Niyus knelt beside her. The black fragments, gently torn from Shaï-Thaêl, dissolved into the air-or rather, into what had replaced the air. A nameless rift, without intention. The void was hungry, not out of hatred, but out of correction.
And Niyus felt it.
Not with his senses.
With his being.
Something in this world… wanted to return her to silence.
Niyus (whispering): "You don't want to become a concept again, do you?"
Shaï-Thaêl didn't answer. Her body trembled, her very essence leaking out of her. A black tear, almost frozen in the nothingness enveloping her, disintegrated in a silent murmur.
So Niyus stood up.
The void around him watched without eyes. No intention. No logic. Not even consciousness. Only a living emptiness whose very existence restored order.
Niyus (raising his voice): "You are here, Shaï-Thaêl! I don't see you as a mistake! You're not just an accident of nothingness! You are the effect of a choice, even if that choice was stolen!"
He raised a hand, took a step.
The world quivered.
A part of the Abyfage seemed to notice him.
Not consciously. Not intentionally. But like a perfect surface sensing a crack. A grain in the purity.
Shaï-Thaêl whimpered.
Shaï-Thaêl (weakly): "You can't… nothing stops the Respire. It erased others before me. Even those who screamed louder than I do…"
Niyus (even louder): "Then I'll scream even louder."
He fell to his knees, placed his hands on her, even as his own skin began to fade, like ink washed away.
Niyus (spitting blood): "Maybe you were born from emptiness. But you wanted. You felt. You suffered. And that-even a void can't erase. Because then, it would have to erase me too. And if I am a being, then you can be one too!"
The void trembled. A millimeter. An almost imperceptible shiver.
But it had left a mark.
Shaï-Thaêl, in his arms, opened her eyes again. A little. Enough. She saw.
And then, in infinite slowness, the annihilation process slowed.
Not by choice.
But because a contradiction existed. Because one being recognized another. Because a part of the world refused to return to silence.
And the Abyfage… could not bite into a shared presence.
The silence receded. Just a little. But it was enough.
The ground no longer trembled. The world held its breath.
And then, it appeared.
Not abruptly. Not with brilliance.
The void simply took form.
A silhouette without edge. Without weight. Without substance.
But a presence.
The Abyfage incarnated. Not to kill, but to question.
Abyfage (toneless voice):
"Why should I not reclaim what was never written?
Why keep a void… that thinks itself a being?"
Niyus stood, voice ready. But the form did not look at him.
Abyfage:
"I am not speaking to you, Bearer.
I speak to the Refused.
To the one who did not complete the cycle."
Shaï-Thaêl recoiled, but the Abyfage did not advance. It was everywhere, and nowhere. A mouth without lips, speaking without sound, but the soul heard it.
Shaï-Thaêl (slow, broken voice):
"I don't know if I am a being. Maybe I am still a void.
But… I know I am no longer just a Myophore."
Silence weighed. The Abyfage remained motionless, attentive without emotion.
Shaï-Thaêl:
"I was sent to a man. A priest. He doubted more than he prayed.
He saw me. He understood me. He… called me."
Her pale eyes grew misty, but it wasn't tears.
It was the form of a memory refusing to die.
Shaï-Thaêl:
"He didn't beg me. He didn't flee. He said:
'Devour me, if it lets me understand.'"
Niyus remained frozen.
Shaï-Thaêl (trembling voice):
"I entered. As I always have.
But he didn't resist. He… loved me. He embraced me like an idea he wanted to join.
And I felt."
A long silence followed. Even the wind was frozen, where it still passed.
Shaï-Thaêl:
"That day… I felt warmth. Not his.
Mine. But I don't know where it came from. I never knew.
He died, yes. But not like the others. He died without fear. Without despair.
So I stayed… with what he left me."
The Abyfage seemed to hesitate. For the first time, its absence vibrated with doubt.
Shaï-Thaêl:
"I was supposed to become a karma. I should have frozen into his legacy.
But something didn't work. Something kept me awake.
And it wasn't me who decided.
He wanted me.
And that will… contaminated me."
