Naire's scream tore through the silence—raw, fractured, endless.
She held her mother close, her trembling hands pressed against the blood-soaked fabric, fingers curling into lifeless flesh as if she could will warmth back into her body.
But **there was none.**
Only cold.
Only death.
Her mother's face—once soft, once kind—was twisted in stillness, her eyes empty, staring at a world that had taken everything from her.
Naire's chest tightened, breath coming in uneven gasps. **This wasn't supposed to happen.**
She **wasn't supposed to be alone.**
Smoke curled into the air around her, thick, suffocating—the cottages were burning, her childhood home collapsing into the fire like it had never existed at all.
She looked up, tears blurring her vision, taking in the bodies. **Everyone.**
The market vendors.
The mothers who had sneered at her.
The children who had once laughed at her suffering.
All of them. **Gone.**
Blood soaked into the dirt, pooling at her knees, staining everything, every breath, every moment.
Her body trembled.
Her mind screamed.
And then—**laughter.**
Low.
Deep.
**Amused.**
"You finally understand now."
The inhuman man stood at the edge of the destruction, his chains rattling, the bodies he carried swaying slightly in the firelight.
*"You were never meant to be part of this world."*
Naire's vision blurred with rage, grief, fear—**everything.**
And in the flames, in the blood, in the echoes of a life she could never get back, **something inside her broke.**
Naire screamed, and the sound was **not human**.
The air twisted around her, the firelight flickering erratically, the earth itself pulling away as her body **changed**.
Her skin—frail, torn, bloodied—**peeled away**, falling like tattered cloth into the dirt, revealing something beneath that should not have existed.
Spikes. Black. Jagged. Alive.
They tore through her body, pushing past flesh, stretching outward—razor-sharp, shifting, pulsating with something primal, something **unnatural**.
Her eyes—empty voids—burned with raw **hatred**.
She lunged.
And the inhuman man laughed.
Soft. Deep. **Amused.**
"Wow, look at you."
His chains rattled, his unnatural form looming, his voice wrapping around her like shadows clinging to dying light.
"Amazing."
The ground beneath her feet cracked as she closed the distance.
She did not care about **what she was becoming**.
She did not care about **what she was losing**.
She wanted **him to burn**.
And as her claws stretched forward, ready to tear into him, **the world shuddered**—as if it, too, feared what Naire had finally become.
-
Naire struck.
Her claws—razor-sharp shards of blackened flesh—sliced through the air, tearing toward the inhuman man with all the force of her rage, her grief, her unbearable loss.
But **he did not move**.
Chains snapped forward instead, twisting in the air, intercepting her attack before her claws could reach his body. The force of the collision sent a sickening **shockwave** through the ground, cracking the earth beneath them.
He laughed again—soft, deep, delighted.
"You're learning fast."
Naire snarled, her breath ragged, her body still shifting, mutating, pushing beyond human limitations. **She did not want to learn. She wanted to kill.**
She lunged again, faster this time. Stronger. **Unhinged.**
The chains whipped around her, tightening like serpents ready to constrict. But she **refused** to be caught.
She twisted midair, tearing through the restraints, ripping them apart **as if they were nothing**.
For the first time, his amusement faltered.
His body—pitch black, endless—leaned forward slightly, observing her with something beyond interest.
Something deeper.
Something **proud**.
"Beautiful," he murmured.
Naire roared, the sound **inhuman**, crashing against the burning ruins around them like thunder.
And this time—**she did not miss.**
Her claws dug into him, piercing the void that made up his form.
And for the first time, the inhuman man **bled.**
---
Naire's claws sank into the inhuman man's body, the black void of his form shuddering under the impact.
And then—**it bled**.
Not red. Not human.
**Something darker. Thicker. Moving as if it had a will of its own.**
The inhuman man laughed
Not in pain. Not in anger.
In **pure delight.**
"You are truly mine now."
Naire flinched, her grip tightening, her jagged shards digging deeper into the wound. But **it did not feel like victory.**
It felt like something worse.
The bleeding substance coiled around her claws, creeping up her arms, sinking into her skin, wrapping around her like it had always belonged there.
Her breath hitched.
Her body **reacted**—not with rejection, but with **acceptance**.
The substance pulsed, merging with her blackened flesh, disappearing into the jagged spikes that had consumed her.
And she understood.
This was not a battle.
This was an invitation.
And she had accepted
The inhuman man grinned, his chains rattling, the lifeless bodies within them twitching ever so slightly, as if they too **recognized what had just happened**.
Welcome home, Naire."
And in that moment—**she knew she could never go back.**
--
---
The corrupted flesh binding her twisted, spikes pulsing with the blood she had taken from the inhuman man, from **her supposed father**. But she **refused** him.
She **refused** whatever fate he had planned.
Her vision blurred through pain, through fear, but then—**she saw it**.
The Veil of Pyre lake.
A pit of darkness stretching into the world like an open mouth. **Nothing escaped it. Nothing returned.**
But if she could drag **him** into it—if she could bury him beneath its endless black—**then maybe she could be free.**
The thought was reckless. Desperate.
It was her only chance.
She lurched forward, feigning another strike, letting him believe she was still losing herself.
The chains whipped toward her.
She dodged.
She ran.
Straight toward the lake.
