The Royal Palace of Oakhaven was not a sanctuary; it was a gilded slaughterhouse of the soul, and Cinderella was its most prized exhibit. She sat upon an ornate chaise longue of bone-white silk, her spine as rigid as the marble pillars that held up the vaulted ceiling. Her dress, a masterpiece of sapphire lace and suffocating corsetry, pressed against her ribs until every breath felt like a desperate act of rebellion. The air in the East Tower was stagnant, poisoned by the cloying, sickly-sweet aroma of a thousand imported white lilies that seemed to bleed perfume into the humid night. Outside, the moon hung over the kingdom like a jagged, necrotic tooth, casting a pale, sickly light over gardens so perfectly manicured they felt dead. This was the pinnacle of her "happily ever after"—a life of choreographed smiles, hollow ceremonies, and the rhythmic, agonizing ticking of the grandfather clock that echoed through the hall like a hammer nailing a coffin shut.
Her husband, the Prince, was a man carved from the coldest stone of mediocrity. To the peasants, he was a god in velvet; to Cinderella, he was a void. His love was not a flame, but a script—a series of rehearsed gestures and polite nods that left her feeling more invisible than she had been when covered in the soot of her stepmother's hearth. His touch was a light, tepid pressure on her skin that made her flesh crawl with a desire for something—anything—violent enough to break the numbness. He spoke of taxes, of hunting hounds, and of lineage, never once noticing that his Queen's eyes had become twin pools of stagnant water, reflecting a spirit that was slowly drowning in a sea of boredom and resentment. She was the diamond in his crown, a trophy of his "mercy," yet she felt the weight of that crown pressing into her skull, a circle of gold that drew invisible blood with every passing hour.
Her gaze drifted, with a mixture of loathing and fascination, to the floor where the moonlight caught the crystalline edges of the glass slippers. They were the anchors that chained her to this velvet nightmare. To the world, they were the ultimate symbols of fate and divine romance, but to her, they were shackles crafted from the very sand that had blinded her to her own doom. They were beautiful, yes, but they were also perilously fragile and unnaturally sharp. Every time she walked, she imagined the glass shattering, the shards piercing through her soles and turning the pristine palace floors into a trail of crimson. She craved that pain. She hungered for a storm that would shatter the stained-glass windows and a fire that would melt the gold leaf until it ran like liquid lava. She wanted a sin so profound, so irreversible, that it would tear the sky asunder.
It was at the precise moment this dark, poisonous thought took root in her heart that the world around her curdled. The temperature in the room plummeted with a sudden, violent shiver, turning her exhaled breath into a ghostly, spiraling mist. The relentless ticking of the clock died in mid-stroke, leaving a silence so absolute it felt like the crushing weight of a deep-sea trench. The dozens of beeswax candles lining the stone walls groaned as their flames stretched upward, flickering frantically before turning a bruised, terrifying shade of abyssal purple. Cinderella did not move; she did not scream. Instead, a jolt of raw, electric dopamine surged through her veins, a primal thrill that made her skin tingle with a forgotten heat. In the furthest corner of the chamber, where the shadows were thickest and the light died of exhaustion, the darkness began to breathe. It was no longer a void; it was a presence, hungry and ancient. From that writhing, obsidian depth, a voice emerged—melodic, dark, and drenched in a seductive malice—calling her name with an intimacy that made her soul shudder in a way the Prince's touch never could.
The shadow in the corner did not merely move; it uncoiled. It had a weight to it, a density that seemed to swallow the very moonlight filtering through the window. Cinderella watched, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against the cage of her ribs, as the darkness began to knit itself into a silhouette. It was tall, impossibly elegant, and draped in a suit of midnight silk that appeared to be woven from the smoke of a dying star. As he stepped forward, the bruised purple candlelight licked at his features, revealing a face of lethal beauty. His skin was the color of aged parchment, his jawline sharp enough to draw blood, and his hair fell like a curtain of raven feathers around his shoulders. But it was his eyes that trapped her—they were not eyes, but glowing embers of molten gold, burning with a predatory intelligence that saw through her silk gown, through her flesh, and directly into the rotting core of her secret desires.