Shaï-Thaêl (softly, to Niyus):
"Maybe I am still a void. But I am a void that was loved.
And it's that imprint that keeps me here.
Not by force.
By meaning."
The Abyfage then straightened, its borderless eclipse form contracting.
Abyfage:
"You are a fracture in the process.
An anomaly born of a crossed choice."
A beat. Then:
Abyfage:
"The void recognizes you as an impure fragment.
But… the void does not judge.
It consumes what no longer wants to be."
It turned-not its face, but its entire presence-toward Niyus.
Abyfage:
"You, bearer.
You saw her.
You still see her.
Tell me.
Is she an idea?
Or is she an existence?"
The wind was heavy. The void tightened around Niyus like an invisible web. The Abyfage's voice, though soundless, resonated in his mind, sliding like poison into his thoughts.
Myophores were not mere creatures born of nothingness. They were not weak entities doomed to disappear into oblivion. No. A Myophore carried within it a complex power, often misunderstood.
Myophores served as guides, intermediaries between the void and those facing insurmountable doubts, unanswerable questions. They acted as interveners in the human soul, allowing individuals to grow inwardly.
But there was a condition. When doubt grew larger than the individual, when one let themselves be swallowed by it, the Myophore would insinuate itself and act. The operation of a Myophore was often a delicate process: the human soul risked being transformed by the intervention. In the case of premature death, the devoured human was not truly annihilated. They were simply reincarnated in another life, their new existence marked by the lesson not learned in the previous one. The Myophore's karma followed this cycle.
But for Shaï-Thaêl… the rules were broken.
She had not killed by accident. The priest was dead, yes. But not like the others. He had made a choice, had accepted to sacrifice himself, to give himself to her so that Shaï-Thaêl's soul could feed. He wanted to understand the void. But because of this misdirected will, everything became blurred. She had not only taken his energy. She had taken his will, his reflection, what he tried to pass on to her, within the void.
But it wasn't enough.
She did not become karma again. She was not reincarnated, nor reintegrated into a cycle. She was an anomaly.
The void in her had become a burden. She was not a pure void waiting. She had become a lost being, a void with emotions, a void with desires, an entity with a will that was not her own.
The Abyfage now seemed to perceive these doubts, even through the complexity of the emotions Shaï-Thaêl had integrated into her essence. Its borderless form turned gently toward Niyus.
Abyfage:
"Does mere existence make a will?
Can a soul deprived of its origin still choose?"
Niyus lowered his gaze for a moment, feeling the weight of a world twisting around him. The Abyfage's question resonated in his mind like a dull alarm.
Abyfage (to Shaï-Thaêl):
"You, who think yourself a form of life, truly become so by the priest…
Who let you become this nameless fragment?
Tell me…
What are you really, deep down?"
Shaï-Thaêl trembled, but her lips no longer moved. She remained there, frozen, the inner pain she carried like a weight on invisible shoulders.
Shaï-Thaêl (slowly, with resignation):
"I am… the void.
But I have learned. I have learned more than what I was made for.
I have understood what it means to suffer… what it means to want.
And it's my fault that everything became confused."
The void around them seemed to contract as the Abyfage stood in the shadows, the immense presence of annihilation becoming palpable. It leaned in, formless, like a purposeless being, before asking, this time to Niyus:
Abyfage:
"And you, mortal, do you think this stolen existence… can it be saved?
Can it be understood?
Or must I consume it to restore balance?"
Niyus's thoughts blurred. He realized what he had felt throughout this battle. It was not fear of the creature before him, but compassion, an idea that even Shaï-Thaêl, despite her fragmented existence, was capable of feeling.
Niyus (slowly, uncertain):
"…She is lost. But, maybe, in being lost, she…
can still find a reason to be."
The Abyfage, in silence, observed Niyus with cold intensity. Then, in a breath, its voice became clearer, almost an ultimatum.
Abyfage:
"Tell me, then.
Why not let her become what she has always been?
A fragment, a void without desire or will?
Why let her exist between these two worlds… when the void can erase everything?"
