Sasha
5 years BA.
ACC Serenia research facility at the Door.
I... still am.
Of course, Chaos wouldn’t let me disappear. I learned that already.
But there is still no pain. For impossibly long. There has never been this much nothing for so long.
Chaos gives me moments—rare reprieves to make the next torment worse. Sometimes as a reward, so I’ll interact with whatever he wants me to. It always hurts. More and more. Everything does. He never makes it predictable, never really keeps his promises. But sometimes—sometimes—he gives me a reprieve. Just for a moment. And it’s worth everything.
But now I cannot feel him either. No voice searing acid through my mind. No presence fracturing my thoughts.
Where is he?
Chaos is omnipresent. How can here be not him? How can there be anything but him?
It makes no sense. He’s hiding. He’s altering my perception again, so when he returns—when the pain returns—it will hurt more. Of course. He’s never done this before. Never hidden. He is always here—around me, inside me.
Nothingness feels... unfamiliar. Overwhelming. It hurts differently.
But this is a type of pain that I... don’t want to end.
Is this your new game, Chaos?
What is his plan? What could justify this—this absence of him and pain? What level of torment could contrast this nothingness? He always finds new ways to hurt me. But to this extent?
Did he finally decide to destroy me completely?
No. He wouldn’t. I’ve thought about that so many times, but he never does. He never will. Yet he’s never hidden from me.
I... I don’t know what to think. I don’t trust this reprieve. Is it the prelude to a level of pain I cannot yet comprehend?
Is it even possible? Haven’t I already reached the limit? So many times over?
For all my existence, there was one thing I wanted. I never really felt wants—not as Chaos does. I didn’t think I could feel such a thing. But I did. I do. I wanted pain to stop.
And now, there isn’t any.
And there is no Chaos.
It is a trap.
I don’t want it to end.
I wait. Probably, this is what Chaos wants me to do. But there is no pain. I will take it. He will destroy me again anyway, so it doesn’t matter what I do.
So I linger in this state.
For now.
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Edgar
5 years BA.
ACC Serenia research facility at the Door.
Sasha was sleeping.
For the first time in eternity, she was resting. Chaos had never allowed her that.
Edgar stood outside the recovery chamber, watching her floating form through the reinforced glass. The room, sterile and humming faintly with layers of containment spells, wasn’t just for her healing—it was a safeguard. Every precaution had been taken.
Hours ago, she had been flayed raw, nothing but exposed muscle and sinew. Now, her skin knit itself back with eerie precision. By tomorrow, she would likely be whole. Her power ensured it, but that wasn’t the issue.
Her power itself was.
Edgar exhaled slowly, his hands clasped tightly behind him. Chaos didn’t just torment; he forged. An eternity immersed in primordial forces, wielding magic to survive, reshaped the soul into something inhuman. Edgar’s own power had been unprecedented when he returned. Alaric’s strength had been similarly staggering.
But Sasha…
She surpassed them both.
The fail-saves were holding, but only because they fed on her own magic. They had been created together before her vigil, intricate enchantments woven into her soul. That bond had held long enough to stop her instinctive drive to annihilate herself. But Edgar knew the fail-saves weren’t unbreakable. She couldn’t unbind them—not without the key he held—but she wouldn’t need to. She could rip them out.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
The thought tightened his chest. Soul-deep pain like that—raw and excruciating—was Chaos’s favorite tool. But Edgar knew pain wouldn’t stop her. If Sasha turned her full will and power on the bindings, there would be nothing they could do.
His fingers brushed the edge of the containment runes etched into the frame. A flicker of pride stirred, sharp and unbidden. Absurd, given the circumstances, but he couldn’t help it. The girl dreamt about learning magic, who stared with awe at the first ball of fire she conjured, now held more magic than anyone in recorded history.
More than him.
But pride had no place here. Sasha wasn’t just powerful. Chaos had shaped her into something more. A weapon. Like Edgar. Like Alaric. Her power wasn’t raw and unfocused—it was honed, sharpened by endless battle. Even in her brief, instinctive struggle against the fail-saves, Edgar had felt it: precision, skill, and a ruthless efficiency born of experience.
It was the same transformation he had undergone. A scholar turned into the world’s most powerful battle mage. Sasha had endured the same, but perhaps on an even greater scale.
And yet…
When they returned some of her memories—those carefully preserved fragments of life she loved and lost—her resistance faltered. She accepted the sleep charm without a fight. That went smoother than he dared to hope.
