I opened my eyes.
Clarity returned in fractured flashes—like shards of broken glass pulling themselves together. Each flicker of awareness came with pain. Deep, agonizing pain. The kind that nests in your bones and refuses to leave.
The agony that had once ravaged my body like wildfire had dulled—but it hadn't vanished. It lingered, constant and pulsing, like an unwelcome guest whispering reminders that I was still alive.
Light stabbed into my eyes, searing and blinding. I tried to move—
Nothing.
I was bound to a chair. Ankles strapped to its legs. Arms pulled behind me at impossible angles. Not with rope—but with metal cords. Thin enough to bite into skin. Thick enough to hold.
And then I felt it.
My face.
A sharp, hollow emptiness bloomed on the right side of my head. I couldn't blink—because there was no eyelid. I couldn't see—because there was no eye.
Just a gaping socket.
Blood leaked from it, slow and warm, trickling down my cheek like it was mocking me.
I tried to scream.
"Aa—rrgh—!"
But it was cut short.
A gloved hand seized my hair. Yanked my head back. And a fist followed.
CRACK.
My jaw snapped. Twisted left. Bone shifting with a sickening sound.
Pain detonated in my skull.
I screamed—or tried to. Blood flooded my mouth, choking the sound. I writhed in place, thrashing against my bindings. But there was no escape.
Then I saw my hands.
My right hand had no fingers—just ruined stumps, torn and wrapped in shredded gauze, oozing crimson with each twitch. My left still had fingers, but no nails. Every one had been ripped out, leaving behind raw, exposed nailbeds, pulsing with agony.
Blood streamed down both arms, pooling at my feet.
All around me, the ground was littered with tools—pliers, scalpels, needles, bone saws—every one of them soaked in drying red.
A torture gallery.
And I was the exhibit.
But through the pain, through the haze and blood, only one thought echoed in my mind, a broken chant that wouldn't stop:
'WhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhy—'
Then he stepped into the light.
The man.
The executioner.
His suit was perfect—black, tailored, not a wrinkle in sight. A crisp white shirt beneath, buttoned to the top. He looked like a man on a business trip.
Except for the gloves.
Black. Leather. Slick with blood.
His face was striking—too sharp, too clean. A scar ran across his right cheek, not disfiguring, but accentuating the coldness in his symmetry. Black hair, slicked back with meticulous care. And those eyes—green, clear, furious.
He didn't shout.
Didn't sneer.
He only grabbed my hair tighter and lifted my face toward his.
"You touched the Highness," he said quietly.
His voice was calm. Like a verdict already passed.
"You slapped her."
"You left a mark."
His expression didn't change. But behind his eyes burned a hatred deeper than hell itself.
"Do you even realize," he said, voice almost tender, "what she is?"
I wanted to answer.
I wanted to scream the truth: Who? Who are you talking about? I don't know her! You've got the wrong person!
But I couldn't.
Not because I lacked strength.
Because my sanity had fractured. Cracked under the weight of pain and dread.
And even if I had held on...
My jaw was broken. Mangled beyond use.
Even if I could've spoken, I knew—
He wouldn't have cared.
To him, I wasn't a man.
I was a mistake.
A violation.
Something to be erased.
He stepped back.
Picked up a blade from the blood-slick table behind him.
Long. Thin. Sharp.
Not a weapon for war—a tool for precision.
A tool for ending.
"No second chances," he said, almost regretfully.
The blade flashed.
I didn't feel it.
Only saw the world tilt sideways.
And then—
Nothing.
....
Thud.
Kaelion's severed head struck the ground with a lifeless thump, echoing through the silent cave like the toll of a funeral bell.
A moment later, a sickening crunch shattered the quiet.
The man brought his heel down—calm, slow—grinding the skull beneath his boot. Bone cracked. Flesh flattened. Brain matter and blood exploded outward in a grotesque splash.
It should've coated him.
But not a single drop touched his suit.
Not one.
The blood painted the floor, the walls, the instruments—yet the man remained untouched, immaculate.
Untouchable.
He exhaled. Slow. Measured.
The fury in his chest ebbed, just a little.
With mechanical grace, he dropped the blade. It clattered against the stone floor, a quiet end to the carnage.
Then he turned, stepping into the shadows beyond the chamber.
As he emerged, the world shifted.
A forest stretched before him.
Black. Twisted. Wrong.
The trees loomed like titans, their bark as dark as charcoal, veined with rust-red streaks like dried blood. Their branches curled like claws, and the leaves whispered without wind—soft voices in a dead tongue.
The sky above was a gray void, swirling with ash and shadow.
There were no stars.
No moon.
No birds.
Only breathing—but not from anything alive.
Fog crept across the ground, thick and oily, crawling as if it had a mind. The soil pulsed beneath it, like something ancient and terrible slumbered just beneath the surface, stirring.
From the deeper shadows, something moved.
Something tall.
Too tall.
Limbs too long. Eyes—too many—blinking in jagged, chaotic rhythm. Glowing pale in the dark, like hollow lanterns.
They watched the man.
And recoiled.
Even the horrors that ruled this forest feared him.
He didn't look back.
Didn't hesitate.
And then—he vanished.
No flash. No sound.
The forest simply swallowed him.
....
Back within the mountain, the cave began to shudder.
Stone cracked. Dust fell like snow.
Then, as though a hand from beyond reality reached in and crushed it, the cavern collapsed.
Not an explosion.
A folding.
A silencing.
The chamber that had held Kaelion's suffering, his blood, his end—was erased.
Gone.
As if it had never been there at all.