A little while earlier
Inside the Abyss.
A woman moved through the void, silent as a ghost.
She wore a black, skin-tight dress that clung to her like a second skin. Her heels struck the ground with no sound, absorbed completely by the nothingness beneath.
Her features, her outline—everything—was swallowed by the absolute dark.
Only her pale skin and the faint shimmer of her white coat caught any light at all.
And even that happened only when the lavender flowers glowed nearby.
She paused, eyes narrowing at the void.
"Another one died today…" she muttered, voice flat. Cold. Like someone reading a list of names crossed out long ago.
"How long has it been," she whispered to no one, "since I got to one of them before they were devoured?"
She sighed, gaze flicking across the black horizon.
Then she saw it.
A shimmer—dim, far away, but unmistakable.
Her coat caught the glow for just a moment.
Her eyes widened. "Shit."
She took off running, heels clicking against the darkness.
The flowers were glowing.
And that meant they were already here.
'No light exists in the Abyss except the lavender fields,' she thought, heart racing. 'If one is glowing, it's because something has triggered it. Not someone. Them.'
The creatures.
She sprinted faster, legs pumping, breath tight in her throat.
If someone's wandered close, they'll be lured out. They always speak. Always pretend.
And if they step off the flowers—
"Why are you running, dear?" a voice whispered from behind her.
Smooth. Familiar. Drenched in mock affection.
"We've missed you... me and our son. He cries for you sometimes."
She didn't turn.
Her pace didn't slow.
But her blood turned to ice.
"I never had a family," she spat.
Then—her foot caught something.
She stumbled.
Momentum threw her forward—and she fell, crashing into a glowing patch of lavender.
The flowers flared gently around her as she landed, their soft light blooming in waves beneath her trembling form.
She lay still for a second, breath ragged.
"Dammit, Only if I could abandon these heels and wear something practical..."
Then slowly, she sat up.
Relief flooded her like water through cracks in a dam.
She was on the flowers.
They couldn't touch her here.
But the voice still lingered.
Waiting.
Watching.
Pretending.
Her gaze wandered slowly, now that she was bathed in the gentle light of the flowers.
And for the first time—she was visible.
The details were... haunting.
A watch strapped to her wrist—its hands frozen, no ticking sound to accompany its presence.
A necklace hung around her neck, but its gems had all fallen out, leaving only empty sockets.
Her earrings were broken, twisted metal barely clinging to her ears.
Her black dress was torn at the sides, threads dangling.
The once-pristine white coat she wore was stained—drenched with blood at the edges.
But none of it looked recent.
These were old wounds.
Not just physical.
Memories sewn into fabric.
Regret soaked into silk.
She stood still, eyes scanning the glowing horizon.
Then she saw him.
A man—crawling, slowly, toward the edge of the field.
White hair glinted faintly in the lavender light.
His eyes shimmered like water, oceanic and distant.
His skin, darker in tone, made him nearly invisible against the shadows, save for the faint outline his body cast against the glow.
He was reaching.
Moving toward the edge. Toward the dark.
"No—wait…!" she choked out.
For the first time, her voice cracked—not calm, not cold.
Desperate.
She surged forward, stumbling across the flowers.
"I made it—I finally made it to one of them in time—don't you dare take him!"
Her breath hitched as she closed the gap, the creeping terror rising behind her.
She could feel them watching.
Whispering.
And the man—he was almost off the flowers.
Just one more motion, and he would be theirs.
Just as the man-child reached the edge—his fingers barely inches from the void—
arms wrapped around him.
A tight, desperate embrace.
"Please… please don't go," she whispered, her voice shaking as if each word held back a flood.
"It's for your own good…"
He blinked.
Then giggled.
"Hehe~"
The child turned in her arms and nuzzled into her chest, utterly unaware of the near doom he had just escaped.
She let out a breath—long, sharp, heavy with relief.
He wasn't resisting.
He wasn't fighting.
He wasn't walking blindly into oblivion.
Not this time.
She gently lifted him into her arms and carried him away from the edge, walking carefully across the glowing petals, until they reached the center of the field—where the light pulsed strongest, where they couldn't reach.
She knelt beside him.
Her hands cupped his face, tilting it up to look at her.
Her fingers were cold. Her palms trembling.
But her voice—though soft—held an unshakable command.
"Now listen to me, little one…"
She stared into his eyes—ocean meeting shadow, innocence meeting grief.
"Don't you ever dare move out of this glowing field again. No matter what you hear. No matter what you see. Never leave the flowers."
Her grip tightened, just slightly.
"If you do… they'll take you."
Months later.
The Abyss remained unchanged.
A place where light was a lie, time had no teeth, and even sorrow decayed into silence.
Utter blackness.
No up. No down. No end.
Only the glowing lavender flowers—when they chose to bloom—and her voice.
---
"You can't talk... not anymore..." she murmured, fingers gently combing through his hair as his head rested in her lap.
"You remind me of a woman who got trapped here with her child..."
A long breath escaped her, barely a whisper.
"You're just like her baby..."
Her hand trembled slightly as she caressed his scalp, dirt and dried blood long settled into the strands.
"In the Abyss, we don't feel hunger… we age, but not quite. We don't sleep. We don't need to.
That's why I can look after you, for all this time..."
She pulled him closer as the lavender light began to pulse once more beneath them.
The field was glowing again.
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"They're here."
---
She didn't need to look. She could feel it—like ants crawling on her spine, memories sharpening into daggers.
"They'll try to peek into your mind, baby... if you sit too close to the edge."
She held him tighter.
"That's how they make you see him..."
Her voice shook.
"That's how they make him look like your father."
---
A figure appeared at the edge of the glow.
White-haired. Gentle-eyed.
Orion.
Smiling. Waving.
Warm. Familiar.
Wrong.
Her grip turned iron.
"They cause hallucinations. Illusions. False promises dressed in stolen faces... and worse."
She gently tilted his chin.
"But you're safe. Here. With me. In the light of the flowers."
---
Silence again.
Not peaceful. Not empty.
Oppressive. Deafening. Alive.
Even the sound of a heartbeat would've been a mercy.
But there was only the boy's quiet mumbling.
Incomprehensible. Rhythmic.
Sometimes giggles. Sometimes… not.
---
"You're a man," she said, more to herself than him.
"But you act like a child."
Her fingers paused in his hair.
"I don't understand you. Not really."
A faint, bitter smile.
"But you stayed."
She looked down at him. Eyes hollow, but soft.
"You stayed all these months."
---
Then she spoke again.
Her voice was low. Melancholy wrapped in exhaustion.
"Let me tell you a story… I'm sorry if it's a sad one..."
She brushed a thumb under his eye.
"...but it's the only story I know."