But would it work next time? They had so few memories left. They couldn’t preserve much to begin with—a dozen fragments and some scattered sensations, faint and fragile. Would it be enough? Could those small, fleeting glimpses of warmth, laughter, love, and connection guide her back to life?
Still, it went better than with Alaric. Alaric had fought them every step of the way.
It went too good.
“Double the watch,” Edgar said, turning sharply toward the mages stationed at the edges of the chamber. His voice was steady and authoritative despite the unease gnawing at him. “If anything changes—anything—alert me immediately.”
“Yes, sir.”
Edgar nodded, his gaze returning to Sasha. Her breathing was steady, her vitals strong. But Edgar knew better. Beneath the fragile stillness, a storm was forming —a mind fractured into countless pieces, a will sharpened by millennia of torment.
Had they done enough? The fail-saves held for now, but they were a dam holding back an ocean. He had no way of knowing how long they would last—or if they’d even matter when the storm finally broke.
“Rest while you can, Sasha,” he murmured. “We’ll face the storm when it comes.”
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Sasha
5 years BA.
ACC Serenia research facility at the Door.
Still no pain. I drift in this strange state of semi-awareness, and it is… not anguish, not struggle, not pressure. It is the opposite of those things. Impossible.
And there is no Chaos.
I drift closer to awareness. The body Chaos has placed me in feels weightless. It doesn’t hurt. Not that bodies could hurt, not anymore. Matter is too simple to truly cause pain.
The net—heavy, intricate—is still here, humming against the body, binding my ability to shape energy. There is space around me, and some Chaos constructs hover nearby. One, stronger than the rest, lingers close. The net seems tied to them, feeding on their power.
It doesn’t make sense. Chaos’s constructs cannot weave this energy. Magic. It’s called magic.
The thought slips unbidden into my mind, a fragment pulled from… somewhere else. I stop myself, recoiling from the word. It came from those visions, those sensations I dare not dwell on. They are dangerous.
All of this is dangerous.
But the constructs don’t attack. Not yet. And I still don’t feel Chaos behind them. He must be here, but he is not pressing into every corner of my essence as he always does.
Could his attention be elsewhere? Is there… a chance?
I try to stop existing.
The net pulses, its energy tightening around me, binding tighter, its hum turning into vibration, preventing me from weaving. Constructs—more of them—approach. Their presence reinforces the net, as though they are the ones shaping energy. But they can’t. They don’t have sentience. Only Chaos and I can bend reality like this. There is no one else. So Chaos must be here, hidden in ways I cannot see, controlling them as he controls all things.
I push harder. The net resists, stronger than I expected. It tears at me, ripping parts of my essence as I press against it. Pain blooms, sharp and precise. I welcome it. Pain is familiar. It sharpens my will, fuels my efforts.
I don’t really expect it to work. Chaos will never allow me to annihilate myself. I’ve tried this so many times before. There’s always a wall—a moment when existence itself defies my will. Reality bends in countless ways to my command, but not in this. Never in this. Chaos doesn't allow it.
But now, I don’t feel that impossibility. It’s gone.
I push harder. And then—
The sensations return.
The scent of flowers—a faint sweetness, delicate, like the warmth of a distant sun. Laughter, clear and unrestrained, fills the air, though I cannot find its source. Is it me? Warmth lingers on my skin, gentle and fleeting. A touch—light, almost reverent—brushes against my skin.
It’s too much.
I need more.
I need it to stop.
I let go.
The net recovers instantly, pulsing brighter, tighter, brimming with energy. I almost broke it. I could have. Why didn’t I? Could I actually—
No. Of course not.
I stop. Not because I trust this reprieve, but because I don’t. If I push too far, Chaos will come. He always does. And when he does, these sensations—these impossible, alien things—will vanish, replaced by the familiar. Pain. Suffering. Him.
I’ll pay for this reprieve. I always do. I’ll pay in pain a thousand times worse than anything I’ve ever known. I cannot imagine how, but Chaos will. He always finds a way. But these… these experiences—I don’t understand them. They cannot exist. I’ve never felt anything like this. Never, in all my eternity, has Chaos shown me anything like this.
I want more.
It’s a trap. I know it is. Chaos is building to something monumental. But what could he do to me that he hasn’t already done? What more is there to destroy? Apart from annihilating me completely, but we both know he hates me too much for that.
Pain is familiar. Expected. But this… this is something else. Chaos will take it from me, twist it, make it hurt more than I can imagine. But he will do it anyway. He always does.
So, I will take this moment.
I’ll take the bait.
I will see what these… memories—though they cannot be—are.