Hell never truly quiets.
Not in this age.Not before Exterminations.Not before Heaven remembers we exist.
Sinners fill every street.The air stinks of old violence and new regrets.Overlords squabble like gods without responsibilities.
But three nights ago, something unusual happened.
A tremor.A missing tone in Hell's endless noise.
Not silence—Hell cannot produce silence.Just a thin hollow between frequencies.
Malrion's first cultivation.Subtle. Slow. Proper.
Only I would notice.
Only someone tuned to static, resonance, and whispers.
I was adjusting a radio dial when my door opened on its own.
Not violently.Not magically.Just… inevitability.
As if the door knew it had no right to stay closed.
Rosie entered.
But not the Rosie I knew.
Her appearance was the same—rose-colored dress, gloves immaculate, posture perfect.Her attendants followed, faceless and quiet.
But her presence—
Her presence was wrong.
Rosie's aura normally flowed like warm candlelight—pleasant, soft, dangerous only when she chose it.
But today it was—
Older.Deeper.Heavier.
Not heavier in force.Heavier in age.
Like her body carried memories it was never designed to hold.
"Alastor," she said gently, stepping forward.
Her voice sounded normal.
But the space behind it did not.
There was a faint delay—like two voices aligning into one.Not an echo.Not a possession.Just… misalignment.
I bowed as always, but my eyes narrowed a fraction.
"Rosie," I replied. "You look radiant, as always."
Her smile was perfect.
Too perfect.
The kind of perfect that's been practiced until the muscles remember it better than the mind does.
She walked into the room with deliberate calm—not the natural grace she had, but something taught.Like someone else was guiding her steps.
Her attendants did not enter—because whatever walked behind her didn't want witnesses.
She stared at a radio for an uncomfortably long time.
"Do you hear it?" she asked.
I tilted my head. "Hear what?"
"A… shift."
Shift.Not ripple.Not tremor.
Shift.
She turned her face toward me—but her eyes moved a heartbeat too late.
Something inside her wasn't synchronized.
"I felt it," she whispered.
Whispers didn't suit Rosie.She normally spoke clearly, confidently.
This whisper felt like someone older than both of us had borrowed her throat for a moment.
"A place down in the deep rings," she continued, her voice smoothing again. "A thread being pulled."
She made a motion with her hand.
But it wasn't her gesture.
It was slow.Elegant.Ancient.
A gesture of someone who lived centuries before Rosie was ever born.
I felt Malrion in the back of my mind—his attention sharp.
"Who is that?"
"It isn't Rosie.""Then—what is it?""…Something wearing her skin lightly."
Not literally.Her body was hers.But her aura—
It had layers now.
Outer layer: Rosie, Overlord, poised, deadly.Inner layer: something older, quieter, coiled like a serpent in meditation.
Rosie exhaled softly.
"Hell doesn't change," she murmured. "Not in ways that matter. Not in ways that leave… marks."
Marks.
She frowned slightly, as if the word surprised her.
As if she hadn't chosen it.
Then she continued with a smile as warm as a hearth:
"But something changed, Alastor. Briefly. Once."
She stepped closer.
Her shadow stretched behind her…
But for a split second—two shadows appeared.
One normal.One taller.One shaped wrong.
Then it vanished.
Her smile never faltered.
"You would tell me," she said sweetly, "if you were doing something… unusual?"
Her voice wasn't her own in that sentence.It carried a depth that didn't fit the pitch.
Something older asked that question.
Something patient.Something watchful.Something that had seen Hell built stone by stone.
I smiled.
"My dear Rosie, if I do anything unusual, you'll be the first to receive a personal broadcast."
She laughed softly.
Too softly.
Not the warm laugh she usually gave.This one felt like a memory not hers—dusty, old, borrowed.
She examined my wall.
"…This place feels smaller than before."
Her voice was quiet again—fragile, questioning.
She lowered her hand slowly, deliberately, as if someone else moved it through honey.
"Why does your domain feel… tight?" she asked.
Tight?
My domain was the same size it always was.
But to someone ancient—someone who remembered Hell when buildings were citadels and halls were caverns—
my home might feel small.
She blinked again—resetting her expression.
The Rosie I knew resurfaced.
Momentarily.
Then slipped again.
"Never mind," she said lightly. "I must be… tired."
She had never once said that.Overlords don't get tired.Their souls don't fatigue.Their minds don't falter.
Unless something stronger presses into them.
She stepped toward the door.
"Alastor… if you sense anything again—anything at all—you will tell me."
Her tone sharpened.Not a threat.A plea.
A quiet, old plea.
Like someone who had spent centuries losing things.
I bowed.
"Of course."
She paused at the threshold.
And the older presence inside her surfaced one last time.
Her voice deepened just slightly—not masculine, not demonic, but primordial.
"Be careful what grows in the dark, Alastor. Some roots… do not remain loyal to the soil that birthed them."
I felt my spine straighten involuntarily.
Rosie blinked once—slowly—and the old tone vanished.
She smiled. Rosie smiled.
"I'll be going."
Her attendants stepped aside.
She left.
The door closed.
Silence returned—not peaceful, but trembling, like the air remembered that something older than Rosie had brushed against it.
Malrion whispered:
"What was that…?"
I stared at the closed door.
"…Not someone we want to meet unprepared."
"Is she possessed?"
"No. This is worse."
A deep static hum rolled through the walls.
Someone old is up to something.