The air around him tensed.
Shackles ground against their links like rusty sawblades.
Atop the obsidian throne lay a young man, his ragged and rapid breaths took in the world around him with each beat, wheezing through a translucent strap that not only silenced his futile words but also his feeble soul.
Realising the pointlessness of his actions, he stopped. A faint calm washed through the room as the grinding of metal upon metal ceased. His head drooped as his deep navy hair covered his face in curtains. He looked down in confusion, then rapidly turned up, before staring back down at his chest again. A faint feeling of emptiness drowned his mind, washing away his confusion, anger and shock.
But most of all, he felt numb.
He didn't know his name.
He didn't know where he was.
He didn't know the reason behind any of this.
And despite his panicked search for answers in his own mind, nothing.
No memories.
No thoughts.
No light.
He turned back up, tilting his head ever so slightly before a stinging pain surged in his neck, causing him to whip back, slamming his head against the cold, hard obsidian. He snapped back to reality.
'Where am I?'
This one question was the only thought he could muster, and his desperate search for an answer was left fruitless.
An azure circle surrounded him, attached to countless patterns that crawled around the ground and walls like parasites, at the center of the circle:
His throne.
Beating like the rampaging heart of a cosmic universe far too late for his witness.
The beating felt so intense to him, but was in reality… so subtle.
The huge ritual circle around him bloomed to life, glowing a radiant cyan, snapping him out of his daze once more, as a lilac glow caught his attention.
A thin but unnecessarily long needle phased through the ceiling, steadily approaching him. Floating through the air ever so slowly, his dull eyes caught focus of the needle before widening in disbelief before his arms struggled in protest against the chains. He struggled more, and more, and more.
And more.
And… a little more.
With each futile attempt the shackles only gripped him tighter, practically squeezing him to death.
But he knew that what was about to happen to him would likely not leave him alive anyway.
He gritted his teeth in frustration and hopelessness, tensing himself as the needle rested above his chest. Its sharp end made contact, while the blunt end faced forward. It stopped, waiting like a predator watching its prey, and after what felt like years, the circle around the man erupted, changing from cyan to a bright pink, before the needle sunk into his chest like water returning to the ocean. He watched in horror.
No pain. No blood. Just a warmth he hadn't felt in so long, a fleeting feeling that his heart yearned to grasp onto for eternity. The feeling spread through his veins like lukewarm water, cleansing his body rather than tainting it.
Almost as if it was a necessary part of him, like it belonged there…
He relaxed.
…
His back arched violently against the restraints. A silent scream escaped his mouth, choking on his own breaths as sparks flew forward from the restraints. His entire body burnt, except from the inside, rather than flames, it felt like the scalding of boiling water.
His "body" sizzled in rejection.
Something inside him screamed.
Not so much himself, nor his consciousness, nor his will.
But rather a distinct presence that didn't feel like him. Its familiar yet so distant self clawed away at his insides like some sort of primal beast, waging war against his will.
A powerful hunger washed over his mind as he attempted to suppress the entity vying for power over his body.
He gritted his teeth as the pain steadily calmed, but it was still unbearable to him. A deep thrumming echoed through his chest, almost as if he was being split in two, his chest blackened before cracking, albeit painlessly.
A void-purple, almost black substance pulled itself away from his body almost as if he wasn't worthy of being its vessel anymore.
And the more that ball of darkness tugged away, he also felt his humanity carefully leaving along with it…
The ball pulled away one last time before completely separating from his body, falling onto the floor into a pool of liquid, it shook once, it shook twice, and then it rapidly convulsed, gathering itself into a hardened fist-sized ball of obsidian.
The man calmed, his breathing growing steady. He looked downward at his chest… or what was left of it.
And simply whatever else that was even spared.
Whatever else of this mortal shell he called a "body"...
Pain radiated from the jagged edges of his shattered chest, despite the pure destruction that raged through his body, there was no blood to be seen, not anywhere?
Another glowing needle suddenly descended through the ceiling. He looked up at it, sighing in helplessness, if the last one didn't kill him, this one would.
And yet, upon its injection, he felt nothing, a green glow blanketed his body, before all signs of previous wounds, including the entire crater that was in his chest, closed up and healed as if nothing had ever happened. Despite the positive effects of the green needle, it didn't feel good, nor bad, just empty, like a simple remedy being applied to a fatal wound.
He was puzzled, his senses returned to him, his thoughts, his will to live, his logic.
Everything but the last traces of his humanity.
The ritual circle around him powered down, its quiet glow fading away, leaving only him and one white light in the ceiling, shining down on him like judgement.
The quiet was deafening, persisting for a couple of minutes before the clanging of chains resounded through the stone room, his cuffs fell to the ground quickly after, freeing what was left of him from the shackles of his obsidian throne.
He felt nothing, resting his head on his hand, looking downward, lost in a swarm of his own thoughts.
His elbow gently sliding across the armrest as it supported his head, he was the spitting image of an emperor contemplating the ashes of his fallen kingdom.
"Welcome, Saryn, to the Deepforge."