Abyssal Awakening

Her life was different since she was a child. Empty even.

Though she walked, though she spoke, though she breathed, though she ate.

It was all empty.

A puppet without a soul, a performance without the audience.

An ocean without life.

That’s what she was.

Emptiness.

If her life was the ocean then the others were like the stars in the sky.

Oh so beautiful.

Oh so radiant.

She wanted to be like them. She wanted to reach out to them.

She wanted to be one of them.

She hated this darkness, this coldness that pierced the bones.

This emptiness that drove the mind insane.

’Feris’ longed to be part of the stars so she reached out.

*Pop~

Ah... one was extinguished just like that. So beautiful, so radiant.

So...

Fleeing.

Just a gentle touch was enough to extinguish that light. How upsetting.

But perhaps it’s this delicate nature that made them all the more beautiful to her.

Oh how she envied.

The gaping Void in her chest kept growing.

Growing, growing, growing.

Each time she turned her eyes towards these stars, she was reminded of the stark reality.

She wasn’t like them.

She couldn’t be the stars in the sky. She couldn’t be the brilliant flares of light.

She was the dark ocean.

A darkness that didn’t end. A Void that couldn’t be filled.

Hollow and lacking in warmth.

How dreadful.

This revolting ocean, I longed to depart from it.

So even if it’s just for a moment...

Won’t you let me feel the warmth of the stars?

###

Chaos.

Pure chaos. Pandemonium broke out.

Lords were killed like flies and Hunters tried their best to flee and break out of this cage.

But how could it be so easy? A cage created by a Realm Ruler.

One that had intended for all who are trapped within to become the sacrifice to that unholy ’thing’.

Something had clearly changed. Though the Lords had seen the fight between this girl and the other Lord only once before the battle broke out, they understood that she had changed.

If she was a tarot card, her previous state was akin to an unflipped card. Mysterious, full of possibility.

They didn’t know who she was, what she was capable of.

But once that card flipped, once she consumed a piece of that beast.

Something changed.

The Tarot Card of Death.

An ominous card for sure. But not one of literal death.

It was a misunderstood card. One that tried to give out a warning yet only to be scorned as an omen of death.

However, its intentions were anything but. A dreaded plea towards those who could hear its voice.

The end of something was approaching.

Death represented a transition. A transformation.

A passage from one state of existence to another.

The old had to die so that something new could emerge from its corpse.

Something would be severed.

Something would be lost.

And whatever emerged from the ashes would never be the same as what had entered them.

It was the card of irreversible change.

A cry towards those that had drawn it to prepare carefully. To be ready to face the challenges that came.

It represented the closing of one door and the opening of another.

And Feris had drawn that card.

The moment she stepped onto this battlefield, the moment she approached the fragment.

The moment she glanced at the anchors, the moment the guardians fell.

The Cogs of Fate slowly tightened the noose around her neck.

Like an old crank, it tightened oh so slowly.

*Kacha

She made the choice to stay.

*Kacha

She made the choice to undo the anchors.

*Kacha

She made the choice to slay the guardians keeping the anchors safe.

*Kacha

She made the choice to go after the final fragment.

*Kacha

She made the choice of consuming the beast for its fragment.

And there, after a long and arduous wait, the noose finally tightened.

It dug into her skin, left marks on her neck. It pulled her from the ground and strung her up for all to see.

Behold, this girl had pulled the card of death.

Thus her transformation began.

Irreversible. Irredeemable.

Strung up for all to see, witness as a dreadful new Ruler is born into this world.

But who will live and who will die.

Who will be the door that closes and who will be the path forward.

However, that was a question that couldn’t be asked.

As those who can ask this are too preoccupied with running.

*Nom~

She took another bite.

Stars extinguished.

Those desperately clinging onto the bars of the cage were consumed, leaving stumps gripping the bars in one last desperate plea.

A few rose up in defiance.

They brandished their swords, their abilities. They analysed with the help of Lords, recognised that what stood before them was simply a beast of instinct.