He did not walk so much as glide, the sound of his boots against the marble floor muffled as if the stone itself was afraid to echo. With every inch he gained, the air grew thicker, charged with a heavy, musk-like scent of incense, scorched earth, and something metallic—something that smelled disturbingly like fresh copper. Cinderella felt a wave of heat wash over her, a strange, intoxicating fever that flushed her neck and made her breath hitch in her throat. This was the antithesis of her Prince. This was not marble; this was living, breathing fire disguised as a man. He stopped only a breath away from her, so close that she could feel the unnatural cold radiating from his body, contrasting with the searing intensity of his gaze.
The Stranger tilted his head, a slow, serpentine movement that caused a single lock of black hair to fall over his brow. A thin, cruel smile played on his lips—a smile that promised both everything and nothing. He didn't ask for permission to be there; he owned the space, the air, and, by the way she couldn't tear her eyes away, he owned her attention. When he finally reached out, his fingers were long and slender, ending in nails that were just a fraction too sharp to be human. He didn't touch her skin yet; instead, he traced the air an inch away from her jawline, his hand leaving a trail of shimmering, dark energy in its wake. "You called for a nightmare, Princess," he firmed, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that sent a jolt of pure, unadulterated dopamine straight to the base of her brain. "And I have never been one to decline such a delicious invitation."
Cinderella should have been terrified. She should have called for the guards, screamed for her husband, or cast herself from the tower window. But as she looked into those burning gold eyes, she felt a sickening sense of homecoming. The "good" girl, the "lucky" girl, the "blessed" Queen died in that moment of eye contact. In her place, something starved and vicious began to stir. She leaned into his invisible touch, her eyelids fluttering as she drank in the forbidden aura of his presence. He wasn't a savior sent from heaven; he was the predator she had been dreaming of, the one who would finally rip the silk cage apart and show her what lay beneath the skin of the world. "Who are you?" she whispered, her voice trembling not with fear, but with a hunger so deep it frightened her. The Stranger's smile widened, revealing teeth that were white, perfect, and terrifyingly pointed.
The Stranger's hand finally bridged the agonizing gap, his fingertips grazing the underside of her jaw. His skin was not merely cold; it carried the biting chill of a thousand winters spent in a sunless abyss. Yet, where he touched her, Cinderella felt a searing, paradoxical heat ignite beneath her surface—a phantom fire that raced through her lymphatic system and pooled in the pit of her stomach. She gasped, a soft, broken sound that echoed in the unnatural silence of the room. The Stranger's touch was not like the Prince's tepid, clumsy affection. It was precise. It was possessive. It felt like a knife carving his signature into her very essence. He leaned in closer, his shadow stretching across her sapphire gown until she was completely enveloped in his darkness, his scent of crushed cloves and ancient iron drowning out the suffocating lilies.
"I am the answer to the prayers you were too afraid to whisper to your God," he murmured, his breath fanning against her ear like a dark caress. He slid his hand downward, his long, elegant fingers tracing the pulse point of her throat, where her heart was thrumming like a frantic, trapped moth. He felt the vibration of her terror and her desire, and he drank it in like a vintage wine. "You sit here in your palace of lies, Cinderella, wearing shoes made of sand and a crown made of vanity. You play the part of the 'blessed' Queen, but every night you stare at the moon and wish for the world to bleed. Do not lie to me. I was born from the very hunger that keeps you awake at night."
Cinderella's breath hitched, her head tilting back as she succumbed to the intoxicating gravity of his presence. She wanted to pull away, to scream for the sanctity of her marriage and her soul, but her body betrayed her. Her skin hungered for the bite of his cold touch. She looked up at him, her vision blurring as the molten gold of his eyes seemed to expand, filling her entire world. "What do you want from me?" she whispered, her voice a ragged thread of its former self. The Stranger let out a low, melodic laugh that vibrated against her skin, a sound that promised both ecstasy and damnation.
He withdrew his hand slightly, only to grip her chin with a firm, commanding pressure that forced her to maintain eye contact. "I do not want your prayers, little bird. I want your boredom. I want your resentment. I want the fire you've been hiding beneath those cinders," he hissed, his gaze dropping to the glass slippers on her feet. With a sneer of pure, aristocratic disdain, he gestured toward the crystalline shoes. "Those... those are a peasant's dream of luxury. They are transparent because they are meant to show the world that you have nothing to hide. But you, my Queen... you are overflowing with secrets. You deserve a shoe that hides the stains. You deserve a path that is paved in something much more vivid than glass." He knelt before her then, a mock-gesture of subservience that felt more like a predator preparing to pounce, his hands hovering inches away from the laces of her royal life.
