The white fog vanished.
One moment Rem was running through endless white, the next she was standing in void-black darkness so complete it swallowed even the concept of light. Her legs locked mid-stride, momentum stolen by the shift in reality.
This place. Rem recognized it instantly despite her thoughts being sluggish. The same void where Aria had given her the Divine Mark. Where divine fire had carved patterns into her flesh while she screamed.
But something was wrong.
Aria stood maybe ten feet away, her silver hair catching light that didn't exist. Her anime t-shirt, jeans, and the casual look was still there but her face held none of the usual playful mockery, no amused smirk, no teasing glint in her glowing eyes. She looked serious. Tense.
She wasn't even looking at Rem.
Her gaze was fixed on something behind her, something beyond Rem's line of sight. The goddess's jaw was tight, her hands clenched at her sides.
Weight pressed down on reality itself.
Rem felt it before understanding it. Overwhelming pressure that made her bones ache, made her lungs struggle to draw breath, the Divine Mark on her back burned with sudden searing pain. It was like standing at the bottom of an ocean made of divine power, crushed by the sheer mass of something incomprehensibly vast.
She started to turn, instinct demanding she see what caused this feeling.
Aria moved faster than thought.
Her hand slammed over Rem's face, palm covering both eyes, fingers digging into her skull with bruising force. The goddess's skin was cold as winter, burning cold that made frost spread across Rem's cheeks.
"Don't look." Aria's voice was strained, urgent, carrying none of its usual playful lilt. "You can't."
The pressure intensified. Rem's entire body began trembling involuntarily, Then it spoke.
The voice was deep. Amused even, yet.
The sound alone made Rem's ears bleed.
She felt warmth trickling down her jaw, dripping onto Aria's hand where it covered her eyes. Copper taste flooded her mouth. Her nose began bleeding too, hot liquid running over her lips.
The voice carried weight that shouldn't exist, each word a physical thing pressing against her skull. "Well, well. What do we have here? An otherworlder, walking around like she belongs." A pause, and Rem could feel the smile in that voice. "You've been keeping secrets, Aria."
Aria's hand tightened over Rem's eyes until the pressure made colors explode behind her eyelids.
"Loki." She spat the name like a curse. "Get. Out."
"Now that's just rude." The presence shifted and Rem's knees buckled. Only Aria's grip kept her upright. "I come all this way to check on the disturbance, find one of YOUR toys stumbling around in an ancient horror, and you greet me with hostility? I'm hurt."
"You woke it." Aria's voice was pure fury, venom bleeding into every syllable. "That thing was dormant for three hundred years and you just happened to wake it in her path?"
"Coincidence." Loki's amusement deepened. "Truly unfortunate timing."
"Bullshit."
"Such language from a fellow divine. What would the mortals think?"
Rem's thoughts were fragmenting through pain and blood loss. Loki. She'd written a trickster god named Loki into her story's background lore. Minor deity, barely mentioned, just worldbuilding flavor for the fantasy setting. But this thing behind her felt nothing like what she'd imagined. This was real. This was power that made Aria's divine presence feel manageable by comparison.
How? How could something she invented as background detail have this much weight? How did it even exist?
"You want to play games?" Aria's voice dropped to something dangerous. "Fine. She's mine. My project. You don't touch her, you don't interfere, you don't even LOOK at her without my permission."
"Possessive." Loki sounded delighted. "But here's the thing, little Aria. The world itself noticed her. Reality keeps trying to reject this poor thing like a body fighting infection." The voice moved closer and Rem felt warmth drip faster from her nose. "She doesn't belong here. She's wrong."
Wrong. Otherworlder. They know I'm from another world? Wait, i am the goddamn author. Rem's fragmented thoughts tried to make sense of it. They don't know I created this place. They just know I shouldn't exist here.
But why don't they know? Aria brought her here as punishment, so these gods should know she wrote this world, right? Unless...
Unless Aria never told them.
