The vast white hall stretched endlessly, pillars so tall they seemed to pierce the sky. The marble gleamed like bone under the pale light.
In the center Azmaik was standing with his cloak rippling in a wind that did not exist. Before him, on a long crimson carpet, sat Karma, the Vampire King of the Forsaken Court.
Karma leaned lazily on the throne carved from petrified flesh, one leg crossed, silver hair flowing like liquid moonlight. His eyes, black and red, reflected the kind of calm that came only from ancient power. A faint smile crept across his face as Azmaik approached.
"So," Karma murmured, voice smooth and heavy like velvet soaked in blood, "the mortal world still rings aloud, and yet you bring me such… pleasant news."
He rose slowly, and the air itself seemed to bow. Shadows murmured under his feet, forming spectral wings that glowed with unholy grace. Every word he spoke, the temperature bent around there.
Azmaik smiled faintly, unfazed. "I told you before, Karma. The night of ascension is not even close."
Karma's smile widened, fangs glinting. "Then let it begin. I've waited far too long to taste dawn again."
Fahrenheit moved through the vast white hall, the sound of his boots resounded. The place was silent except for a moment, wet sound which was skin tearing. He followed it around a marble pillar and froze.
Sonia was there or what was left of her mind.
She sat on the cold floor, head tilted, nails digging into her cheeks. Her fingers clawed at her face, ripping the skin until it hung in shreds. Blood streamed down her chin like melted wax. She laughed louder, broken, crashing throughout the endless hall.
Fahrenheit's body went still. His lips parted, but no words came out.
"Sister.…" he whispered finally. His voice cracked halfway through the name.
She turned her face toward him, the exposed muscle twitching in a grotesque smile. "Oh.… brother," she crooned, voice shrill, "I think I lost…. my demon! Do I look pretty now?" She laughed again, clutching her face, slamming her head crazily against the pillar.
Fahrenheit fell to one knee. "Stop, please…." His voice trembled. He tried to reach for her, but the smell of blood her blood was thick enough to choke on.
Xamin appeared behind him, silent as shadow, his face unreadable. His eyes lingered on Sonia, but his fingers clenched hard enough to crack his knuckles.
Fahrenheit lowered his head. "She was just a little girl…."
His mind began to blur with memory. The screams of their burning home. The sight of his mother's arms reaching for them through the fire, the curse swallowing her voice. Sonia's cries and laughs; whatever it was, it was madness.
He remembered.... Remembered the smell of her hair, the way she used to sit on the hill and point out constellations in the sky, naming them after sweets she wanted to taste someday.
He whispered to himself, as if the ghosts might hear, "She used to pull my sleeve, saying, 'Let's go to the valley again, little brother, before it rains.'"
He laughed under his breath, bitterly. "I had always said no…. I was busy trying to impress Karma. Always wanted to prove I was strong." He looked up, tears coming through his eyes. "If I had gone with her that time…. she wouldn't have been like this.... I thought.... I thought she.... can....kill them alone...."
Xamin stepped forward, his tone quiet, deep. "You couldn't have saved her, Fahren. That day was already written in fate."
"Don't!" Fahrenheit muttered, shaking his head. "Don't you dare say that!"
He clenched his fists until the skin tore around his claws. "She wasn't meant to be like that. She believed in us…. in all of us." His voice softened. "She believed in me!"
He looked up at Sonia again. The laughter had stopped. She was just staring now wide-eyed, trembling, blood dripping down her chin like rain. Somewhere in that madness, there was a distant shimmer of the little girl who once laughed under the sun.
He murmured, almost like a prayer, "You used to tell me stories about monster. I never thought you'd become one, sister.... neither do all of us!"
Sonia giggled faintly, head twitching to the side. "Monsters.…? No, no, brother. They made us monsters. The humans…. remember?"
Her words sliced through him like a blade. He felt his chest tighten until it hurt to breathe.
Xamin finally spoke, voice like stone. "Do you remember what father said before he ran away from us?"
Fahrenheit blinked. ".…He said, 'Protect your heart, even if you lose your blood.'"