Cinderella stood on the cold marble, her bare feet feeling the raw, unforgiving stone for the first time in years. Without the glass slippers, she felt stripped of her identity, yet infused with a terrifying, newborn power. The Stranger rose from his knees, towering over her, his presence now so expansive that the walls of the bedchamber seemed to retreat into the infinite distance. He held the discarded glass slippers in one hand, looking at them with a flick of amusement before his grip tightened. With a sound like a thousand dying sighs, the glass shattered—not into jagged shards, but into a fine, glittering dust that he blew into the air. The remnants of her old life floated away, sparkling briefly before being swallowed by the bruised purple shadows.
"The girl who wore those is dead," he declared, his voice dropping to a register so low it made the very marrow in her bones vibrate. "And the woman who stands before me... she is hungry. Tell me, Cinderella, what is it that you truly crave? Is it the touch of a man who isn't made of stone? Or is it the sight of this kingdom, which kept you in rags and then in a cage, finally falling to its knees?" He stepped into her personal space again, his chest almost brushing hers. The heat radiating from his core was now an inferno, a magnetic pull that made her want to press herself against his midnight-silk suit until she vanished into him.
Cinderella's mind raced, a chaotic blur of images: the Prince's vacant smile, the stepmother's cruel laughter, the endless, grey chores of her youth, and the suffocating, golden boredom of her present. A dark, primal emotion surged from the depths of her stomach—a mixture of untapped rage and a desperate, aching lust for life. She reached out, her fingers trembling as she touched the lapel of his coat. The fabric felt like woven shadow, unnaturally soft and hummed with a faint, electric pulse. "I want... I want to feel everything," she whispered, her voice gaining a sharp, dangerous edge. "I want to burn the script. I want to go where no light can find me."
The Stranger's eyes flared, the molten gold turning into a blinding, solar radiance. He leaned down, his lips inches from hers, his breath smelling of dark chocolate and ancient, dusty libraries. "Be careful what you wish for, my Queen. In my world, 'everything' includes the pain you haven't yet learned to love. It includes the blood that will eventually fill your footsteps. If you walk through the door I open, there is no return. There is no 'happily ever after'—only the beautiful, eternal 'now'." He let his hand slide from her waist up to the nape of her neck, his thumb tracing the sensitive skin behind her ear, sending waves of illicit dopamine crashing through her brain. He was offering her the universe, but the price was etched in the cruel curve of his smile.
The Stranger's gaze didn't just look at her; it dissected her, peeling back the layers of royal decorum until only the raw, pulsing nerve of her ambition remained. He reached into the air, his hand disappearing for a moment into a rift of pure obsidian smoke that tore open in the fabric of reality. When he withdrew his arm, he wasn't empty-handed. Resting upon his palm was a pair of shoes that defied every law of Oakhaven's aesthetics. They were not made of glass, nor silk, nor leather. They appeared to be crafted from solidified shadows, polished to a mirror-like sheen that didn't reflect the room, but rather a distorted, hellish version of it. The heels were as long and sharp as a stiletto blade, and the inner lining was a deep, bruised crimson—the color of a fresh wound hidden beneath a beautiful surface.
"These," he whispered, holding them up as if they were a holy relic, "are the vessels of your liberation. They do not break, and they never lose their shine. But they are demanding. They do not drink the light, Cinderella. They drink the life of the path you walk upon." As she looked at them, she noticed a faint, rhythmic pulsing coming from the soles, as if the shoes themselves had a heartbeat. The dopamine hit was instantaneous—a rush of adrenaline so potent it made her knees weak. The shoes were terrifying, yet they were the most beautiful things she had ever seen. They promised a power that the Prince's dull gold crown could never provide. They promised the ability to crush anything that stood in her way.
"Put them on," he commanded, his voice no longer a whisper but a velvet decree that vibrated in her skull. Cinderella felt her breath hitch. She knew, with a soul-deep instinct, that once her feet slid into that dark crimson lining, the girl who swept the cinders would be gone forever, replaced by something much more predatory. She reached out, her fingers brushing the cold, slick surface of the shadow-shoes. The moment her skin made contact, a jolt of ice-cold electricity shot up her arms, making her vision flicker. The room seemed to warp; the expensive tapestries on the walls began to weep black ink, and the portraits of the royal ancestors turned their faces away in shame.
