that he knew.
Sleep came fast and unexpectedly. His mind was so exhausted that he couldn't help it.
When he woke, his stomach twisted with emptiness.
He needed food.
Eros scavenged a sturdy branch and, after a long search, found a rock sharp enough to scrape it down. He worked until he had something resembling a spear. It wouldn't last a second against the wolf or worse, but the weight in his hand calmed him.
He set out again, eyes sharp for danger. The ash crunched beneath his bare feet.
Then a scream split the air.
Not human. Not anything human.
From the ridge ahead, a creature descended. An eagle. The eagle. The same nightmare from his scar.
The monster descended with its wings spread wide, but there was nothing majestic about it. Its feathers looked rotten, tattered into strips of charcoal that crumbled into ash with every beat. Between the wings, black veins pulsed faintly, like dead roots still trying to draw life from the air.
Its head was closer to a vulture's than an eagle's, grotesquely oversized, the beak twisted at unnatural angles as though it had been shattered and re-forged countless times. The yellowed bone was stained with dried blood, and from the cracks of its hooked beak jutted small, jagged teeth, teeth that had no place on any bird. They clicked and shifted when it opened its maw.
Its eyes were the worst. There were no irises, no pupils… just milky-white orbs glowing with a sickly fire, like flames burning beneath frozen glass. When it blinked, a translucent membrane slid down slowly, too slowly, as if the creature's flesh resisted being alive.
The body was a patchwork of broken feathers and bare flesh. Where muscle should have been taut and strong, strips of raw meat hung loose, twitching as though half-regenerated. Its chest and belly were carved with scars, as if chains and blades had torn at it for centuries. Each beat of its wings released a stench of rot and rust, the smell of carrion left too long in the sun.
Its legs were stretched too long, skeletal and corded with exposed sinew. The talons at the end were black as volcanic stone, each claw curved like a scythe. When they struck the ash, they carved furrows deep into the ground, sparks hissing at the touch.
It shrieked again, the sound stabbing into his skull, and dived.
«Damn!»
Eros braced himself, thrusting his spear upward. The creature veered, its beak snapping the wood in half with one strike. The splinters cut his palms.
He stumbled back, heart hammering. The eagle lunged, its talons raking his arm. Fire ripped through his nerves.
He swung the broken shaft, smacking it across the wing. The beast screeched and recoiled.
For a moment, hope sparked. Maybe he could drive it off. Maybe…
The eagle struck again. Faster. Stronger. Its wings buffeted him, knocking him to the ground. Ash filled his mouth as he gasped.
Pain tore across his chest as the beak slashed deep. His blood sprayed black against the gray. He fought, flailing, punching, clawing with hands that felt too small, too weak.
He had fought bullies before. He had survived fists and boots, cages and hatred. But this was no boy in a yard. This was death incarnate, with wings.
The beak lunged again. This time, it caught his throat.
The world tilted.
Hot blood poured down his chest, choking him. His hands clutched uselessly at the wound, slippery with his own life. His breath came in shallow rasps, each weaker than the last.
He fell to his knees, vision trembling. The eagle's shriek echoed as if from far away, already fading.
The world blurred, then narrowed.
«So this is how I die? It's horrible… how pitiful! I'm far too weak for this… it hurts!!» His consciousness began to fade.
And then, once more, the darkness claimed him.
***
The darkness was pierced by a faint glow. The diary hovered before him once more, suspended in the void. The physical pain had vanished, yet it still drilled mercilessly into his mind.
The Reader's Notes hovered open, its pages glowing faintly. His eyes locked on the entry for Immortal Martyr.
Beneath the words, three black flame embers burned on the page. One of them guttered, flickered, and went out, leaving only two.
Eros stared, too shocked to scream. Then the void swallowed him again.
He woke with a gasp.
Air rushed into his lungs, cold and sharp. He was lying on the same ground where he had first awoken. His body was whole. His throat was intact.
But the sky was darker now. The horizon bled with the colors of dusk. Time had passed.
Hands trembling, he touched his neck. Smooth. Untouched. Except… no, there was something. A faint line, a scar etched into his skin.
His heart raced. His eyes widened.
"What the hell just happened?" he whispered.
The voice answered inside his skull, clear and merciless:
"You have consumed one of your flames, Reader."