Xamin nodded slowly. "Karma did that. He sacrificed his humanity to give our mother peace. The curse had infected all our family including mom. Father stole the 'Trojan Hook' which caused a catastrophe in the Empire, people crucified us and our mother while our father ran away leaving us with curses. But it didn't effected Karma since he was wearing a holy necklace and luckily escaped from crucifixion. Karma burned the necklace and sacrificed his humanity to give our mother humanity.... erasing her past memories and leaving her far somewhere."
And now.…" He gestured to Sonia, his face tightening. "This is the cost of that weakness."
Fahrenheit looked up at him sharply. "You think I don't know that?!" His voice echoed through the pillars. "You think I don't see her face every time I close my eyes?"
Sonia had stopped moving entirely, staring blankly at the floor, her breathing shallow.
Xamin turned away, speaking softly, almost to himself. "We were human once. A family; You, me, her… and Karma. Studying in that old cyber-city, dreaming of royal jobs, wealth, and sunlight. Now look at us. We feed on blood and hide in tombs of marble."
His tone shifted in low and sorrowful way. "The curse wasn't the flames, Fahrenheit. Maybe it was surviving them."
Fahrenheit stared at him, unable to answer. His throat felt dry as dust. He turned his gaze back to Sonia. Her trembling hands, her broken laughter and for a second, he wished he could forget. Forget it all.
The mind refused. The hill valleys. Her soft voice asking for bedtime stories. The promise he made to her countless times.
"I'll protect you, no matter what."
Now, here she was, ripping her own skin, lost to the curse, lost to the madness that never ended.
A tear fell, silent and hot, cutting through the blood on his cheek.
Xamin placed a hand on his shoulder. "She's gone, brother."
Fahrenheit looked at him, eyes glassy. "No.… she's just lost. Like all of us."
Xamin didn't argue. He just turned his head, watching Sonia tilt her face toward the white ceiling, humming an old lullaby their mother once sang before they were burned in flames while on cross.
What a beautiful scene it was, innocence was being burned in sight of justice....
Even in that horrific sight, blood, madness, loss there was something almost peaceful.
Xamin whispered to himself, "Brother Karma was right. Every curse begins as a prayer."
Fahrenheit remembers how she used to protect him taking all social abuse on her. His thoughts were chaotic but also messed up.
Does there something called good and bad exists? If someone behaves good and is beneficial with us we call them good person even if he is murderer to others. This is the most logical thing for every being in existence. This logic is not only bordered in humans, vampires, devils, angels but also the ones who watches everything high above. Of course! Justice is blind, but there will be always someone to open its blindfold and it is one and only HIM but no. Why no? Cause we are in a fiction! Who cares? Everything is on the one's hand who has the pen....
Sonia sat motionless, a broken doll leaking crimson lights onto the marble floor. Her breaths were ragged, shallow, and dry. Her eyes, now faintly glowing with a strange violet hue, were not her own anymore.
Then, footstepsrevised through the endless expanse. Mockingly gentle.
Azmaik emerged from the shadow of a pillar, his black robe's dragging against the floor, glimmering faintly under the hall's pale light. His dark eyes looked dim tonight, softened with a theatrical sadness.
He crouched before Sonia's trembling body, tilting his head. "Ah.… poor thing." His voice was like smooth silk dipped in poison. "To fall this far. The child who once laughed at the stars now giggles at the void."
Fahrenheit's jaw tightened. His hands trembled, barely holding back.
Azmaik gave him a passing glance, then looked back at Sonia. "It's sad, truly. She's becoming something else. The madness you see.… it's not just her mind collapsing. It's influence. The verses of Outer Deities. They've found her. Her fight with Elior might have took the attention. They didn't took Elior cause he is influenced with a Sect."
He stood again, straightening his long collar. "If we don't act soon, she'll become an Outer Deity herself, beings born from the edge of sanity, life and meaning. Once that happens, there's no pulling her back. We need kill her."
Fahrenheit's voice cracked through the silence, rough and trembling. "So your answer…. is to kill her?"
