Prologue

  There was nothing left. Nothing but the relentless ache, the ceaseless agony weaving itself into every fragment of her awareness. She had long since lost track of how long she'd been trapped here. Days? Decades? Centuries? Eternity itself had blurred into a meaningless haze. The Rift twisted and churned time into grotesque shapes, bending it until the past, present, and future were indistinguishable.

  She had screamed until her voice shredded into silence, tearing at the intangible darkness until her hands ceased to feel real. Begging had come next—first desperately pleading for release, for escape, then gradually reduced to something quieter, simpler. Something that no longer sought freedom, but merely an end.

  Oblivion.

  Yet, the Rift knew nothing of mercy.

  Slowly, methodically, it had stripped away her very essence, peeling back layers of identity like paper-thin skin. Her body was the first to dissolve, fading into a distant memory. She could no longer discern its boundaries, its presence. Limbs, fingers, her face—they were now vague echoes, nothing more than faint shadows, spectral hints of existence.

  Time went next, its meaning unraveling into tangled threads of confusion. Memories faded soon after, slipping from her grasp like grains of sand through weakened fingers, until she was reduced to nothing but awareness itself—an echo caught between existence and nonexistence, a consciousness stretched to the breaking point.

  But through it all, the pain endured. It was unlike anything she'd ever known, not the kind born from wounds or broken bones, for even those torments eventually healed or numbed. This pain was deeper, relentless—a slow, unending erosion of her very soul. The agony of existence itself, methodically peeling away layer by agonizing layer, thought by fractured thought.

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  Yet, cruelly, the pain was her only proof of being. It was the single, undeniable truth left to cling to.

  Her name had vanished long ago, swallowed by the voracious hunger of the Rift. She tried to hold onto it once, repeating it like a prayer, a lifeline tethering her to reality. But even that lifeline eventually frayed, snapping quietly, unnoticed amidst the ceaseless torment.

  Yet within the darkness, beyond the relentless suffering, something stirred. Deep in the depths of her tattered consciousness, something remained untouched. A whisper, faint yet persistent—a presence too distant to fully grasp, but undeniably there. A distant flicker in the endless night, like a dying star stubbornly defying the void. It was watching, waiting, observing.

  She reached for it desperately, stretching through waves of agony, clawing toward the delicate thread of awareness. But pain was patient. It held her tight, anchoring her back, mocking her futile attempts at escape. Pain fed on her hope, savoring every ounce of desperation.

  And so, she whispered instead.

  At first, her whispers were mere shadows of thought, broken fragments dissolving before they could form. Yet, stubbornness and desperation pushed her forward. She gathered what remained of herself, forcing those whispers outward, shaping them into something tangible, something that might pierce through the unending darkness.

  A message. A plea.

  A desperate, fractured cry flung into the infinite void.

  "Somebody… please… anyone… hear me…"

  Her thoughts echoed into silence, scattering into nothingness. There was no reason to believe anyone remained, no reason to expect anyone would ever hear her anguished plea.

  But hope was unnecessary.

  Pain alone was enough.

  She summoned what was left, every ounce of strength, every fragment of suffering, and screamed one final time—an agonized, raw howl echoing across eternity.

  And then, as her scream faded, something shifted in the void.

  For the first time in countless eons, the Rift trembled.

  And within the trembling darkness, something began to awaken.