She didn't hesitate. With a trembling hand, she lifted her right foot and slid it into the shoe. The fit was agonizingly perfect—too perfect. It felt like the shoe was molding itself to her flesh, the sharp edges of the heel clicking against the marble with a sound that mimicked a gunshot. As she donned the second one, she felt a sudden, sharp sting at her heel—a tiny prick, as if the shoe had bitten her. A single drop of her royal blood fell into the crimson lining, disappearing instantly as the shoe hummed with satisfaction. The Stranger watched her with a look of ravenous pride, his golden eyes glowing like twin suns in the purple twilight. "There," he purred, stepping back to admire his handiwork. "Now, my Queen, let us see if you can walk the path I have laid for you. The ball is over, and the hunt is about to begin."
Cinderella took her first step, and the world screamed in silence. As the razor-sharp heel of the shadow-shoe struck the marble, a web of hairline fractures radiated outward from the point of impact, turning the pristine white stone into a map of shattered glass. The sting at her heel grew into a steady, rhythmic throb—a dull ache that felt strangely like a caress. The shoes weren't just footwear; they were parasites, drinking from her, and in exchange, they flooded her veins with a cold, liquid arrogance. She stood taller, her chin lifting as the weight of her sapphire gown suddenly felt as light as a spider's web. She felt dangerous. She felt lethal. She felt, for the first time in her existence, like the predator instead of the prey.
The Stranger extended his arm, his hand clad in a glove of black lace that seemed to be made of frozen smoke. "Walk with me, Cinderella," he invited, his voice a low vibration that hummed in the very air between them. "Let us leave this tomb of etiquette. Your husband sleeps in his bed of silk, dreaming of dull victories, while the night awaits its new mistress." Cinderella placed her hand upon his arm, and the contact was like a bolt of lightning. The sensation was so intense, so saturated with a dark, forbidden dopamine, that her vision clouded for a moment. The room began to dissolve around them. The solid stone walls became translucent, the heavy oak doors rotted away in seconds, and the once-familiar hallways of the palace stretched into infinite, distorted corridors of obsidian and mist.
As they glided through the shifting palace, Cinderella noticed that her reflection in the gilded mirrors was no longer her own. The woman in the glass had eyes that flickered with a faint, amber glow, and her skin possessed a translucent, porcelain pallor that made her look like a ghost made of moonlight. The shadow-shoes clicked against the floor—clack, clack, clack—and with every step, the palace responded. The paintings of former kings didn't just turn away; their eyes began to bleed black oil, and their painted mouths opened in silent, horrific wails. The very architecture was recoiling from her presence, yet she felt no guilt. Only a savage, burgeoning joy. The "perfect" Cinderella was being consumed by the flames of this stranger's aura, and she was more than happy to let her ashes scatter.
They reached the grand staircase, the heart of the palace where she had once lost her glass slipper in a fit of panicked, girlish hope. Now, she descended it with the slow, deliberate grace of an empress claiming her throne. At the bottom of the stairs, the shadows were thickest, swirling like a dark whirlpool. The Stranger stopped and turned to her, his face inches from hers, the heat of his infernal body clashing with the icy grip of her new shoes. "Beyond that door lies the world I promised you," he whispered, pointing toward the heavy iron-bound entrance of the palace. "But remember, my Queen: once the blood begins to fill the glass, there is no turning back to the cinders. You will be mine, in ways that will make your heart stop and your soul sing."
The iron-bound doors of the palace did not merely open; they surrendered. As Cinderella approached, the heavy bolts shivered and withdrew into the stone as if recoiling from the touch of a plague. She stepped out onto the grand balcony, the shadow-shoes clicking with a predatory rhythm that silenced the night crickets. Beside her, the Stranger stood like a pillar of obsidian, his presence warping the very moonlight into a bruised, ultraviolet haze. Behind them, the palace was no longer a home—it was a carcass. She could hear the frantic shouting of guards in the distance, the clatter of armored boots echoing through the hollow halls, and the panicked voice of the Prince calling her name. But his voice sounded thin, like a ghost from a dream she had already forgotten. He was part of the "light," and she had already plunged into the deep, inviting water of the dark.
"Hear them?" the Stranger purred, his hand sliding around her waist, pulling her back against the solid, terrifying heat of his chest. "They hunt for a girl who no longer exists. They seek a saint, unaware that a demon has been born in her place." He leaned down, his lips brushing the sensitive column of her throat, and Cinderella felt a surge of illicit dopamine so powerful it made her vision swim. The sting in her heels had intensified, becoming a hot, pulsing throb. She looked down and saw, with a mixture of horror and exhilarating triumph, that the dark crimson lining of her shoes was beginning to glisten. A thin, hair-like trail of blood was seeping from her skin, being sucked into the porous shadow-material of the slippers. The shoes were drinking, and in return, they were giving her a strength that made her feel as though she could leap from the balcony and fly.