Azmaik sighed, pressing a hand to his chest as if heartbroken. "I take no pleasure in such things, young one but mercy is cruel when delayed."
Xamin's appearancd seemed sharp from the shadows.
Xamin walked forward, boots clicking like a metronome of calm fury. His eyes gleaned not with rage, but with restraint. "Don't you dare act like you care," he said, voice low. "You brought her to this. You used her to open those cursed doors."
Azmaik raised his hands defensively, an innocent grin spreading across his face. "Oh, Xamin, always so serious. You think too linearly. I didn't make her mad. I merely showed her the truth. The Outer Deities were already whispering in her ear. I just…. let her listen cause she asked"
"Enough."
Xamin grabbed Azmaik by the collar and dragged him away from Sonia's body, his voice almost a growl. "You talk like you're mourning her, but all I hear is you admiring your own handiwork."
Azmaik's face twisted into amusement, not fear. "Here you are, still doubting me."
Xamin shoved him back. "Don't mistake necessity for loyalty."
Azmaik brushed the dust off his coat, smirking faintly. "Mm. The difference is small when survival is at stake."
Behind them, Fahrenheit still stood without moving, staring at Sonia. Her body twitched once, then went still again. He wanted to speak to beg for her life but no words formed. His throat felt like stone.
Karma slowly approaches inward.
He stood at the far end of the hall, seated on a throne of pale bones, elbows resting on his knees. His red eyes glowed faintly, like red dazzling stars refusing to fade away
"Enough chatter," he said. His tone was measured, deliberate. "We don't have time for pity."
Everyone turned toward him.
Karma rose to his feet slowly, towering over the hall, his presence pressing down like a hand on every throat. "Sonia's mind is gone. Whether she's dead or not doesn't matter anymore. The Outer Deities have started feeding on her consciousness. Her body is only a shell now, a bridge for its use."
Azmaik smiled faintly. "That is why I said we should—"
"Quiet," Karma said. One word, and Azmaik became silent.
Karma walked toward the center of the hall, each step echoing like a hammer. He looked at Sonia, and for the faintest instant, something human flickered behind his red eyes. A ghost of the brother he once was. Then it vanished.
"If we do nothing," he said, "she'll become a gate. The Outer Deities will use her to enter our realm. Once they do, even the Overseers will lose control."
Fahrenheit lifted his head. "Then what do we do?"
Karma's eyes shifted toward him. "We will plan, carefully. Its descent needs three keys."
He raised a finger. A physical vessel. Flesh strong enough to hold the divine madness."
Another finger. "Second, a Haztek's Chalout. One of the seven runes that hold the embodiment of the cosmos." Lastly, the third. "Any relic with the influence of Uptie 4 or higher. Something wet in ancient fingertips."
He looked down at Sonia again. "The Overseer already has a partial connection to Azmaik. It needs the Chalout and a relic to fully descend."
Azmaik tilted his head, eyes narrowing. " I suppose you already know which relic it wants?"
Karma nodded slightly. "The Bizarro Solace of Sun. The fifth Chalout, one of the seven. The purest of all vessels for divine embodiment."
The name alone sent a ripple through the air, as if the hall itself trembled.
Karma's gaze hardened. "It seeks a body born of cosmic fire, an anchor of light to host its infinite rot."
Azmaik smirked, running a hand through his silver hair. "So it's true then. The fifth Vessel is in Durkan."
Karma didn't answer immediately. He turned his head toward the towering white walls, eyes distant. "If the Overseer gets that Vessel…. there won't be a Durkan left to rule. Nor a world left to walk."
Fahrenheit finally stepped forward. His voice was quiet but firm. "We will about that later."
Karma gave him a small nod.
Fahrenheit looked down at Sonia. His lips trembled, but he forced the words out anyway.
"I'm sorry, sister...."
Azmaik smiled faintly, though his eyes said something else. Which lingered between pity and triumph. "Then let us pray her death buys us time."
Karma's eyes glowed brighter, like molten glass. His expressions were normal, very calm like he was trying to hide something.