"Stop screaming. It only makes them hungrier," a voice rasped. It wasn't coming from a person. It was coming from the air itself, vibrating in my teeth.
I didn't have time to ask who was talking. A clawed hand, gray as a tombstone and twice the size of my head, slammed into my chest. It didn't just hit me; it pinned me against the jagged obsidian floor of the Void. The air was gone. My ribs groaned under the pressure, and the smell of old blood and wet ash filled my nose.
"Please," I choked out, my fingers scratching uselessly at the creature's wrist. "Help me..."
"Help?" The voice laughed, a sound like grinding glass. "There is no help in the Void, little sacrifice. There is only the hunger. And you? You're just a snack with a pretty face."
I looked up. The thing pinning me down wasn't a monster from a storybook. It was a nightmare given flesh—a distorted mass of limbs and weeping eyes, its skin peeling off in strips that floated upward, defying gravity. It leaned in, its breath smelling of sulfur and forgotten graves. It opened a maw filled with needle-teeth, hovering inches from my throat.
Then, the voice from the air whispered again, right against my ear. "Eat, or be eaten. Simple as that, boy."
"Eat what?" I gasped, my vision blurring. "I can't—"
"The fear," the voice snapped. "The terror leaking out of your pores. It's a feast. Stop fighting it. Open your mouth and take it."
As the monster’s jaws snapped shut, missing my carotid by a fraction of an inch, something clicked. A primal, violent instinct surged from the base of my spine. I didn't feel fear anymore. I felt... starving. Not for food. For the very thing that was trying to kill me.
I stopped scratching. I stopped pleading. I reached up and grabbed the creature’s jaw, my fingers digging into the gray, slimy flesh.
"What the hell are you doing?" the voice asked, sounding genuinely surprised. "You're supposed to be sobbing."
"Shut up," I hissed.
I didn't know how I did it. I just pulled. I didn't pull the monster away; I pulled the *darkness* out of it. A stream of oily, black smoke surged from the creature's throat into mine. It tasted like copper and cold iron. It burned like swallowing liquid fire, searing my throat and chest, but I didn't let go. I leaned in, my eyes locking onto the monster's many pupils, and I drank.
I could feel it—the monster's memories, its malice, its sheer, mindless hatred. It was a flood of filth, but as it entered me, it didn't destroy me. It obeyed. The fire in my chest settled into a cold, hard knot of power.
The creature let out a shrill, piercing shriek. It tried to pull back, but I had it. I slammed my hand against its forehead and ripped. A massive chunk of its essence tore away, swirling into a vortex around my arm.
"Yes," the voice purred, now sounding like a proud predator. "That's it. Tear it down. Devour the nightmare and make it yours."
I didn't stop until the creature was nothing but a shriveled husk, a dry piece of leather on the obsidian floor. I stood up slowly, my muscles trembling, but not from weakness. I felt heavier. Stronger. The Void, which had felt like a tomb a moment ago, now felt like a pantry.
"Who are you?" I demanded, looking around the oppressive gray expanse. "And where am I?"
"Names are for things that can be killed," the voice replied. It seemed to be coming from a shadow that refused to move with the light. "As for where you are... you're in the gutter of existence. The place where the things the gods feared were thrown. And you, Cane, are the first thing in a millennium that didn't immediately dissolve into ash."
I looked at my hands. They were pale, almost translucent, but veins of pulsing black ink were tracing paths up my forearms. "The gods feared this place?"
"Oh, they're terrified," the voice chuckled. "Especially the ones who think they're pure. Like your little Saintess. Selena, right? The one who gave you a one-way ticket to this hellhole?"
At the mention of her name, the cold knot in my chest flared into a white-hot rage. I remembered her face—the same face that had looked at me with 'pity' while the priests bound my wrists. I remembered the way she had whispered that it was for the greater good.
"She lied," I said, my voice sounding deeper, vibrating with a power that wasn't mine. "She told me we were being purified together."