My claws pierced my skull.
There was no pain at first—only a sudden drop, like the world gave up on holding me.
Darkness swallowed everything.
No light.
No sound.
No ground beneath my feet.
I tried to speak. Nothing came out.
I tried to move. Nothing answered.
It wasn't terrifying. That surprised me.
The silence pressed against me, heavy but calm, like a place that didn't expect anything from me. No judgment. No memory. No guilt clawing at my ribs.
I felt myself thinning. Stretching. Losing shape.
And for a moment, I welcomed it.
People like me weren't meant to be remembered. Monsters didn't deserve endings. We deserved to dissolve quietly and leave the world cleaner than we found it.
But my fingers curled.
Not yet.
Sylphia's face flashed through the void—not a memory, but a weight. Her blood. Her trembling voice. The way she begged for death without saying it.
I clenched my jaw.
I needed to live. Not for myself. Not for my mother. Not for whatever sin had crawled into my veins.
For her.
Something shifted behind me.
Cold breath brushed my neck.
Hands wrapped around my torso from behind—too familiar, too intimate. A tongue dragged slowly across my cheek.
"Enjoying yourself, son?" a voice whispered.
My body stiffened.
Her voice.
Lilith's.
Before I could turn, teeth sank into my neck.
Pain exploded—real this time. Sharp. Deep. Personal.
I tried to scream. My mouth opened wide, but the void swallowed the sound whole. My limbs refused to obey. I was trapped in my own skin while she tore into me.
Her hands dug into my chest. Her teeth ripped deeper. I felt her feeding—not just on flesh, but on something beneath it.
Rage surged.
Images slammed into me—dark rooms, my father's fists, laughter behind locked doors. The same helplessness. The same disgust.
So nothing changed.
I hadn't escaped anything. I had only returned to the core of it.
My eyes burned. Red light bled into the void.
I stopped resisting.
If this place wanted a monster, then I would give it one.
I twisted in her grip. My teeth sank into her neck with equal force. Blood spilled everywhere—thick, warm, endless. We devoured each other without mercy, without shame.
The void trembled.
"Why can't we just disappear?" I growled between bites. "Wouldn't the world be better without us?"
She froze.
Then she laughed.
A low, broken sound.
"This world made us," she said calmly. "It denied us death. So why should we spare it?"
Her words echoed endlessly, folding the darkness in on itself.
We kept tearing at each other until nothing remained—no bodies, no shapes, no borders. Only understanding.
She didn't want to live.
She couldn't die.
And this world demanded suffering to exist.
The darkness cracked.
I felt myself scatter—then reform.
When sensation returned, I was sitting on something cold and solid.
I opened my eyes.
The crimson moon stretched beneath me.
Stars hovered close enough to touch.
I lay back and laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because I finally understood.
This wasn't Heaven.
This wasn't Hell.
This was the paradox of corruption.