Cold
Not the kind that prickled skin or made you shiver. This cold was ancient, empty. It settled into her bones like it belonged there, as if it had been waiting for her to arrive.
She opened her eyes again.
Still no sound. Still no memory. Still no name.
The room wasn't a prison. It wasn't even a room in the traditional sense. The ceiling stretched far above in uneven curves, smooth and metallic, humming with a faint violet light. Walls flowed in strange, organic shapes — no corners, no seams. Like the whole place had grown from something that had once been alive.
She stood in the center, barefoot on a floor that pulsed softly beneath her feet like a slow heartbeat. Her cloak was still damp, still heavy, though from what — blood, water, some kind of chemical ooze — she couldn't say. There were stains on the hem. Faint and dark. Not hers, probably.
In front of her: a mirror.
Or something trying to be a mirror. It showed her reflection, but the details shifted subtly. Her eyes glowed faintly when she looked too long. The angles of her face changed, just slightly. She looked taller, older. Then younger. Then monstrous. Each blink revealed another version of her staring back with increasing intensity.
She tore her gaze away.
Her breath misted in the air. The silence was starting to press against her skull like pressure in deep water. It wasn't just absence — it was restraint. Like something was holding its breath, waiting.
> Move.
She didn't know where the command came from. But her feet obeyed.
With cautious steps, she circled the room. There was no visible door, but the surface of one wall rippled faintly when she approached, as if reacting to her presence. She reached out. Her fingers touched cold metal — then the wall opened like an eye.
Beyond it: darkness.
Not pitch-black. It breathed with violet light, pulsing like a distant heartbeat again. She stepped forward without thinking.
The corridor curved immediately, leading downward in a spiral. No handrails. No visible supports. Just smooth, living metal and a silence that seemed to stretch forever.
> What is this place?
She stopped.
That thought hadn't been hers. It echoed in her skull like the fading ring of a bell, but the voice was... wrong. A fragment, a whisper — but not hers.
> Something's still inside me.
Her chest ached. A deep, steady throb just beneath the breastbone. Not pain. Pressure. Like a second heart trying to beat beneath her own.
She pressed her palm to her chest.
It pulsed.
And then she heard it again — not in her head, but through the floor, through the walls.
A whispering chant. Voices without language. They slithered around her ears like breath on skin.
She ran.
Her footsteps made no sound. Her lungs didn't burn. Her muscles didn't strain. She should've been exhausted — terrified — but she moved like instinct. Like she had done this before.
The corridor opened abruptly into a circular chamber.
Here, the lights dimmed to black. In the center of the room, suspended in the air, was a floating black sphere about the size of her skull. No light touched it. Even the ambient glow vanished near its surface, as if it devoured illumination itself.
She stepped closer, drawn forward by something older than fear.
> Touch it.
The thought — hers, this time — came with no hesitation.
She did.
The moment her fingers brushed the sphere, the world fractured.
A scream tore through her head — not from her mouth, but inside. The sound was not pain. It was birth. Her vision burst white, then violet, then pure void. Her mind stretched open like a wound.
Flashes:
A city under a blood-colored sky, abandoned and silent.
A throne made of glass and bone, shattered by her hand.
A voice screaming her name in rage and worship — but she had no name.
A blade forged from dying stars.
A figure standing in shadow — her mirror image, smiling.
Then darkness.
When she opened her eyes, she was on the floor.
The sphere was gone.
In its place was a mark burned into the metal. A symbol she didn't recognize — circular, with sharp intersecting lines and a slit in the center like an eye. It pulsed, faintly glowing violet.
Her hand now bore the same mark, etched into her skin, like it had always been there.
> A curse... or a key?
The chamber trembled. Metal groaned. Lights flickered.
Something had awakened.
From the far side of the room, a doorway cracked open.
For the first time, she heard a sound: footsteps.
Not hers.
Heavy. Slow. Deliberate.
She stood, body taut, heart silent, breath held.
Then came the second sound — metal sliding, fluid hissing. A shape stepped into the doorway.
Tall. Armored. Featureless face. Eyes glowing with the same violet energy that now hummed inside her chest.
The thing raised a hand toward her.
It didn't speak.
But the meaning was clear.
> "You are the anomaly. You are to be terminated."
She didn't run.
She didn't know her name.
But whatever she was — anomaly, monster, echo — she wouldn't die before finding out why.
She raised her hand — the marked one.
It pulsed.
And the light obeyed.