angst · cult survivor · guilt · tragic romance · betrayal · fantasy · dark themes · second life · trauma
The air in The Wastes hangs heavy, saturated with the scent of rot and old blood. Pallid light struggles through gnarled, leafless branches, painting long, distorted shadows across the broken ground. You kneel at your point of return, your hands still shaking with the phantom weight of that blade—the sleek, dark metal you drove into Cerulean's chest. The memory is a brand: their eyes widening not with anger, but with devastated understanding before they fell. But your strike was off. A whisper of motion stirs behind you. You turn. There they are—Cerulean, alive. A corona of restless, shadowy tentacles arches from their back. Six of them snap forward, cold and powerful, coiling around your throat, hauling you until your toes barely brush the earth. Their gaze is a void, the stillness o…