Skirk sat beside the flickering campfire, slowly turning a fish over the open flame. The soft crackle of burning wood echoed through the Abyss, casting shifting shadows against the stone. Her Abyss-touched fingers rested lightly on the cover of a worn journal—weathered, aged, and out of place in this realm of silence.
Someone else had been here.
She studied the handwriting on the first page—uneven, clumsy, innocent. A child.
A child… surviving in the Abyss?
She frowned. It shouldn't have been possible. Yet she remembered Ajax, found young and trembling, barely clinging to life. And somehow, he had endured.
Normally, she wouldn't have given this much thought. Training came first. Emotions were distractions. But the Abyss had led her. It had wanted her to find this.
Curiosity, quiet but persistent, won out.
She opened the journal and began to read.
I'm writing this diary… For whoever finds this maybe I'm dead, or maybe I made it out. Who knows?
Skirk stared at the words for a long moment. Her face betrayed nothing, but something inside her stirred something long buried under layers of discipline, pain, and silence.
She didn't speak. She just turned the page.
Um, hi. If you're reading this, my name is Fenn. I used to have a really happy life. I loved exploring, and I always dreamed about what was up there—beyond the stars. I wanted to fly up and see it all.
One time, I even climbed on top of a dragon! Turns out it was just a statue… but still! What a shame, right?
Oh, and there was this cute fat bird super round and kinda dumb. It almost went extinct because it kept falling off trees. I tried to teach it how to land, but… yeah, it didn't work.
And there was this giant creature with a really long neck. I swear its head touched the clouds! I waved at it. I think it blinked at me.
My teacher was amazing. She taught me about the stars and all the cool stuff beyond our world. She's the reason I wanted to explore so much… though I did kinda blow up her classroom once. Just a little! I got in trouble for a whole month. No dessert.
My mom… she was a beautiful singer. She'd sing me to sleep every night. Her voice made all the monsters in my dreams go away. And my dad was awesome. He taught me how to hold a sword and fight like a real shining knight! We laughed a lot. We fished together. We did everything together.
But my happiness didn't last.
Strange people came. They weren't nice. They hurt so many people. They took over our world.
I saw my dad… he tried to protect us, but they hurt him. I saw it all. I screamed, but no one could help. They did horrible things to my mom. I don't want to write what happened. I just want to forget. But I can't.
Then they shot me too. Everything was cold.
And when I woke up… I wasn't home anymore. I was here, in this place.
It's cold. And dark. And scary. Sometimes I still cry when I remember.
My parents…
But I'm still here. I'm still writing. Maybe… maybe someone will find this.
Skirk slowly closed the journal, her expression unreadable, though something shifted behind her eyes. Someone else had endured the same loss, the same hollowed path she had walked. But unlike her, the writer hadn't been saved. He had survived here, alone, shaped by the Abyss.
She reopened the journal, flipping through the pages. Each entry chronicled the child's descent from grief to numbness, from fear to acceptance. Then she reached the final page.
I don't know how long I've been here. Time doesn't matter anymore. I've stopped counting.
I don't feel afraid of this place. I don't feel much of anything.
The Abyss doesn't want you dead. It wants you changed. And I changed.
My body isn't the same. I think I became part of it. Or it became part of me.
This place feels… familiar now. Like I was always meant to be here.
There's no point in holding on to the past. That part of me died a long time ago.
But even now… I can't ignore it.
I'm still alone. Completely alone.
This will be my last entry. I've found a way out. I don't know what I'll find…
Skirk stared at the final words, her hands motionless. Not even a child had escaped the Abyss without being changed.
Who was this person? Could he have been her master? No… that wasn't possible. But something about him his connection to the Abyss, the way he survived felt familiar. He had wielded its power, like her.
So… the Abyss wanted her to see this?
His journey mirrored hers in many ways, but unlike her, he had no master. No guidance. He had taught himself to endure, to fight, to adapt. That… was impressive.
A faint smile tugged at the corner of her lips not of warmth, but of approval.
She wouldn't mind crossing blades with someone like that.
In the distant past, deep within the Abyss, a lone figure stood in a field littered with swords, their blades buried in the scorched earth. All around him, monstrous creatures charged howling, screeching, relentless.
He moved without hesitation, cutting them down one by one. His blond hair had long since turned black, his once-blue eyes now glowing green. The Abyss had changed him and shaped him into something else, something no longer fully human.
With a final, swift strike, he ended the last of them. Silence fell.
He stepped forward, out of the Abyss, and looked up only to see a sky unfamiliar to him. Three moons hovered overhead.
This was not his world.