One that could be observed and understood.

One that could be killed.

Surely.

But when the Cogs of Fate have settled on a path, how could the tiny cogs with no importance stop the turning of the world?

Space warped.

Cracks split the world apart as though this realm couldn’t handle her existence.

Like glass teetering on the edge of breaking apart from having too much water forced into it.

Fractures spread outwards, the Void bled through.

Spikes of raw energy stabbed through the futile defences these Hunters put up.

And as these spikes entered their body, it touched upon the light within.

Their forms shifted. A mutation.

The starlight extinguished and all that was left behind was a husk.

A husk that the girl could puppet.

Go forth.

Claim the starlight in my place and bring it back to me.

That is your one and only command. Your purpose.

Those who were struck lost their autonomy. Those who were lucky were killed on sight.

Trapped in the cage, there was only two fates they could ’choose’.

They couldn’t.

They could only pray for their misery to be spared. For them to die as humans.

All of them...

Except a small group.

###

No one could say anything.

Not Noah, who knew Feris the best.

Not Yama who was silent but cared for her in his own way.

Not Tobi who acted like a younger sibling and not Rika who thought herself as Feris’s best friend.

They all stared at ’Feris’ who stepped through the air with an unending dark smile.

It’s as though her face had been completely obscured with the exception of that smile.

Her eyes, hidden by her hair, were only focused on the starlight that hovered above the ocean.

A pair of glossy, unfocused eyes.

She stepped through the air, body swaying from side to side.

Her outfit had now become an extension of the Void.

Her dress, an ever shifting shimmering sea of purple. It stretched out endlessly, pulling the curtains of reality with it.

And where she passed, the Void would bleed.

She flicked her finger and a rift would form.

One Hunter was unlucky. As the rift split his body in half, a ghastly scream escaped his lips as a beast broke free from within his body. Muscle tendrils snapped as claws dug through his face and from him emerged a creature of the Void.

Another tried to flee at the last second but a part of him was still struck.

His skin and flesh were peeled from bone, sucked away by the gap between realms.

Lords tried to exert their authority, to do anything to turn the battle around.

But this was Feris’s domain.

As this monster rampaged through the cage, consuming the tiny fragments within to fill its heart, Noah finally let out a deep exhale.

One that came from the deepest pits of his soul.

"Can we even do it?" Yama asked.

Noah didn’t even need to say a word and his friend already understood his intentions.

"Feris is still in there. Somewhere." Noah replied.

"I know. But not even Lords stand a chance." Yama, reminded.

He had to present the situation in its most literal form.

For Noah to understand exactly what he was planning to do.

"I know. But Feris is still there right?" Noah smiled with a nod.

Yama sighed helplessly.

"When you dragged me to rebel from the pit, I already told you the issue back then haven’t I?"

"You did. But we still escaped didn’t we?" Noah chuckled.

". . . It was all thanks to Feris." Yama scrunched his brows slightly.

"Which is why this’ll succeed again." Noah hoisted his blade onto his shoulder.

Perhaps it’s a hallucination. Perhaps it’s a desperate plea within himself.

But for the briefest of moments, he felt as though he could hear Feris’s cry.

She was still in there, begging for help.

Waiting for him to pull her out from that darkness.

"Feris is still in there. Fighting in her own way. Hasn’t this thing ignored us so far?" Noah glanced at Yama who had already readied his blades.

"Taking advantage of a young girl’s vulnerability to strike her down? Didn’t think you’d fall so low." Yama joked.

Rarely did he joke.

But this situation called for it.

Otherwise...

Not even he could keep his hands steady.

Noah rolled his eyes but an appreciative smile hung on his lips.

"I pulled her from that pit and promised her I’ll take responsibility for her right? What kind of man would I be did I didn’t honour it? Life or death, I will always be by her side." Noah exhaled as his muscles tensed up.

"How smooth prince charming. But you better tell that to her and not me. I don’t swing that way." Yama laughed.

With that as the final call, the group dashed from their location and rushed towards Feris.