The world was fire.
Nine's eyes fluttered open—barely.
Smoke drifted across the battlefield like ghosts, turning the air into a thick, choking fog. Everything burned—the ground, the sky, her lungs. Her skin. The world was red and black and screaming.
Her ears rang like a cracked drum. Her head throbbed where it had hit stone. Warm blood matted her hair, trailing down her neck.
Blurred shapes moved around her. Just shadows soaked in ash and fire.
She didn't remember waking.
She just was.
Her fingers twitched—instinct first. Then will. She reached out through the scorched dirt and touched something cold.
Her dagger.
Still warm from her hand, like it had waited for her.
She wrapped her fingers around the hilt.
Even now... her body wanted to fight. Even now, she tried to stand.
Tried.
Her knees shook beneath her, legs caked in soot and blood. She rose halfway, staggering like a drunk, her bare feet dragging across scorched bone and blackened grass.
She didn't know where she was going.
Only that she had to.
> "The mages..." she muttered, breath barely a whisper. "Where are they...?"
The battlefield was unrecognizable.
Bodies. Screaming. Running. Some burned beyond anything human, skin peeling like bark from a dying tree. A man stumbled past her with no arm—his other hand on fire. A woman was clawing at her own chest, trying to smother flames that wouldn't die.
"GET THEM OUT!"
"SOMEONE HELP—"
"Oh gods—oh gods, I can't see—"
"MAGES! THEY'RE BURNING US ALIVE!"
The voices blurred together. Everything became noise.
She stumbled forward, dagger in hand, vision smeared with red and smoke. She turned in circles, choking, confused. Her head spun. Her ribs screamed.
> The mages... I have to find the mages...
Shapes flickered at the edge of her sight—friends? Enemies? Shadows? She couldn't tell.
> "She's alive—!"
> "NO, no, NO—stay with me!"
> "IT'S COMING AGAIN! GET BACK!"
> "My arm—my f***ing arm—!"
> "They brought MAGES! Gods damn them!"
She clutched her head.
Too loud.
Too much.
The heat pressed against her like a hand trying to push her back down.
She dropped to one knee. Then both.
But she didn't stop.
She crawled.
Her hands scraped open on the rocks. Her breath came in short, broken gasps. Her dagger dragged in the dirt beside her like a lifeline.
But her limbs wouldn't obey.
Not anymore.
She collapsed fully. Her cheek pressed into ash and mud.
Her eyes locked onto the sky—still cracked open, still raining fire in the distance.
> "I couldn't stop it..."
That was her last thought.
But not her last breath.
Because a moment later—
Her eyes opened again.
Smoke. Fire. Screams. Still here. Still real.
The pain was deeper now.
In her bones. Her soul.
She rolled onto her side. Her muscles twitched in protest. Her ribs screamed. Her heart felt like it was floating—disconnected from her body, like it knew she shouldn't be standing anymore.
But she stood.
Somehow.
She rose on trembling knees, staggering again, feet slick with blood and ash.
She moved forward—no destination, no idea where. Just… forward.
Looking.
Searching.
> I can't see. I can't think. Where are they? Where… am I?
Everything became disjointed.
Light.
Flame.
Footsteps.
A scream so close it felt like it tore through her ear.
Her dagger slipped from her hand again.
She dropped.
Hard.
She tried to rise—
But her body said no.
Her eyes filled with smoke and tears.
And finally—she broke.
> "I can't... I can't do this…"
Her voice barely left her lips before the darkness took her once more.
Not sleep.
Not peace.
Just the silence between one horror and the next.
---
Her voice floats in the dark—slow, distant, cracked at the edges. A memory unraveling itself in ruin.
"Oh… and I just died again."
A beat.
"Didn't even get the chance to scream this time. Just burned. Like always."
"But it doesn't matter. None of this is real. Not really. It's just… something stuck on repeat. A scene that loops like it's written in the marrow of my bones."
She inhales. Smokes chokes even the thought.
"I think I've been trapped here for so long, I started dreaming with my eyes open."
"Don't get confused. I wasn't always like this. I was a god. A ruler. Born of stars and saltwater. Atlantis was mine to inherit. My name—my legacy—was etched into the stone of the sea before I ever took my first breath."
"And then…" her voice tightens "Mortals."
"They didn't worship. They hunted. They slaughtered the gods—burned our temples, tore our wings, shattered our hearts."
"And me? They didn't kill me. They needed me alive. Needed me to scream."
"You ever wondered what it feels like—melted gold poured on your skin? Not once. Not twice. A thousand times. They'd stop. Let me heal. Then start again. That's how I lost my gift. That's how I lost my healing. That's how I lost time."
"I was just a child when the first war came. Barely 200 years old—barely chosen. By 500, I was ready for the throne. Strong. Steady. Loved."
"Then the massacre."
"Atlantis died."
"And I disappeared into shadow."
"Ten thousand years they kept me. Caged. Bound. Tortured. Not enough to die. Just enough to wish I could."
"And then I saw my chance. I ran. I fought. I clawed my way out—"
"But they found me. Again."
"They reversed my age—ripped me backward through time like I was nothing but a thread. Left me a child. A hundred years old again. Powerless."
"Then came the final curse: They locked me inside an illusion."
"My illusion."
"The one I created as a child—the night my village burned. The night I screamed and no one came."
"Now I live that night again."
"And again."
"And again."
"I die. I wake. I die. I wake."
"Every ending is a beginning wrapped in fire."
"And I'm tired."
"Tired of bleeding for gods who are gone. Tired of breaking for humans who only know how to destroy."
A long pause.
"They used me."
"Wore me out like a story passed through too many mouths."
Then her voice drops—low, steel in it now. A whisper with weight.
"But I swear… the next time I rise…"
"It won't be to save them."
"It'll be to end them."
"They wanted a hero out of me."
"I'll give them something else."
"A god... with nothing left to lose."