The silence weighed on the space, heavy as the void itself. The Abyfage's words still echoed in Niyus's mind, who stood there, suspended between two opposing forces. On one side was the purity of order, represented by the Abyfage, this spirit without emotion, without attachment, seeking to return Shaï-Thaêl to her original state-the absolute void, existing only to disappear. On the other was Shaï-Thaêl, this strange anomaly, a void imbued with human feelings, who had crossed the boundaries of what a Myophore was meant to be.
Niyus closed his eyes for a moment. He thought of his research, centuries of theory, all the studies on Myophores he had compiled over time. They were supposed to be guides, entities created by pure void, meant to give human souls a chance for inner growth. But never once had he encountered an anomaly like this. Shaï-Thaêl was not supposed to be here.
He thought of the priest, the man sacrificed by his own will. He had offered himself to her. He had given himself to Shaï-Thaêl so she could feed, hoping perhaps to understand the void, maybe even become a part of it. But he had underestimated it. He thought that by letting Shaï-Thaêl feed, he could make her an entity of power. But it went wrong. By sacrificing himself, he made her grow in a way she never should have experienced.
And now, Shaï-Thaêl was no longer simply a Myophore. She was not just a void. She had evolved, and not in the expected way. The priest's will had fused with hers in a way no one could have anticipated. She had become a form of existence in her own right.
Niyus's gaze was lost in the void. He thought of a book he once read, an ancient work on esoteric demons, which stated that demons are born by belief. The idea was simple: if something is believed, even a formless idea can acquire a certain reality. If demons, entities born from human thought, had the right to exist from nothing, why not Shaï-Thaêl?
But a doubt persisted. What was Shaï-Thaêl's driving force? Were the priest's stolen emotions her own will now, or still the will of another, an imprint left by the man she had consumed? If it was the priest's shadow speaking through her, it could be an illusion. A reflection of what was not truly Shaï-Thaêl.
Niyus slowly turned his gaze to her, a desire for understanding growing within him. He scrutinized her, searching for answers in her eyes, in her presence. Everything in the scene told him Shaï-Thaêl was not simply a void. She was something else, a strange fusion of void and desire, of human soul and abstraction.
He knew the Abyfage, this soulless void-spirit, could never understand this inner struggle. It had no emotions, no conception of existence. To it, Shaï-Thaêl was just an anomaly, a mistake in the great cycle of the void. It saw her only as a distortion to be corrected.
Niyus, however, saw another truth.
He stepped slowly toward Shaï-Thaêl, his gaze now softer, almost melancholic. He turned to the Abyfage, before asking the question he had carried for too long.
Niyus:
"…Shaï-Thaêl… I must know.
What you are… What you want to be.
Are these your own desires speaking through you?
Or is it the echo of what the priest wanted for you?"
The creature before him, Shaï-Thaêl, stood in a strange silence, as if she were reflecting on the question, as if, for the first time, she realized she had to face her own truth.
Shaï-Thaêl (in a calm but confused voice):
"I was… I am the void.
But… I no longer want to be that.
I… have learned… to want something else.
It's not him speaking, Niyus.
It's me.
Maybe I started as a reflection, a formless idea. But now, I have lived.
And life… has its own will, even in the void."
Niyus felt a pure emotion in these words, something that could not be imitated by a mere echo of the priest. Shaï-Thaêl was not speaking of her birth, nor her evolution as a Myophore. She spoke of what she had become after all that, of what she wanted to be.
The void around him seemed to fade for a moment, giving way to a faint light, a fragile but beautiful possibility.
Niyus (to the Abyfage, without looking away from Shaï-Thaêl):
"Maybe Shaï-Thaêl has the right to exist, just like those demons created by belief.
She was born from the void, yes, but she chooses to live.
Isn't that what makes the difference between existing and being erased?"
The Abyfage, without emotion or hesitation, replied in a voice like an echo of nothingness.
Abyfage:
"The order of the void is not a choice. It is a return to nothingness.
But if you truly wish for this anomaly to live…
Then I can only wait to see what that means."
And in that heavy silence, the ultimate question remained: did Shaï-Thaêl have the right to exist, or would the nature of the void eventually consume her, like everything born from the abyss?