The Stranger's grip tightened, his sharp nails snagging slightly on the sapphire silk of her gown. "This is the first lesson of my realm, Cinderella," he hissed into her ear. "Power is never granted; it is bled for. Every step you take from this moment on will cost you a piece of your humanity. Your blood will fill these vessels, and in exchange, the world will tremble at your feet. Do you still wish to run? Or do you wish to rule the nightmare?" Cinderella felt the vibrations of his voice through her entire body. The fear was there, a cold knot in her stomach, but it was overshadowed by a savage, desperate hunger. She looked out over the kingdom—the tiny houses, the sleeping peasants, the pathetic little world that had tried to define her.
She turned in his arms, her hands reaching up to cup his face. His skin was like frozen velvet, his golden eyes burning with an infernal light that promised her everything she had been denied. "Let them hunt," she whispered, her voice sounding deeper, laced with a melodic cruelty that surprised even her. "Let them find nothing but the dust of who I was. Take me away from this place. Take me to the dark." The Stranger let out a low, triumphant growl, and the shadows around them began to rise like a tidal wave, obscuring the stars and swallowing the moon. The palace, the Prince, and the memory of the cinders vanished into a suffocating, velvet void, leaving only the two of them and the rhythmic, bloody pulse of her new heart
The shadows did not just surround them; they consumed the very concept of the horizon. The balcony, the screams of the royal guards, and the pathetic, distant wailing of the Prince dissolved into a static of grey mist and obsidian smoke. Cinderella felt a sensation of falling—not a terrifying plunge, but a seductive descent into a bottomless velvet well. Her breath was stolen by the sheer speed of their transition, her sapphire gown whipping around her legs like the wings of a dying butterfly. The Stranger's arms were the only solid thing in a world that had turned to liquid darkness. He held her with a terrifying strength, his chest a furnace of forbidden energy against her spine.
Suddenly, the falling stopped. Her feet hit solid ground with a jarring crack that sent a fresh jolt of pain and pleasure from her heels straight to her skull. She gasped, blinking away the lingering darkness. They were no longer at the palace. The air here was different—it was thick, heavy with the scent of damp earth, ancient pine, and something metallic that made her tongue tingle. They stood at the edge of the Dead Woods, a place of legend that even the bravest knights of Oakhaven feared to name. The trees were skeletal giants, their silver-grey bark looking like stretched skin, their leafless branches clawing at a sky that held no stars, only a swirling, violet nebula.
"Welcome home, my Queen," the Stranger whispered, stepping back to let her take in the horrific beauty of her new reality. In the distance, nestled between two jagged mountains that looked like the fangs of a beast, a faint, rhythmic glow emanated from the earth. It was the entrance to the Abyssal Mine. "This is the world beneath the world. Here, there are no balls, no tea parties, and no pretenses. Here, we do not pray for mercy; we manufacture destiny." Cinderella looked down at her feet. The shadow-shoes were glowing with a soft, pulsing inner light, and she could feel the warm, wet sensation of her own blood filling the soles. Every step she had taken to get here had been a sacrifice, and the shoes were now fully satiated, bonded to her flesh in a way that made them feel like a natural extension of her body.
She looked back toward where the palace should have been, but there was nothing but a wall of impenetrable mist. The bridge was burned. The girl who had dreamed of a Prince was dead, buried under the weight of her own ambition. She looked at the Stranger—the Devil who had stolen her soul with a smile—and instead of screaming, she reached out and took his hand. Her fingers were stained with the faint residue of her own crimson, but she didn't care. The dopamine rush of her transformation was complete; she was no longer a victim of fate, but a participant in her own damnation. As they walked toward the glowing mouth of the mine, the first of many dark suns began to rise over the horizon of her new, blood-soaked life.
AUTHOR'S NOTE / THANKS
[EN] "Thank you for stepping into the darkness with me. Cinderella's journey has only just begun, and the path ahead is paved with even more blood and forbidden desires. Your support is the fuel for this nightmare. If you enjoyed this first chapter, don't forget to add the story to your library and leave a comment. What do you think the Devil's first gift to her will be? Stay tuned for Chapter 2!"