A house floated in the void.
Not space which implies stars and physics. This is void: the absolute opinionated absence of anything else. The house does not drift and it is perfect because it remembers being perfect.
It appears as a small craftsman-style house with a wooden porch that holds two empty chairs that rock in a patient rhythm. From inside, noises of soft footsteps came.
A pale, young adult man, dressed in a gray sweater, the colour is comparable to the second darkest shade of a rainy day's cloud. Underneath, he wears a black pajama, the t-shirt and pants feels like a shadow he is too lazy to take off. His hair, the colour of dry ashes. It falls just past his jawline in a mess of soft waves.
It framed a face that was all sharp angles and silent distances—high cheekbones, a straight nose, and eyes the grey of a winter sea, observing nothing in particular.
He walks until he reaches a sky-blue sofa before lying down. In his long fingered hand was a rectangle of dark chocolate. It was perfect because…
"It remembered being perfect," his voice is a quiet instrument, perfectly tuned and never raised. It is a voice of someone reading the terms and conditions aloud, finding them logically sound barely but aesthetically lacking. His name is Kayden.
He remembers it took one month for the entire world to turn into something that cannot be described. However, he doesn't care. He has this perfect house in the void of his own making.
He sits on the comfortable sofa, eyes fixated on a large TV that shows something only he can see. The screen is completely blank, pure white light that casts outward on the room.
The bar of chocolate in his hand regrows after every few bites. After a while of staring at the screen, he lets out a sigh. The chocolate bar slowly disappears from his grasp as he slowly stands up.
Then, he walks over to glance out the window but suddenly with a loud bang noise, the entire house shakes causing Kayden to fall.
A raspy voice comes from somewhere, "Flesh, I must devour," and then loud sounds of footsteps start ringing in Kayden's ears before he can stand up. He lets out a scream of agony before blood begins to spill out of mouth, coating the floor in red. He coughs and desperately crawls.
A tall, dark figure in a red cape slowly steps out of the little shadow behind the sofa and as it does, the bright white light of the TV bends and warps into darkness of its being. Its red eyes casts—not a dim light like the TV's one was, but one that paints everywhere it glares into pure crimson.
The air grows metallic and thick. As Kayden slowly supports himself to sit up, he turns to look at the figure. From what he sees, it's a figure, less man and more a conflict of shadows wearing tattered red cape the colour of closed wounds.
Then, a soft chuckle interrupts everything, a chuckle from Kayden as his bloody lips twist into a smirk.
"You remember terrifying me," he slowly turns around, gazing at the figure right in its bright eyes, adding "I don't."
The creature immediately lets out a loud roar that shatters the glasses of the windows, before it reveals its long hands from underneath its red cape. Then the claws grow out of its shadowy fingers as it leaps at Kayden.
Claws bursts forward with a swing and cleaves Kayden's face in half but no blood gushes out, instead he just fades as if he was never there.
What follows is a long silver spear piercing through the figure and stopping mid way. With its chest penetrated, it still turns to look behind itself to see what threw the spear but once it does, it finds itself floating in the void.
The red caped being desperately looks around but everywhere it looks, it sees nothing. Then, it hears it, a faint voice from afar, shouting—"Look out"
It instinctually looks in a direction, noticing Kayden floating with a smug face on his pale face. But, before it can react, the house suddenly appears in front of it and crashes right against it.
Kayden floats in the emptiness for a bit before the house reappears around him. Now he's in the bedroom, standing on the bed. He glances around himself and as he expected, the being slowly fazes through the wall before him and leaps at him. Quickly pinning Kayden's both hands to the wall behind him.
Suddenly, a third arm grows right out of Kayden's chest and smacks the red caped figure's dark face, not once but twice, causing it to pause in what seems to be confusion before it roars at his face and reveals its large mouth with dozens of pointy fangs drenched in maroon.
It thrusts its head forward and bites onto Kayden's third arm, tearing it off his chest and what gushes out isn't blood but an awfully huge amount of brown, melted chocolate, almost coating the figure's entire body. It lunges back and frees Kayden.
Without a single second wasted, Kayden leaps forward and touches the figure's red cape with a finger.
Suddenly, the figure's movements slow down and cause it to pause entirely in place as Kayden speaks, "Chocolatify, right now."
In an instant the figure turns into liquid, pure brown chocolate that pours out across the entire room, coating the bed and the floor. However, the eyes remain.
Kayden quickly raises his hand, a bubble forms around him as he watches the two floating orbs that were the eyes of that creature. The orbs begin to glow in pure crimson. It is a hungry red that is incinerating the room's geometry, devouring shape, colour and depth until all that remains is only their blinding, crimson verdict.
As Kayden begins to feel the bubble-like shield around him weaken in the bright crimson, suddenly a noise of spanning fingers echoes and he finds himself in the void, floating.
Quickly, he makes the house appear beneath him so he can stand on the roof. Then, he hears a voice from behind him, "You were so close to being turned into fuel."
The voice was a smooth, harmonic chime that sounded like a glass bell being struck in a distant, empty hall. Kayden turns around to see who she is. He replays her voice in his head and understands it held no warmth, only a clear clarity that seemed to bypass the ears and form indirectly in the mind.
However, the person before him is an elegant contradiction. A dark green, perfectly sculpted robe fell from crown to floor without a seam or stitch. The color of a forest at midnight swallows her form and face, leaving no hint at the shape beneath, only a serene, impenetrable plane where features should be.
In her gloved hands, she holds the glowing two orbs, now pulsing and releasing smoke until they fade into nothingness.
Kayden tilts his head, eyes detached but deep down, he's intrigued. Immediately, he uses his omni-directional perception to notice more details about her but only gets to be able to focus on her cascade of white hair that pours down to her hips. It's like a river of moonlight, he notes.
"Kayden, you are offered and you have full right to decline," she says calmly.
He only lets out a sigh as he asks, "Who are you?"