The city of the sun had been a place of warmth, light, and life for as long as anyone could remember. It was an empire built on the backs of the gods—gods who once towered over the mortals they created, breathing life into the earth and blessing the world with their divine presence. It was said that the gods themselves had chosen this land, placing their mark upon it, infusing every stone, every tree, every drop of water with their essence. The people had known nothing but the warmth of their gifts, the radiance of their smiles.

  But nothing lasts forever.

  The streets of the city gleam like gold in the eternal light, the buildings rising up in perfect symmetry, crowned by rooftops of shimmering tiles that catch the sun in glistening reflections. A golden haze always hung over the city, a reflection of the divine light that bathed everything in its touch. From the grand marble palaces to the humble homes of the commoners, everything was touched by the hand of the gods, shaped by their will.

  The Sunspire, the tallest tower in the city, stood at the center of it all. It was a monument to the gods themselves—an obelisk of white stone that seemed to pierce the very sky. People had traveled from distant lands to gaze upon its majesty, to bask in the warmth it radiated. It was a sacred place, reserved only for the most devout, the highest priests, and those who had earned the gods’ favor. Below the Sunspire, the royal palace of Ivery—the grand palace of the sun—was a labyrinth of hallways, each one gilded in gold and marble, its chambers filled with the echoes of divine prayers. The palace was a place where the mortal and the divine coexisted in harmony. It was a sanctuary.

  But the most striking feature of the city, the one that set it apart from all others, was the fountain. Located in the grand plaza, it was a river of liquid light, a cascade of water that glowed with an ethereal luminescence. It was said to be blessed by the sun god himself, a gift to the people. The water flowed in endless streams, winding through the city’s canals and streets, giving life to all who touched it. The people came to it in droves, to drink from its blessed waters, to bathe in its glow. It was an emblem of prosperity, an endless source of divine favor.

  But that was before the sky changed.

  Alaric Fintear stood at the edge of the fountain, watching the water ripple in the morning light. The soft, golden glow of the sun reflected off the ripples, casting shimmering patterns onto the surrounding marble. His hand rested lightly on the stone railing, his gaze distant. A scholar by nature, Alaric had always found peace in the quiet contemplation of the world around him, but today, something was different. There was an odd stillness in the air, as though the city itself had stopped breathing.

  Alaric was a man of reason, of logic. He had spent his life studying the stars, the sacred texts, and the ways of the gods. He had spent his youth in the libraries of Ivery, poring over ancient tomes, searching for answers to questions that seemed to have no answers. The gods had always been a part of his life, shaping every moment, guiding every step. And yet, there was something about them that always troubled him—something hidden beneath the surface of their divine grace.

  The gods were not kind. They were not merciful. They were distant, aloof, and seemingly indifferent to the suffering they wrought upon their creations. But Alaric had learned to live with that. He had learned to accept their flaws as part of the world, part of the cycle of life. He had never questioned their rule, had never dared to defy them, for fear of what might happen if he did. The gods had created this world, and they had the power to destroy it.

  And yet, as he stood at the fountain, Alaric felt a strange unease creeping up his spine, a sense that something was about to change. He could feel it in the air, the way the wind had suddenly stopped moving, the way the light seemed to flicker in the sky, like a dying candle. The people around him, unaware of the growing tension, continued their daily routines—some drank from the fountain, others knelt to offer prayers, and children played in the streets—but Alaric couldn’t shake the feeling that the city, for all its grandeur, was on the brink of something far worse than anything he could have imagined.

  He turned from the fountain, his gaze falling on the grand palace of Ivery, the place where the most sacred rituals took place, where the priests chanted the songs of the gods and offered their prayers to the divine. The palace, with its towering spires and intricate mosaics, had been the heart of the city’s divine influence. It was a place of reverence, a place where the gods were believed to walk among mortals.

  The sound of distant chanting echoed from the palace, a rhythm that reverberated through the air like the heartbeat of the world itself. Alaric could hear the voices of the priests, their words carried on the wind. But today, there was something strange in their tone. It was no longer a prayer, no longer a plea for favor. There was a desperation in their voices, an urgency that sent a shiver through his body.

  “Alaric.” A voice broke through his thoughts, pulling him from his reverie. He turned to see his closest friend, Aeliana, approaching him. Aeliana was a scholar as well, though unlike Alaric, she had always had a more spiritual bent. She had been his companion for years, sharing in his studies and his quests for knowledge. Her face was pale, her lips pressed into a thin line.

  “Aeliana?” Alaric asked, his voice betraying the unease he felt. “What’s happening?”

  Aeliana shook her head. “I don’t know. There’s something wrong. The sun... it’s not right. The priests... they’re panicking.”