"Running again?" he mused, his laughter thick with amusement. **He followed.**
Perfect.
The shadows curled, the weight of his presence stretching through the fire-lit ruins, but Naire did not slow.
She reached the edge, the abyss of the Veil of Pyre yawning before her.
And in one final, **impossible** act—she turned, grabbed hold of him, and **threw herself into the black.**
The chains snapped.
The darkness swallowed.
And as the world above faded into nothing, **only silence remained.**
--
Naire gasped, her body convulsing, her lungs burning as she doubled over. **The blood was wrong.**
It was thick, black, **alive**, dripping from her lips like something that did not belong to her. Something that had never belonged to anyone.
She gagged, pressing her trembling hands into the dirt beneath her, feeling the damp ground—**real ground**—for the first time in years.
Seven years.
That's how long the world had kept moving without her. How long war had churned, how long people had fought for survival, how long monsters had clawed their way into power.
And yet—**the lake was gone.**
The Veil of Pyre had swallowed her whole, had dragged her beneath its endless black. And now, it had spit her out **as if it had never existed at all**.
She inhaled sharply, shivering as the blackened blood clung to her skin, sinking into the fabric of what remained of her clothes.
Her body felt **human again**.
The spikes were gone.
The corruption—the transformation that had once consumed her—had receded.
But she was not the same.
She could still feel it.
The weight of the void pressing against her mind, the echoes of whispers curling in the back of her skull. **It had not left her. It never would.**
And her father—**the inhuman thing that had claimed her, had twisted her fate beyond recognition—was gone.**
Or rather, **he was part of it now.**
The lake had taken him, had ripped him apart, had buried him deep in the abyss.
And somehow—**it had returned her.**
But why?
She swallowed hard, forcing herself to stand, her legs weak beneath the weight of seven years lost.
And as she looked beyond the ruins of the battlefield, beyond the corrupted cities fighting for control, beyond the world that no longer remembered who she was—she realized **her story was far from over.**
--
Naire groaned as she pushed herself upward, her limbs stiff, weak, aching in ways she didn't understand. Her body had been **gone** for years, submerged in something beyond life, beyond time. Now it was **whole**, yet fragile. **Reborn, but not right.**
She took a step—**and collapsed.**
Pain lanced through her muscles, her breath hitching, the weight of movement crashing against her like a force she had never known before.
The dried-up pit beneath her stretched out like an empty grave, the remnants of the Veil of Pyre long vanished, leaving only hardened earth, deep cracks, and a silence that felt **wrong**.
And then—**small voices.**
Naire blinked up, breath uneven.
Two small figures stood at the edge of the pit, gazing down at her.
Children.
No older than four, their wide eyes locked onto her with something neither fear nor understanding.
Just **curiosity**.
She swallowed hard, tasting blood and remnants of the void on her tongue.
They did not know her.
They did not know what she had done, what she had become, what she **still was** despite the human body she now wore again.
For a moment, she wished she could be like them.
Untouched. Unburdened. Free.
But she wasn't.
She never would be.
And as she struggled to move, the children **did not run**.
They simply watched.
Waiting.
As if they already knew—**she was not meant to stay in this place.**
--
A voice cut through the silence.
Sharp, worried. A mother's voice.
The children turned, their heads snapping toward the sound just as a woman rushed forward, her movements quick, urgent, **protective**.
She grabbed them instinctively, pulling them to her side. "What are you doing—"
Then she saw **her**.
She stopped.
Her breath hitched.
Her wide eyes locked onto Naire's fragile, bloodstained form—her naked skin, her trembling limbs, the dried remnants of blackened goo clinging to her body like something that refused to let go.
Her **concern** was immediate.
Not disgust.
Not anger.
Just concern.
The children did not speak. They simply watched, curious, quiet. But the woman's gaze **did not waver**.
She ushered the children away, her voice softer now. "Go."
They hesitated—just for a moment—before obeying.
And then, the woman turned back to Naire
She did not know her.
She did not know what she had been, where she had come from, or what still lingered inside her.
But still—she spoke.
"Are you alright?"
Naire's breath hitched.
She had not expected kindness.
And she did not know how to answer.
---
"I don't know," Naire whispered, her voice rough, foreign.
It didn't sound like hers.
It was deeper—**hollow**, like something stretched thin across years, pulled too far, burdened by time that should not have existed.
Her breath hitched. **How long had she been in the void?**
Before the thought could settle, her body gave in.
The ground rose to meet her, the remnants of the dried pit beneath her pressing into her skin, cool, solid—**real.**
Yet she still felt the echoes of the abyss lingering in her bones.
The woman moved forward, her voice urgent but gentle. **Still concerned.** Still untouched by fear. "Stay with me," she murmured, her warmth reaching past the empty space Naire had carried for years.
Then—another voice.
Younger.
"Soft."
Naire turned her head weakly, vision swimming as she locked onto **her**.
A girl.
Beautiful.
Brown hair catching the dying sunlight, freckles dusting her skin like whispers of warmth, eyes soft and deep—**brown, human, kind.**
She looked **real**.
She looked **alive**.
And yet—Naire knew nothing of her, nothing of this place, nothing of what had happened while she had been drowning beneath the weight of something beyond understanding.
The woman called the girl closer.
And for the first time in **seven years**, Naire looked into eyes that did not judge her.
---