January 5, 2016
Chronos Mansion
Jezebeth's vision began to blur.
At first, it was subtle.
The edges of the world simply seemed softer than they had been moments ago, as though someone had dragged a wet brush across the surface of reality. The sharp outlines of the room dissolved little by little, colors bleeding into one another until the magnificent hall of Chronos Mansion became a distorted painting.
He blinked.
Once.
Twice.
It didn't help.
The intricate tapestries hanging from the towering walls, woven from crimson silk and threaded with delicate strands of gold, twisted unnaturally before his eyes. Their ancient patterns seemed to move, the embroidered beasts and celestial symbols crawling across the fabric as though they were alive.
The golden chandeliers above him flickered.
Not like flames.
Like stars dying.
Their light stretched into thin, trembling lines before breaking apart.
Jezebeth tried to move.
His body refused.
The cold marble beneath his small feet felt distant, almost unreal. He could barely feel it anymore.
Then he heard something.
Crack.
His eyes widened.
Another sound followed.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
The air itself appeared to fracture.
Tiny lines spread through the space around him, glowing faintly before exploding outward into countless translucent shards. They weren't pieces of glass. They were pieces of something far more fundamental.
Space.
Reality.
Existence itself.
The phenomenon had a name.
The Repulsion.
The guards who had stood around the young master only moments ago were no longer standing.
Their silver-lined armor lay scattered across the marble floor.
One guard's helmet had been crushed inward. Another lay motionless against one of the pillars, his armor warped as though something impossibly heavy had pressed against it. Blood slowly seeped between the cracks in the marble, disappearing into the darkness beneath the fallen bodies.
The mansion was silent.
Too silent.
Then the screaming began.
It came from everywhere.
Servants.
Guards.
People Jezebeth knew.
People he didn't.
Their voices collided with one another, filling the hall with a chaotic storm of terror.
Jezebeth covered his ears.
It didn't work.
The screaming wasn't coming from outside anymore.
It was inside his head.
"Stop..."
The thought barely formed.
"Please... stop..."
Something answered.
"Stop?"
The voice was jagged and rasping.
It wasn't coming from the room.
It wasn't coming from anywhere Jezebeth could point to.
It resonated through his bones.
His teeth.
His skull.
"Why?"
Jezebeth's breathing became shallow.
The voice continued.
"You are the Architect of the Void, little one."
The words carried an unnatural weight.
"Why cling to that fragile human form..."
Something shifted behind him.
Jezebeth slowly turned.
There was nothing there.
Then the pressure came.
His knees nearly buckled.
An immense force descended upon the room, crushing the air beneath its presence. The marble floor beneath Jezebeth's feet groaned.
Crack.
A thin fracture appeared beneath him.
Then another.
The sensation wasn't physical.
It was worse.
It felt as though something had reached through the world and placed its hand directly upon his soul.
Jezebeth looked up.
And saw it.
A gigantic skeletal figure emerged from the darkness behind him.
Bones.
Nothing but bones.
Its enormous body stretched beyond what the room should have been capable of containing, its form partially obscured by black mist and fragments of distorted space.
Two enormous horns curved from its skull.
Its empty eye sockets glowed with a faint, abyssal light.
There was no flesh.
No blood.
No breath.
Yet Jezebeth could feel it staring at him.
Ryoma.
The Bony Dragon.
A spectral phantom born from the Zero Realm.
Its presence alone made the room feel smaller.
The darkness surrounding its skeletal body spread across the walls, swallowing the golden light of the mansion piece by piece.
Jezebeth stared upward.
He was only 6 years old.
The creature towering above him should have terrified him beyond reason.
Instead, he felt something else.
Recognition.
As though some buried part of himself already knew what stood behind him.
"You possess the potential..."
Ryoma's voice rolled through his mind.
"To transcend."
The world changed.
The walls of Chronos Mansion disappeared.
The marble floor vanished.
The screams faded into the distance.
Jezebeth found himself standing in an endless darkness.
Above him, stars burned.
Millions of them.
Perhaps billions.
Constellations formed and shattered repeatedly, connecting themselves into patterns that made no sense to a human mind.
Energy surged between them like rivers flowing through the heavens.
The darkness wasn't empty.
It was alive.
Jezebeth stared in wonder.
"Become a God of Zero."
Something inside his mind opened.
Suddenly, he could see.
Not with his eyes.
With something deeper.
Invisible threads stretched between every person in the room.
Every soul was connected.
Every heartbeat created a ripple.
Every movement generated a pattern.
Every emotion produced a change in the strange network surrounding them.
Fear.
Pain.
Anger.
Confusion.