  Before Alaric could respond, a sudden shift in the atmosphere caught his attention. The wind, which had been still for so long, began to stir once more, but it was no longer the gentle breeze it had been moments ago. The air felt heavy, oppressive. Alaric’s gaze lifted instinctively to the sky, but what he saw made his heart stop.

  The sun, which had always burned so brightly above, flickered. A dark shadow passed across its surface, a shadow that seemed to consume the light. The golden rays wavered, then faded, as if the sun itself were flickering in and out of existence. A strange murmur spread through the crowd. People stopped what they were doing and looked to the sky, their expressions filled with confusion, fear. Even the children, who had been playing carelessly only moments before, now stood still, their eyes wide.

  “What is this?” Aeliana whispered, her voice trembling. “What’s happening to the sun?”

  Alaric didn’t answer. He couldn’t. His mind raced as he tried to make sense of the impossible sight before him. The sun, the very heart of their world, seemed to be dimming, as though it were retreating from the world. A coldness settled in the pit of his stomach.

  “Something is wrong,” he said, his voice low. “Something’s happening to the gods.”

  Aeliana’s eyes widened in terror. “Do you think... they’ve abandoned us?”

  Before Alaric could respond, the first drop of rain fell.

  It was a single drop, dark as ink, heavy and thick. It splashed against the stone beneath their feet with a sound that echoed through the streets like the crack of thunder. The people gasped, stepping back, looking at the drop as if it were some omen. Then, another drop fell, followed by more, until the sky seemed to open up, releasing a torrent of dark rain upon the city.

  As the drops of ink-black rain fell with a heavy thud against the cobblestones. Alaric watched it splatter and ripple, dark and thick like ink from a broken quill. His heart skipped a beat, a cold dread spreading through him as the world seemed to pause, holding its breath. And then, another drop. And another. The sky above had shifted—no longer the bright, welcoming yellow of the sun, it had turned to a churning gray-black, a violent mass of swirling clouds that seemed to blot out everything.

  It wasn’t like any rain he had ever seen.

  It didn’t come with the gentle sound of showers, nor did it carry the cleansing scent of fresh water. This rain—this vile torrent—smelled of decay, of rot, of something ancient and wrong. The scent was thick in the air, cloying like burnt incense, filling his lungs with every breath he took. It poured from the heavens as if the sky itself had opened up, vomiting the very essence of madness onto the earth below.

  “Alaric!” Aeliana’s voice pierced the chaos, her eyes wide with terror. The people around them screamed, scrambling to flee to the nearest shelters. They shoved and trampled one another, their frantic movements a blur of panic.

  Alaric stood frozen for a moment, his body rigid, his mind unable to comprehend what was happening. He’d read about this in the old texts—the whispered prophecies, the stories of how the gods would fall and the world would drown in chaos. But never had he imagined that it would feel so... real. The whispers, carried on the rain, were already starting. They were faint at first, barely audible beneath the sound of the downpour, but soon they grew louder, creeping into his thoughts like a creeping vine.

  The people around them were starting to react. Alaric’s gaze swept over the crowd, witnessing the madness taking root. A woman stood in the street, her eyes wide and unseeing, a tear-streaked face frozen in a rictus of terror. She suddenly threw her head back, mouth open in a silent scream, and fell to the ground, twitching violently as the whispers overwhelmed her mind. Alaric’s chest tightened. He could hear her muttering, her voice cracked, the words unintelligible but clearly laced with despair.

  Others weren’t far behind. A man stumbled past them, clutching his head as if it were going to explode. His face twisted in agony, his eyes wide and unblinking. He caught sight of Alaric, then suddenly stopped and turned toward him, eyes burning with a feral intensity. "They’re coming for us," he hissed, the words warped and broken, as if the very act of speaking had become a curse. "They are coming... coming to take us all...!"

  Aeliana recoiled, a terrified breath catching in her throat. "Alaric, we need to go. We need to find shelter—"

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  "I can’t leave," Alaric said, his voice tight with panic. "Rax. I have to find Rax."

  His husband—his beloved Rax—was somewhere in the city. Alaric had to find him before the madness claimed him as it had claimed so many others. His heart pounded in his chest, and despite the rising tide of panic around him, his feet moved on their own, carrying him through the chaos. He could hear the frantic steps of Aeliana behind him, her voice calling out for him to wait, but he ignored her. Rax was his world. He could not lose him—not like this.

  The rain fell harder now, and the sound was deafening. The ground beneath him was turning to muck, the water pooling around his boots, the streets slick with the dark liquid. It felt as if the city itself was sinking, drowning beneath the deluge. Alaric pushed his way through the crowd, the people jostling around him, their faces twisted with fear, their eyes wild. He could see them now—more and more of them—clutching their heads, whispering in strange tongues, tearing at their clothes as though the weight of their own skin was too much to bear.

