PANTHEON ZERO

The communal hall of the orphanage always smelled of burnt pine wood and cheap stew. It wasn’t much of a home. The roof leaked whenever it rained, the floorboards groaned beneath every footstep, and cold drafts slipped through the walls during winter. But it was home. Upstairs, the younger children were already asleep, their distant breathing blending with the familiar creaks of the old building. Tonight, the silence felt peaceful. Safe. I stepped into the hall expecting a late-night chore, or perhaps a gentle scolding for staying awake so late.

Instead, the world shattered.

Something exploded through my chest.

For a moment, my mind refused to comprehend what I was seeing. I looked down and found a blood-covered arm protruding directly from my torso. Warm, thick crimson spilled down my shirt and dripped onto the wooden floor. My legs trembled beneath me. Slowly, agony forcing my neck to turn, I looked behind me.

Standing there was one the woman who had run the orphanage for the past two years. A caretaker. The woman who bandaged scraped knees, read stories to frightened children during storms, and taught me how to read. She stared back at me with the exact same gentle smile she always wore.

I coughed, blood splattering violently across the floorboards. “W-why…?” The words barely escaped my lips.

Her smile never changed.

I tried to grab the arm impaling me, but before my fingers could close, a metallic rattle echoed through the hall. Heavy chains erupted from the empty air, coiling around my wrists and binding them tight. The cold iron bit deep into my skin. Then, with a wet tear, she pulled her arm free from my chest.

Agony exploded through my entire existence.

I collapsed to my knees, the impact cracking the wood beneath me. Every breath felt like inhaling shards of broken glass. Dark spots danced at the edges of my vision, yet somehow, my consciousness refused to fade. The woman stepped around to face me, and as she did, she began to change.

At first, it was subtle. The shape of her face sharpened. Her posture straightened. The comforting scent of fireplace dust and old books vanished, instantly replaced by the overwhelming, suffocating fragrance of lilies and expensive perfume. With every step, the caretaker disappeared and something else emerged. Something ancient. Something profoundly wrong.

By the time she stopped in front of me, the woman I knew was gone.

The figure standing before me looked less like a human and more like a goddess. Celestial white fabric shimmered around her body like woven starlight. Golden chains traced elegant patterns across her flawless skin, connecting fragments of silk and translucent cloth that seemed too beautiful to belong in the mortal world. Amethyst gemstones glowed softly among intricate golden filigree. Everything about her radiated impossible perfection and absolute dominance.

I stared in stunned, breathless silence.

She crouched down, wrapping delicate, porcelain fingers around my chin to force my head upward. Her eyes met mine. The pressure behind them felt crushing, like staring into a cosmic void vast enough to erase entire worlds without effort.

“Oh, you poor thing,” she said softly.

Her voice was beautiful. And utterly cruel.

“You seem to be in a lot of pain.”

My lungs burned. Blood filled my mouth, threatening to choke me. Every instinct screamed at me to surrender, to let the darkness take me. But anger burned hotter. I had lived in this orphanage my entire life. These people were my family. And this monster had just destroyed it all.

I forced air through my ruined chest. The effort felt impossible, but still, one word escaped the iron taste in my mouth.

“Why…?”

For a brief moment, she blinked. Then she laughed—a soft, melodic sound that should have been comforting. Instead, it sent pure ice through my veins. She tilted my head even higher, digging her nails into my jaw.

“Because I was bored.”

The answer came immediately, as casually as discussing the afternoon weather.

“As a Goddess i have watched countless lives bloom and fade,” she continued, her smile widening. “Entire civilizations rise and collapse. After a while, everything becomes predictable. And out of all the fragile little birds in this pathetic world… you looked like the most entertaining toy.”

The words hit harder than the physical wound. I just knelt there on my knees, my arms still chained, buried in a heavy, suffocating silence. In that single, quiet moment, I could feel my entire future evaporating right before my eyes.

Then, the porcelain fingers gripping my jaw violently twisted my head toward the glass.

“Look outside that window, Yusei,” she whispered, her voice dropping into a calm, chilling monotone that vibrated right against my ear. “Plant this forever into your memory.”

My eyes strained against the dark, tracing the glass. When the shadows finally took shape, my breath caught in my throat, and my soul withered.

Strewn across the courtyard were the dead bodies of all the kids and priests who had lived at the orphanage with us. It was a slaughterhouse. Dismembered limbs, torn flesh, and pools of blackening blood coated the cobblestones. Even the children—the toddlers I had put to bed just hours ago—lay scattered like broken dolls, their bodies brutally torn apart.

Tears welled up in my eyes, mixing with the hot blood tracking down my face, as the true weight of my helplessness finally broke me.

Seeing the tears, her smile widened into something genuinely monstrous. She leaned in closer, her breath warm against my cheek.

“That’s the face I love seeing,” she whispered, her voice practically dripping with malicious satisfaction. “Your face of complete despair.”

With the snap of her finger, the whole room started to shatter.

A black, endless void opened up directly beneath me, rapidly expanding until it was large enough to swallow my body whole. The floorboards vanished into nothingness. Suddenly, gravity took hold, and my feet slipped into the empty abyss. The only thing holding me up were the chains binding my wrists, keeping me suspended over the infinite dark like a puppet over a stage.

She looked down at me one last time, her eyes glinting with amusement, and let the chains go.