At first, there was nothing.
No sound. No breath. No heartbeat.
Just the cold weight of silence pressing in from every direction.
I tried to move, but my body was gone. Or maybe I was gone. I couldn't tell where I ended and where the darkness began. My mind screamed for air, for light, for something—but all I felt was the void swallowing me whole.
Is this death?
The question echoed inside me. It wasn't a voice, not really. Just the fractured thought of someone still clinging to existence, desperate for an answer.
Then, faintly, a glow shimmered in the distance. Not warm or golden like sunlight—no. This was a deep crimson, pulsing like molten veins in the black. It called to me, pulling me closer without chains, without touch, only inevitability.
I drifted, weightless. The glow grew brighter. And with it, whispers began to seep into the dark. A chorus of voices, layered, distorted, overlapping—pleading, mocking, commanding.
"Lost child…""Broken soul…""Abandoned by gods above… embraced by one below…"
I spun in the void, searching for the source, but the voices came from everywhere and nowhere. My pulse quickened—or maybe that was just memory of a pulse.
And then… she appeared.
The darkness peeled open like a curtain, and from the crack emerged a figure taller than life itself. A woman, but not a woman. Her skin was pale as ash, smooth as carved marble, yet traced with glowing fissures of red that pulsed like fire trapped beneath the surface. Her eyes burned—two scarlet suns blazing in the abyss.
A crown of blackened horns curled from her head, delicate yet dreadful, wrapped in faint trails of smoke. Her robes, torn and flowing, were stitched from shadows themselves, alive and writhing around her form. Behind her stretched wings—vast, skeletal, draped in tattered embers, as though she had flown through hellfire and made it her cloak.
When she spoke, the void trembled.
"You have been wronged."
Her voice was neither soft nor harsh, but absolute. It sank into me like molten metal poured into cracked stone.
"I saw your end. I felt the fire of your rage before your blood cooled. You died with hatred in your heart… and that hatred has called to me."
I tried to speak, but no sound came. My mouth opened, closed. I was mute before her presence. She tilted her head, studying me like a curious beast.
"Tell me, child of suffering. Do you wish to remain here? To fade into the nameless void, forgotten, as your family rots in shallow graves?"
Her words stabbed into me. My chest tightened, and the images came flooding back—my mother collapsing across the table, blood pooling beneath her. My father's hand twitching before going still. The sound of my own scream cut short by the deafening bang.
"No…" The word finally scraped its way out of me, ragged, broken. My voice cracked, trembling, but it carried everything inside me—every ounce of rage, grief, and fury. "I… I don't want to fade. I want to kill them. I want my family back. I want—"
"Power."
Her lips curved into something between a smile and a sneer. She stepped closer, and the ground materialized beneath me—jagged black stone glowing with cracks of lava. Her presence distorted the abyss itself, twisting reality around her.
"You want vengeance. You want strength. You want the world to kneel before the child they once spat upon. Then take it. Take me into you."
Her hand rose, pale and flawless, wreathed in living flame. The fire curled into the shape of a heart, throbbing with abyssal light.
"This is my gift… and my curse. I am the Goddess of Hell, and I plant my seed of power in those who have earned the right to wield despair as their weapon. But make no mistake, girl…"
Her eyes narrowed, piercing straight into the core of me.
"If you accept, you are no longer mortal. You will walk among men as a god, and among gods as a monster."
The flame hovered inches from my chest. I could feel its heat already, burning through my soul. My breath hitched. This was the moment. The choice.
But there was no hesitation.
"I accept."
The words came out steady, sharper than I expected. My hands clenched into fists. For the first time since the bloodbath, I felt alive.
The Goddess smiled, slow and cruel, and pressed her burning hand into my chest.
Agony exploded inside me. My vision went white. Fire ripped through every nerve, shredding me apart and stitching me back together in the same breath. I screamed until my throat tore, but no sound reached the abyss. My veins ignited, my skin split with light, my heart hammered like a war drum.
The Goddess leaned close, her voice a whisper against my ear.
"Then rise… Abyssal Empress."
And with a final surge of power, the void shattered.