  His eyes scanned the street ahead, looking for any sign of Rax. His mind was racing, heart pounding in his ears, and yet there was nothing—nothing except the madness of the people around him.

  "Rax!" he shouted, his voice hoarse against the cacophony of screams and desperate pleas. "Rax, where are you?"

  Aeliana grabbed his arm, her fingers cold and trembling. "Alaric, stop! We need to get out of here!"

  But Alaric couldn’t stop. Not until he found him.

  The street was growing more chaotic by the second. People had lost all sense of themselves. They were tearing at their own faces, scratching and clawing, the whispers in their ears turning them into something unrecognizable. It was as if their sanity was being peeled away, layer by layer, until there was nothing left. The rain had turned to something worse—something that broke their minds, forced them to confront the horrors buried deep within their souls.

  And then, Alaric saw him.

  Rax stood at the edge of the plaza, his silhouette framed by the flickering light from the distant sunspire. He wasn’t moving, his body stiff, his eyes fixed on some distant point beyond Alaric’s sight. The tall, broad-shouldered figure of his husband was unmistakable, but there was something wrong. His usual calm composure was gone. His hands were raised, trembling at his sides, and his lips moved, whispering words that Alaric could not hear.

  “Rax!” Alaric shouted again, pushing his way through the crowd.

  Rax turned slowly, his eyes meeting Alaric’s, but they weren’t the eyes of the man Alaric loved. They were wide, frantic, wild. His gaze flickered, darting to the side as though something was moving just out of view. His body jerked, an involuntary twitch, and then he began to laugh.

  It was a hollow, empty sound. A laugh devoid of humor, of warmth.

  “They’re here,” Rax whispered, his voice a rasp. “They’ve always been here. The whispers... they never stopped.”

  Alaric’s breath caught in his throat. His heart began to hammer against his ribs. Rax was still here, but he wasn’t himself. The madness was creeping over him, just as it had claimed the others. Alaric took a step forward, reaching out, but Rax stepped back, his eyes flickering to the sky as the rain continued to fall.

  “I hear them, Alaric,” Rax said, his voice trembling. “The gods. They speak through the rain. They’re telling me... telling me things...”

  “No!” Alaric’s voice cracked, the panic rising in his chest. “Rax, we have to go. We have to leave before it’s too late.”

  Rax shook his head, his mouth curling into a twisted smile. “Too late? Too late... it’s all too late, Alaric. Don’t you see? The gods—our gods—they’ve abandoned us. This is the end. We’re all going to burn.”

  Alaric’s hand shot out, grabbing Rax’s arm, but it was no use. Rax pulled away with a sudden jerk, his eyes wide with terror. His hands began to claw at his own skin, his nails digging into the flesh of his forearms as if trying to tear himself apart. His mouth opened, but the words that spilled out were no longer human.

  "Rax!" Alaric shouted, desperate, his voice hoarse with emotion. He reached out again, trying to pull his husband to safety, but Rax shoved him away.

  "Leave me!" Rax screamed, his voice distorted, cracking like glass. "It’s too late for me! It’s too late for all of us!"

  Alaric stumbled back, his chest tightening. He watched in helpless horror as Rax’s eyes rolled back into his head, the wildness taking over completely. Rax dropped to his knees, his body shaking violently as the whispers tore through his mind.

  And then, just as quickly as it had begun, Rax fell silent.

  His body collapsed onto the wet street, his face pale and still, his eyes open but unseeing. The whispers that had once filled his mind were now gone, leaving only the quiet patter of the rain.

  Alaric stood frozen, unable to move, unable to speak. The world around him seemed to vanish, the panic of the people, the screams, the madness—all of it fading away as his focus narrowed onto his husband’s lifeless form

  The world seemed to hold its breath as Alaric stood in the midst of the chaos. His heart beat painfully in his chest as he looked down at Rax’s motionless form. The whispers had taken him—dragged him into the madness—but that was only the beginning. Alaric could feel it. The very air around him had become thick with the weight of something terrible, something unspeakable, as if the world itself had begun to crack.

  And then, it happened.

  The first of the celestial bodies fell from the sky.

  It wasn’t a star. It wasn’t a comet or meteor. No—this was something far older, far darker. The moon, the great pale orb that had watched over them for eons, shuddered in its place above the city. It trembled as if in pain, and then, with a sickening, resounding crack, it shattered. Pieces of it, chunks of frozen light, tumbled from the heavens, falling like jagged shards of glass that splintered as they fell through the sky.

