"Hope does not die in the Abyss. It merely forgets it ever lived."
---
Beneath, and beyond, the very bones of Teyvat…
There exists a realm that knows no light, no time, no mercy. A silence so thick it weighs like lead on the soul.
Here, even hope forgets how to scream.
The currents of darkness slither like serpents across unseen ground—pulling, whispering, waiting.
And yet…
Something unnatural blooms.
A field. Endless.
Lavender flowers with four trembling petals sway gently, as if touched by a breeze that does not exist.
They have no stems. No scent. Only the faintest, defiant glow—a candlelight memory in a pit with no ceiling.
A child stirs among them.
"Ugh… where… am I…?"
A young boy's voice, hoarse and hollow, escapes cracked lips. His tiny frame rises, clothed in red shorts and an orange shirt that reads, "Let's Explore the Beyond." A brown explorer's hat clings to his scalp like a promise long forgotten.
He looks around, eyes wide, but not afraid—just...lost.
Then a voice.
Too kind. Too old. Too wrong.
"Hello…"
The boy turned slowly.
"Who's there?" he asked, his voice as pure as silence before a scream.
The answer came like frost under skin.
"It is me… your grandfather. Come to me, my dear grandson."
And at the edge of the field, where the lavender flowers stopped growing, stood an old man.
Bent and pale. Wrinkled and warm-eyed. A grey sweater sagged over his thin frame, and a staff trembled in his hand as he waved—beckoning with brittle fingers and a smile that didn't quite reach the eyes.
"Come now… come here."
The boy blinked. Something deep in his instincts clawed at him.
"…You're not my grandpa," he mumbled.
But he crawled anyway.
Something had his legs. Something he could not name.
Step by step… the flowers grew fewer. The darkness thicker. The smile wider.
And as the boy left the field—
The old man shed his skin.
Nails blackened and twisted. Eyes bloomed like holes. Fangs split from gums like knives through silk.
The last thing the boy saw was a mouth that stretched open far too wide—
and then, the tearing began.
---
Much later…
Footsteps echoed through the black. Heels clicking softly on nothing.
A woman in a flexible black dress walked among the whispering flowers. Her pale coat fluttered behind her like a tired ghost.
She knelt by the boy's remains.
Or what was left of him.
No face. No chest. Just bones gnawed clean and skin like wet paper torn by rats.
She clicked her tongue.
"Another one pulled into the Abyss," she murmured.
She rose. Her eyes didn't blink.
"How foolish…"
She stood still among the lavender glow, the faint lights pulsing like dying fireflies.
Then—
They came.
A horde of silhouettes, ambling out from the edges of the abyss.
Dozens—no, hundreds—of them, surrounding the field like wolves watching a flickering lantern.
They did not cross the flowers. Not yet.
One stepped forward. His form was vague, swallowed by the darkness.
His voice, however, slithered like honey across broken glass.
"Come here, dear... our child is waiting for us back at home."
Others around him smiled. Wide. Too wide. Unmoving. Their teeth just a shade too white for the absence of light.
The woman did not flinch. But her body tensed, as if her bones remembered something her mind refused to relive.
The air turned thick. Wrong.
Something deep beneath the flowers pulsed—like a heartbeat.
"You don't fool me," she said quietly, standing tall.
Another voice, dripping with that mockery of warmth, drifted from behind.
"You won't be able to avoid us for long…"
And then—
Another. So close, she could feel its breath.
"Dear, please… come back home. Your mother and I miss you."
She didn't turn.
"You are not my parents," she said, her voice cold as frostbitten steel.
"Just leave me alone."
The shadows remained still—yet she could feel them inching closer.
They did not step forward. They leaned forward, as if reality tilted in their favor.
From the darkness, one whispered—
"Don't say things like that…"
---
Hours passed.
She did not move.
Neither did they.
The lavender flowers began to dim.
Their glow shrank back into their petals, exhausted.
One by one, the crowd began to retreat—melting back into the abyss like smoke in reverse.
But not without a parting whisper.
"So troublesome…
If only these things weren't immortal."