Chapter 36: The Void King

Uhhh. Again. And again. I lost. Lost. Lost.

My name is Deio. Age unknown. Height unknown. I have been in this place for as long as I can remember. Thrown inside this cave when I was fourteen. Kidnapped. My family… they did not bother paying the bails. Coins meant nothing. I was not the real son of the lord Regan, but those thugs thought he would give gold for me. I have been stuck here ever since. Time has no meaning. I don’t know how long. I don’t even see light.

There is a wall in this cave. I am breaking it. I don’t know why. I hit it again. My fists hurt. My nails bleed. Dust fills the air, scratches my throat. My palms are raw. I hit. I sleep. I woke up. The wall is the same. It mocks me. I broke it again. I don’t know how many times I have done this. Days? Months? Years? Perhaps all of them, all at once.

“If only I could see the light outside once more,” I whisper to the stone. My voice echoes. The stone answers nothing. I am alone. Again. And again.

Somewhere else inside the anims…

Ilfoun says, “Ofan came here.”

Ofan nods, voice small, “Ok… father.”

Ofan thinks to himself, I am nine years old.

Ilfoun says, “Sit here. Let’s go fishing.”

The sky clouds over. Gray spreads across the horizon. The water moves strangely, whispering in colors I cannot name. Then,red. Red everywhere. Ofan falls. The ground burns in his mind. He lifts his face and sees himself older than he remembers. His jaw set, hands trembling. “Dam you…” he whispers. And then he dies… or perhaps he doesn’t.

Name: Ofan. Height unknown. Age unknown. Place unknown.

Ofan remembers. The day his father told him to come fishing. They sat together in a small fishing boat. The water was calm at first, soft like glass. Then the sea changed. Waves rose like hands. They drifted for two days. Two days lost in endless water. Something came from nowhere. It took his father. It tore him apart. Or maybe swallowed him whole.

Ofan lives inside that thing now. A whale? A beast? A place without sun? He has been here for… so long. Or not long at all. His beard is thick. His body is hairy. He drinks the water the whale drinks. He eats the meat the whale brings. Hunger is inside him, gnawing deeper than fear. His eyes turn black. He clenches his hands. He tears into the whale’s meat.

“It might seem pointless,” he thinks, “but I learned from my father. Big fish like these… They have holes inside. Holes that make water spill when they’re happy. And I… I will destroy every single one of your kind.”

Elsewhere inside the anims, a sheep huddles. Twenty wolves circle. Someone throws water at eleven of the wolves to keep the sheep away. The sheep shivers. The wolves pause. The water is cold. Sharp. Protective. A single miracle in the chaos.

A boy wakes again. The same dream. What does it mean? Elabon asks himself.

The dream fades, but darkness remains. He steps outside. “Everything is broken. There is darkness,” he says. “Where am I?”

He walks. Clouds cover the sky, thick and low. The air smells of damp stone and old ash. Shadows stretch unnaturally. A hand taps him on the shoulder. Elabon falls. He looks up.

A man stands there. Black hair. Black clothes with white straps. Pale skin like moonlight.

“Who… who are you?” Elabon asks.

“I am the Void King. My name is Erevos,” the man says. His voice is cold, sharp, cutting through the air. “I am here to grant you my power. You will be my shield. You will be my weapon. Go… find the whale bones.”

Elabon feels it. The darkness inside him hums. Power curls in his chest. A shiver travels down his spine. He stands. His heart beats too fast. The world waits. The anims waits. And somewhere… Deio keeps hitting the wall. Ofan gnaws at the whale’s meat. The sheep trembles, wolves howl, and the air feels electric, alive, waiting for something broken to rise.

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