Mark dangles in the abyss, the chains digging into his wrists, his body swaying like a lifeless marionette among hundreds of others. His arms throb from being suspended, his muscles twitching as his blood struggles to circulate. The metal cuffs, rusted and ice-cold, bite into his skin, carving deeper with every slight movement. He wonders if, when they are finally removed, the flesh will peel away with them. The slow creak of straining links echoes through the void, each ripple of sound amplifying the suffocating weight of the sea of prisoners beside him.

The air is thick, pressing against his skin like an invisible force, heavy with an acidic burn that makes his lungs ache. Every breath is short and shallow, dragging through his throat like knives. He suppresses a cough, instinctively knowing that any noise beyond the muted, dissonant wails might draw attention. The acrid stench clings to the inside of his nose metallic, tainted like corroded iron steeped in old blood. Around him, voices weave together a tapestry of weeping, frantic prayers, and slurred whispers. Some beg for mercy in languages he doesn’t recognize. Others sob brokenly, their voices dissolving into the nothingness below. A few simply mutter half-formed, delirious words, as if their minds have already shattered from whatever horrors preceded this moment.

Mark glances to his right. A gaunt-faced man sways beside him, his lips moving without sound. His hollowed-out eyes stare downward into the abyss, shoulders trembling. Mark can’t see the bottom. There is no ground, no horizon, no sky only blackness.

Above them all, the black obelisk looms. It pulses like a living thing, an unfathomable monolith of shifting darkness, flickering at the edges as though it is only half in this reality. The glyphs on its surface are not merely carved symbols they move. They slide and twist, curling like sentient organisms. Some sink into the stone while others rise to the surface, glowing with a dim, sickly light that shifts through unnatural colors, making Mark’s eyes ache. A sensation tickles at the back of his mind. An intrusion, slow and insidious, as if the glyphs themselves whisper directly into his subconscious, prying through his thoughts.

The chains pull at him, dragging downward, as if some unseen force below is waiting to claim him. His shoulders burn, his hands go numb, but there is no wind, no motion, no sense of time. Only the silent, crushing weight of whatever this place is. Then, the obelisk speaks.

The voice is not sound, not vibration. It slides into his mind directly, bypassing his ears, a slick, invasive thing that wraps around his thoughts like a vice. The whispers around him stop instantly, retreating in terror.

"Greetings, candidate."

Mark stiffens, his breath caught in his throat.

"This is Ereshka’s Embrace. A domain between the living and the void, where souls are measured and claimed."

Something about its tone unsettles him. Not cold in a detached way, but the way something ancient and patient watches insects crawl toward a trap.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Mark clenches his jaw. "Why?"

The voice doesn’t hesitate.

"You are here because Ereshka has claimed you. She sees in you a purpose, one yet to be fulfilled."

Mark swallows hard. He doesn’t like the way it said that.

A sound snaps above him sharp, final metal giving way. A woman screams. Her chains break, and she plummets into the abyss, her voice stretching into a wail before she vanishes into the darkness below. Mark barely has time to react before another chain snaps in the distance. Then another. The air fills with cries of panic as more bodies begin to fall, their silhouettes swallowed whole by nothingness. No impact. No stopping. Just... gone.

Beside Mark, the gaunt-faced man starts hyperventilating. "No, no, no, please, not yet" His voice is frantic, his body twisting, as if making himself smaller will somehow keep him from being chosen next.

A few chains away, a bald man starts thrashing violently. "I REFUSE! I REFUSE! You will not take me!" His voice cracks as he tries to swing, reaching for the person beside him. "We can climb! We can"

His chains snap. He drops, screaming all the way down.

Mark grips his fists, the sensation of the metal burning into his wrists now an afterthought compared to the overwhelming realization sinking in. These people aren’t dead. They aren’t spirits. They are just as alive as he is. A slow chill slides through his chest, deeper than the pain. He is alive. And that means

His stomach twists as the thought completes itself.

Whatever waits below isn’t for the dead.

It’s for them.

The obelisk pulses deeply, a shuddering wave that makes the air tremble.

"You will."

Mark barely has a second before his chains violently shudder. The metal buckles, twists then shatters. The air vanishes from his lungs as he plummets.

Air roars past Mark, burning his skin, flattening his lungs as he twists uncontrollably in freefall. He barely registers the others plummeting beside him before his brain catches up. He knows these people. Not in passing. Not as strangers. He killed them.

A scarred man tumbles just feet away, his mouth twisting into a snarl despite the wind whipping past him. "YOU!" The man’s voice booms, untouched by the rushing air, as if the abyss itself wants Mark to hear him. Mark recognizes him instantlyone of the first men he ever put down. A cartel enforcer, a man who had laughed while putting a bullet into someone’s kneecap just for fun. Mark had repaid the favor twice.

His stomach knots as more faces twist toward him, dozens, all snapping their heads in his direction. A woman’s voice shrieks over the wind, raw with fury. "You’re the bastard who cut my throat!" Mark’s pulse spikes as he remembers hera human trafficker, someone who had begged for mercy before he slid the blade across her neck. She had deserved it. But that doesn’t matter now.

A hand clamps onto Mark’s wrist. Cold. Tight. Too strong.

"Not this time," the voice snarls.

The man pulling on him is still missing half his face because Mark shot it off. Mark kicks off his attacker, breaking free, but more hands are reaching for him, more faces snapping toward him with fury, teeth bared, eyes burning with recognition.

They don’t forget. None of them do.

The abrupt impact separates Mark from his attacker, sending them rolling across serrated rocks. As Mark skids violently across the ground, deep, jagged wounds rip into his skin. On instinct, he rolls to the side just as a loud, meaty thud lands next to him, squirting some kind of hot liquid onto him.

The air is thick with moaning and screaming, the raw, ragged sound blurring into a symphony of suffering. Beyond the cries of agony, all he can hear is the painful, gasping wheeze from whatever just landed beside him. Then, everything fades to black. Silence, oppressive and absolute, fills the void. But in the darkness, the howls begin anew.