"Stop screaming or I'll rip your tongue out and feed it to the hounds."
It wasn't a man. Not anymore. It was a mountain of grey, scarred muscle and obsidian scales. Eyes like dying stars. A jaw that could snap a redwood.
It had me pinned against a wall of weeping stone. Claws dug into my shoulders, shredding my cheap linen shirt. I couldn't even scream—a forearm the size of my thigh was crushing my lungs into my spine.
"You're... not... angry," I wheezed. The words felt like sandpaper in my throat. "You're... terrified."
The monster froze. The pressure didn't let up, but the murderous heat in those eyes flickered.
"What did you say, little meat?"
"The shaking," I gasped. I looked down at the clawed hand pinning me. It was trembling. Not rage. A rhythmic, jagged tremor. "You're not trying to kill me. You're trying to stop the noise in your head. The guilt. It's loud, isn't it?"
Silence hit the dungeon harder than the grip. Then, it roared—a sound that rattled my teeth and cracked the ceiling—and slammed me back into the stone.
"I am a Lord of the Eternal Night!" it bellowed, spittle flying into my face. "I have burned cities! I have flayed kings! I do not feel... noise!"
"Bullshit," I spat. A rib groaned. "You've got a classic case of acute PTSD layered over a dissociative break. You're not a Lord right now. You're a frightened kid hiding behind a wall of scales. Who did you fail? Who did you let die?"
The grip tightened. Pupils dilated. The rage was still there, but something raw and ugly was winning. It leaned in. Breath smelling of sulfur and old copper.
"Shut up," it rasped. "Shut up or I'll eat your heart."
"Go ahead," I challenged. My voice shook, but I didn't blink. "Kill the only person in this godforsaken realm who knows why you can't sleep. Who was she? The one you couldn't save?"
The monster recoiled like I'd stabbed it with a hot iron. It let go so fast I slid down the wall, landing in a heap on the slimy floor. I gasped for air, clutching my ribs as the beast paced like a caged tiger.
"How do you know that?" it demanded, spinning around. "You're a human. A soft, pathetic insect. How do you know about the Silence?"
I wiped blood from my lip and leaned my head back. "I was a therapist. People paid me five hundred dollars an hour to tell them their fathers didn't love them. I've seen every kind of broken. Your brand of madness is just... louder."
"You think words can fix the rot of the Void?" The monster laughed—a sound like grinding boulders. "The magic that gives us power eats our minds. There is no cure. Only slaughter."
"Not a cure," I said, pushing myself up. "Management. Coping mechanisms. If you let the trauma drive the bus, you'll wake up and realize you've killed everyone you ever cared about. Oh wait. You already did."
Lunge.
It didn't use claws this time. It slammed its massive head into the wall right next to my ear. The shockwave vibrated through my spine. I didn't flinch. I couldn't afford to.
"Tell me how to stop it," the beast hissed, face inches from mine. "Tell me how to make the screaming stop, or I'll peel the skin from your bones and hang it like a banner."
"Sit down."
It blinked. "What?"
"Sit. Down. Now." I used the clinic voice. The one that made arrogant CEOs shut up and listen. "We're doing a grounding exercise. Five things you see, four things you touch. If you try to eat me, we're done, and you can go back to being a raving lunatic who can't remember his own name."
The monster stared. I could see the war behind those eyes. Violence versus a starving need for peace.
Slowly, with a sound like a collapsing building, the beast sat. It looked ridiculous—a terrifying engine of destruction sitting cross-legged on a dirty floor, staring at a man in a wrinkled shirt.
"First thing," I said, heart hammering. "Look at the wall. Color of the mold in the corner."
"It is... grey," the monster grunted.
"Good. Second. My shoes. What color?"
"Brown. Pathetic brown."
"Perfect. Now, breath. In for four, hold for four, out for four. If you blow the room away, you're doing it wrong."
Ten minutes. I led the most dangerous creature I'd ever seen through a basic anxiety protocol. It was a gamble. But the tension shifted. The beast's shoulders dropped. The trembling stopped. For the first time in a century, the monster looked... tired.
"Why?" it asked softly. "Why help me?"
"Because I'm a professional," I lied. I was just trying not to die. "And because I'm curious if I can fix a god-complex with breathing exercises."
"You are a strange little meat," the monster murmured. It leaned in—not to attack, but with a flicker of curiosity. "Perhaps I will keep you. A pet that speaks the language of the mind."
"I'm not a pet—"
BOOM.
The iron door didn't open; it exploded. Shards of metal flew like shrapnel.
Standing in the doorway was a woman forged from midnight and spite. Black leather armor clinging to every curve. A cloak of living shadows swirling at her ankles. In her hand, a curved blade that drank the light from the room.
Her eyes were cold. Calculating. And locked onto me with a hatred so pure it felt physical.
"Get away from him, you idiot," she snapped.
The monster roared, half-rising to defend its new toy, but she didn't blink. She blurred across the room. Before I could even breathe, the tip of her blade was pressed firmly against the soft skin of my throat.
She didn't look at the monster. She looked at me, lips curling into a sneer.
"Who the hell are you?" she whispered, the steel biting into my skin. "And why is this lunatic not dead yet?"