He could see all of it.
It wasn't emotion anymore.
It was data.
Thousands upon thousands of pieces of information poured into his mind at once.
His perception expanded.
The guards weren't simply screaming.
Their voices had frequencies.
Different pitches.
Different wavelengths.
Different intensities.
He could separate every scream from every other scream.
He could identify who was closest.
Who was injured.
Who was terrified.
Who was already unconscious.
He could even feel the fluctuations of their souls.
Jezebeth's mouth slowly opened.
"Whoa..."
His young face carried a mixture of confusion and fascination.
"This feels different."
A low chuckle answered him.
"Kukuku..."
The sound crawled through the darkness.
"Just getting started, boy."
Jezebeth's fascination faded slightly.
He looked toward the enormous skeletal dragon.
"Who are you?"
There was a pause.
Then the creature laughed again.
"Kukuku. In case you haven't guessed..."
The skeletal head lowered until one enormous eye socket was level with the child.
"I'm your shikigami, boy."
Jezebeth tilted his head.
"My shikigami?"
"That's right."
He stared at Ryoma for several seconds.
Then, as only a four-year-old could, he asked the most important question that came to his mind.
"What's your name, shikigami?"
The dragon's grin seemed to widen.
"Ryoma."
Jezebeth repeated the name quietly.
"Ryoma..."
He considered it.
"Hmmm."
A tiny smile appeared on his face.
"Nice name."
The darkness seemed to become still.
Then Jezebeth's expression changed.
He looked down at his trembling hands.
"Why did you hurt me, Mr. Ryoma?"
There was no anger in his voice.
Only confusion.
And a small trace of sadness.
For the first time, Ryoma didn't immediately answer.
The skeletal dragon stared at the child.
Then came the familiar rasp.
"Kukuku..."
"You haven't seen enough yet, boy."
Jezebeth's eyes widened.
"What do you—"
Pain.
It struck without warning.
A violent wave of agony exploded through his skull.
Jezebeth screamed.
His hands flew to his head.
Every thought shattered.
Every sensation became meaningless.
The stars above him exploded into white light.
The invisible threads disappeared.
The voices vanished.
Ryoma disappeared.
The mansion disappeared.
Everything became white.
And then...
Nothing.
---
Jezebeth's POV
"Master Jezebeth!"
A voice pierced through the darkness.
"Master Jezebeth!"
Another voice joined it.
"Please wake up!"
My eyes fluttered.
At first, I couldn't understand what I was hearing.
The voices seemed impossibly far away, muffled beneath layers of water.
Then they became clearer.
"Master Jezebeth!"
My fingers twitched.
Someone gasped.
"He's moving!"
I slowly opened my eyes.
The ceiling above me came into view.
For several seconds, I simply stared at it.
I didn't recognize it.
My breathing was slow and uneven.
Then the familiar surroundings began to return.
My chamber.
The enormous curtains covering the windows.
The dark wooden furniture.
The faint golden glow of the lamps.
The familiar decorations lining the walls.
I was back in Chronos Mansion.
My sheets were tangled around my legs, damp with sweat. My body felt strangely heavy, as though I'd spent hours fighting something in my sleep.
The scent of incense hung thickly in the air.
Several maids surrounded my bed.
Their faces were pale.
One was clutching her hands against her chest.
Another looked as though she had been crying.
"Master Jezebeth..."
She leaned closer.
"Are you alright?"
I stared at her.
My head still hurt.
Not the sharp pain from before.
Something deeper.
A dull pressure that seemed to sit behind my eyes.
I slowly pushed myself upright.
The maids immediately moved to support me.
"I'm fine..."
My voice came out quieter than I expected.
The room fell silent.
They exchanged nervous glances.
I frowned.
"Why are you all looking at me like that?"
Nobody answered.
For a moment, I could hear nothing except the ticking of the clock on the far wall.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Then I noticed something.
One of the maids was trembling.
I could see it.
Not just her hands.
I could almost see the fear itself.
A faint sensation crawled across my vision.
For a brief moment, invisible lines seemed to appear around her.
Then they vanished.
I blinked.
"What... was that?"
The maid stared at me.
"Master?"
I didn't answer.
Somewhere deep inside my mind, I heard a familiar laugh.
"Kukuku..."
My eyes widened.
Ryoma.
The name surfaced in my thoughts like a memory that didn't belong to me.
And suddenly, I remembered the voice.
"You haven't seen enough yet, boy."
My fingers tightened around the sheets.
For the first time since waking up, I felt afraid.
Not of the maids.
Not of the mansion.
Not even of what had happened.
I was afraid of what might happen next.