GOD IS DEAD

“You must have noticed by now... the god is dead.”

The voice didn’t come from above or below — it came from everywhere. It slid beneath my skin like ice, curled around my bones, and pulled something unspoken from the deepest part of me. It was ancient. Soft. And utterly cold.

“I killed him,” the voice whispered again. “With my very own hands.”

The chamber around us — that great hall of obsidian bone and chained thrones — responded with a soundless pulse. I could feel it vibrating beneath my boots. Celis stirred beside me, her breath catching.

My name followed, not like a whisper — like a verdict.

Kael Veythar.

It cracked through the air, and my blood ran cold.

I took a breath. Slow. My fingers found the hilt of my sword like they were drawn there by instinct, not thought. The atmosphere thickened — not heat, not noise, but presence. Something enormous hovered nearby. Watching.

“The cursed one…”

The voice slithered inside my head.

“What do you mean?” I asked. My voice broke halfway through. I hated that it did.

The man on the throne didn’t move. But I knew he was smiling.

“See your face.”

My hand trembled as I raised it to my cheek. I touched my skin — cracked, rough, wrong. A jolt of pain fired through me. I yanked my hand away.

It was stained black.

Lines. Marks. Veins of darkness running beneath my flesh like my blood had turned to ink.

“What... is this?”

He raised a finger.

And the world snapped.

A sigil flared into the air. Sharp, jagged, alive. My breath vanished. My muscles locked.

Beside me, Celis let out a strangled cry.

We couldn’t move.

CRACK.

The man was in front of us.

He hadn’t walked.

He hadn’t stepped.

He just... was there.

The floor beneath my knees shattered.

Something heavy pressed into me from all sides — spiritual force that weighed like gravity, but colder.

The spell shattered under the weight. I collapsed, gasping. My hands hit the ground like I was drowning in air.

Celis screamed beside me.

He stood calmly — shrouded in black. His presence devoured sound. His face was hidden, cloaked in something darker than shadows. Even looking at him felt like staring at something the world itself was trying to forget.

He wasn’t just a man.

He was a wound in reality.

“It would be wise,” he said, “to erase you now. Before you awaken further. Before you become more than just a mark on fate’s spine.”

I swallowed.

“Who... are you?”

He tilted his head. The motion was too fluid, almost... artificial.

“I am what is left when gods bleed,” he said. “I am the hand that broke the chain. The memory the world tries to forget.”

And then — he vanished.

A wave of darkness pulsed outward.

Celis screamed.

There was a blur.

She collapsed.

I turned — too slow.

And then — pain.

A blade slid through my gut like it belonged there.

My breath hitched. I couldn’t scream.

My knees gave out.

I reached for something — anything — but my fingers only found air.

The last thing I saw before my vision broke was Celis, lying motionless.

And then —

Light.

Golden. Gentle.

Wind on my face. Birdsong.

I stood. Whole.

I blinked.

I was on a gravel path.

The sky above was too blue. The flowers in the field swayed just a little too perfectly.

“Let’s go, brother! We gotta collect some spices!”

Liora.

My sister. Smiling. Alive.

She took my hand. It was warm.

“Hurry! You’re always so slow.”

I didn’t know what was real.

But my feet moved.

“We’re back, Mom!”

The house smelled like it always did — firewood, herbs, home.

Then I saw it.

Blood.

Liora’s hands. Her dress.

My mother turned. Her face was slick with red. She smiled like nothing was wrong.

I stepped back.

I tried to speak. But my throat was closed.

I turned. Ran.

“Kael?” she called.

But her voice... it was wrong.

The sky twisted above me, clouds folding into themselves like scars. Ash fell like snow. Flames rose behind homes, thick and oily.

Screams split the air.

The path was a graveyard. Burnt corpses. Twisted limbs.

The village wasn’t just destroyed — it was remembering its own destruction.

I ran faster.

But no matter how far I ran — it chased me.

Eventually, the world gave way beneath me.

The fires dimmed. The screams dissolved, slipping into silence like whispers drowning under snow.

Everything became white.

Not light. Absence.

An emptiness so complete it felt alive. Like I was standing at the edge of something that had forgotten how to exist.

A blank canvas.

And I... I was the last smear of color. The last mistake before it was cleaned away.

Then — something moved.

Not footsteps. Not breath. Just presence.

It drifted toward me like a memory. Like something I had seen before I was born.

The spirit.

The same figure I had seen in dreams. In reflections. In the corners of ruined places.

I turned and ran.

Instinct. Terror. Nothing else mattered.

But even as I ran, I knew — it was already ahead of me.

Waiting.

It didn’t have to chase me.

It was inevitable.

The spirit raised its arm.

I tried to scream.

I tried to move.

It struck.

No sound. No resistance. Just a hand through flesh. Through soul.

The cold was immediate — a numbness that wrapped around my spine and squeezed.

Blood filled my mouth, coppery and thick.

I stumbled. My knees hit the white beneath me.

I could feel myself coming apart — like I was a page being torn in slow, agonizing pieces.

I collapsed.

I wanted to speak. To cry. But my voice was gone.

The spirit hovered above me.

No face. No mouth. No eyes.

But I felt it smile.

Then I fell forward.

My blood spread across the white void like ink — the only color in an unkind world.

And I knew.

I was dying.

Not peacefully.

Not slowly.

Like I was being erased from existence.

And in that moment — deep, deep inside me — something laughed.

Not a voice I recognized.

But it had always been there.

Waiting for this exact moment.

Why me?

Who was that man?

What the fuck is going on?

What is this broken world I keep waking into?