"She belongs where I PUT her," Aria snapped. "The deal was—"
"I know what the deal was." Loki's voice carried genuine amusement now. "No interference with your little pet project. Very mysterious, very hush-hush. You really thought none of us would notice when you dragged something like that into our reality?"
"I had it handled."
"Clearly." Dry humor laced every word. "That's why she was trapped in the stomach of that thing for over a month, experiencing the same day repeatedly while her body accumulated weeks of wear. Very handled."
Over a month. The words penetrated Rem's failing consciousness. She'd thought maybe thirty days but hearing it confirmed made her stomach turn. Thirty days of the same cycle. Thirty days of getting fucked unconscious and resetting.
"The fog was YOUR fault," Aria hissed.
"Was it though?" Loki sounded genuinely curious. "I mean, yes, I may have accidentally on purpose woken that thing near your otherworlder's path. But can you blame me for being curious? You dragged something foreign into our narrative and expected us not to poke at it?"
"Curiosity. Right." Aria's grip on Rem's face tightened further. "How many others know?"
A pause. Long enough to be concerning.
"Well," Loki said slowly, drawing the word out. "Define 'know.'"
"Loki."
"A few noticed the disturbance. A handful of the old ones felt reality hiccup when you brought her through. Most don't care, honestly. Your business is your business." Another pause. "But some are... curious."
"How many?"
"Does it matter?" The playful tone never left Loki's voice despite the serious implications. "The point is, your secret otherworlder isn't as secret as you'd like. And that fog horror? It was drawn to her specifically because she registers as wrong to the world itself. Everything with divine or ancient can feel it."
Rem could barely process the conversation anymore. The words were becoming distorted, stretching like taffy. Too much pressure, too much information crashing through her mind.
She'd created this world. Written every rule, every monster, every city. But the gods inside it were AWARE in ways she'd never written. Aria had turned her punishment into something the other deities noticed. And now they were curious. She never even wrote aria, she assumed Aria was a GOD, not a divine being.
Fuck.
"Stay away from her." Aria's voice seemed to come from very far away. "All of you. Whatever curiosity the others have, squash it. She's mine until I'm done with her."
"And if I don't?" Loki's amusement was palpable. "What will you do, little goddess? Fight the entire pantheon over one mortal toy?"
"Try me."
Silence. Heavy, weighted silence that pressed on Rem's consciousness like a physical thing.
Then Loki laughed. The sound made fresh blood pour from Rem's nose and ears. "You're serious. You'd actually start an incident over this broken thing." surprise colored the ancient voice. "Now I'm REALLY curious what makes her so special."
"You'll never find out."
"We'll see." The presence began to recede, pressure lifting incrementally. "But fair warning, Aria. Other gods aren't as patient as me. If they decide to poke your pet, you might not be there to cover her eyes and protect her from things she can't comprehend."
The weight vanished completely.
Aria said something in response but Rem couldn't hear anymore. Her consciousness was collapsing, mind shutting down to protect itself from too much divine exposure. The conversation became meaningless noise, words without meaning.
Everything went white.
—-----------------------------------------------------
She was running again.
Kaisen's weight on her shoulder. White fog pressing in from all sides. Her legs moving automatically. Rem was about to stop, to think.
But ahead—light.
The shimmer of Dawn breaking through, golden colours illuminating the surrounding.
The fog was thinning.
Rem's vision was darkening from exhaustion and blood loss, but she could see it. Twenty feet ahead, maybe less. The edge of the fog territory, where white gave way to the real sky.
Her legs kept moving despite wanting to collapse. Ten feet. The light is getting closer, brighter.
Five feet.
Kaisen was shouting something, struggling against her grip, but she couldn't hear through the blood rushing in her ears.
The boundary.
Rem passed through into sunlight, into real air, into green grass that felt solid beneath her stumbling feet.
They were out. They were safe.
Her legs finally gave out completely. She collapsed onto something soft and dew-wet. Kaisen tumbled off her shoulder, landing heavily beside her with a grunt of confusion.
Rem's last coherent thought before darkness took her: Out. We're out. Safe.
Then nothing.