Ren squeezed his eyes shut—but he couldn't stop the memories. They weren't playing out like visions anymore. They were clawing out from within.
"You see now, don't you?"
The voice drifted through the dark like breath on glass—softer than anything human. Yet it cracked something inside Ren.
"That's why you're here...Because broken things get thrown away."
The words echoed across the abyss, and he wanted to respond.
But he couldn't.
Instead, he fell.
And fell.
And then—he landed.
Not with the crunch of bone or the pain he expected, but with the sound of dry leaves. The weight of his body collapsed sideways, and he tumbled to the ground with a ragged gasp, catching himself weakly with one arm. Everything around him was dead silent, except for the distant creak of wood.
The bloodied sword struck down nearby—point-first—burying itself half-deep in damp earth with a shudder of sound.
He blinked once, adjusting to the dim, cold light of this place. Not an abyss anymore. He was lying at the edge of what looked like a circular glade. The surrounding trees here were the same as the ones in the cursed forest above—tall and skeletal with bark scorched black.
Ren staggered to his feet, grabbing the nearby sword from the ground. His left arm was still mending, skin tight over exposed muscle. His gaze roamed around the strange surroundings.
It was empty, or so he thought. There was something else here. Across the glade, beneath the long shadow of one of the blackened trees, there lay a corpse.
A woman's body.
Her face was pale—almost blue with lifelessness—yet still utterly beautiful.
High cheekbones. Long eyelashes. Soft jawline. Parted lips that had not breathed in years. Long strands of pitch black hair fanned down and splayed around her shoulders.
Ren stared, heart slowing with unease.
She was perfect, like a statue meant to make the living feel flawed.
Then came the movement.
Shadows
They bled in from the gaps between the trees and reformed just above the corpse. The form of Mother that Ren had come to know quite well.
Then—
She descended.
Her smokey form retracted as she drifted downward, condensing and narrowing into a black mist just above the corpse's mouth. The shadows pressed themselves between its red lips.
The body didn't lurch.
Didn't flinch.
It had simply accepted it.
Fingers twitched. Lips trembled. Eyes fluttered—closed first, then cracked open.
Crimson
Not blood-red or glowing, but a deep, beautiful crimson. They flickered faintly, adjusting to the dim light until they focused straight ahead.
On him.
Her gaze was too focused.
Her breath came too easily.
She simply blinked once more, slow and methodical, and then rose.
First to a seated position, then her legs curled beneath her, bare feet planting softly into the grass. Her body flowed upward in a single, perfect motion. She held her hands in front, fingers interlocked with one another. Her black dress flowed like ink down her frame, not pooling onto the ground, but hovering just above it, cut perfectly to skim the ground without touching it.
She spoke, the corpse did, like a song echoing across a lake at night—impossibly distant.
"O, Hollow…Empty of belonging. Starved of worth. How long shall you defy?"
She stepped forward.
Her footfall was silent. The grass didn't even bend under her weight.
"How far the Hollow wanders…" She said, a sense of disappointment in her voice. "When will you come to? You are what is left when meaning is stripped away. When the name is worn smooth from the stone."
She took another step, and Ren felt his knees weaken despite himself. His grip tightened on the sword instinctively, though he didn't raise it.
Her crimson eyes lingered on him—on his torn cloak, his still-repairing arm, the blade trembling faintly in his hands.
"And now you arrive, dragged into the abyss where light shall have no name. That without meaning shall be forgotten, washed away by the tides of time."
She stopped and planted her bare feet into the grass, eyes never blinking at Ren.
"You...have strayed too far."
The trees reacted to her declaration. They groaned lowly, a dozen of them at once. From their trunks, sap dripped down like black tears.
"From the blackened soil I rise, borne of sorrow's breath. From lips long sealed, I speak anew. I...am Nocstella—Mother of the Wretched Vale."
Ren took a half-step back.
"Wretched Vale?" He thought to himself.
"By your own will, have severed the bond." Nocstella continued, with slight aggravation towards Ren under her soft voice. "You are no longer to be nurtured by me."
Her right hand rose slowly, palm facing out to Ren.
"Therefore," Her crimson eyes narrowed—not in rage, but sorrow. "Let this be your final lullaby..."
This was the same person who whispered to Ren.
The same one who urged him to give in.
Now standing in front of him, what will he do?
Give in?
Fight back?
His next move will decide his fate.