  The moon’s pieces rained down on the earth, scorching the ground as they landed, their silver light bleeding into the black rain. And with them came the whispers, louder now—frenzied, maddened voices that had once been the moon’s song. They clawed at Alaric’s mind, their cries relentless, as though the gods themselves were dying.

  As the moon fell, the stars followed, one by one, as if drawn into the moon’s darkening fate. The light of each one flared and pulsed before they too broke apart, their bodies scattering across the sky, cascading in showers of fire and ash. The starlight dimmed, replaced by a vast, yawning darkness that seemed to devour everything in its path. There was no longer any guiding light in the night sky, only an endless sea of void and flame.

  The very sky above them, once a steady canvas of vibrant blue, began to warp, twisting in on itself as if some unseen hand was crumpling it. The clouds blackened further, roiling like a living thing, a gargantuan storm brewing that blocked out the last remnants of the sun’s warmth. The sky itself, too, began to break apart, the fabric of it tearing, disintegrating into nothingness.

  And then came the gods.

  First, the gods of fire—those who had once sat on their thrones in the molten halls beneath the earth, their power undying. Their forms were ablaze, streaks of gold and red that lit the heavens like great, living comets. They fell, their bodies disintegrating into embers, their flames turning black as they plunged to the ground. The very earth screamed under their impact, cracks running through the streets of the city, the air thick with the scent of burnt stone and sulfur. Their cries, sharp and agonizing, echoed through the storm, each note a death rattle that sent shivers down Alaric’s spine.

  Following them were the gods of life, those who had once blessed the fields and rivers, bringing birth and renewal to the land. They fell not in flame but in a twisted, slow collapse, as if their bodies had begun to rot from within. Their skin turned ashen, their forms crumpling like wilted flowers. The rain, tainted by their fall, fell heavier, turning the earth beneath Alaric’s feet to mud. The whispers grew, maddening, curling into his mind like worms writhing in the dark. The gods of life had given birth to everything in the world, and now their bodies—once vibrant—were decomposing in the sky, spilling their ichor into the world below.

  Then came the gods of everything else. The gods of the air, of time, of death. The gods of fire and ice, of memory and sorrow, of dawn and dusk. All of them fell, one by one, like burning meteors streaking across the sky. The air trembled with each impact, and the ground shook, rattling the city to its foundations. Alaric could feel the world itself quaking beneath his feet, as if the very earth was alive and dying all at once.

  Their bodies were not simply destroyed; they melted. They dissolved into pure energy, crashing down as streams of divine essence that cascaded into the earth. Some of their forms exploded into a thousand shards of light, while others bled out into the soil like black, oozing tar. The whispers they carried had become shrill, agonizing shrieks that filled every corner of Alaric’s mind, twisting his thoughts into shapes that no mortal should ever bear.

  And then it happened.

  The sun.

  It was not a fall, not a collapse, but a great, final descent. The sun god, the one who had ruled the heavens with fiery light, who had raised the day with his unyielding power, began to bleed. It started as a crack—a small tear in the sun’s golden skin—and then it grew, splitting open like an infected wound. From that wound poured a torrent of fire, spilling like molten lava across the sky.

  The very light of day was consumed by that fire, turning the sky into an inferno. The sun, once bright and blinding, was now darkened by black smoke and rolling clouds, its body crumbling into a ball of heat and flame that plummeted toward the earth. Alaric could feel the heat even from where he stood, the very air beginning to singe his skin. The sky, once blue and clear, was now a swirling vortex of black fire, turning the world into an infernal landscape.

  And then the city exploded.

  The sun god’s body hit the city with a deafening roar. Alaric barely had time to shield his eyes before the explosion of flame and heat engulfed everything. The buildings, the streets, the people—all of it was swept away in an instant. The fire burned so hot, so intense, that the very ground cracked open, molten rivers pouring through the streets. The rain, dark and thick, began to mix with the flames, creating an unholy fusion of fire and blackness that twisted and writhed like a living thing. It was as if the city itself had been devoured by the gods’ fury, the rain feeding the flames, turning the very world into something unrecognizable.

  The fires of the sun god mingled with the taint of the fallen rain, creating something that shouldn’t have existed. Something alive.

  It was a fire, but it was not. It was a creature of flame and smoke, its body composed of writhing tendrils of black fire and molten energy. It slithered through the streets, creeping toward Alaric, its presence an abomination that filled the very air with its heat and hunger. It moved with a mind of its own, seeking to consume everything in its path, its eyes burning with an unnatural hunger. And Alaric, frozen in place, watched in helpless horror as it drew closer, its unholy fire licking at the edges of the city.

  The screams of the people around him had become a distant hum, swallowed by the thunderous crash of the falling gods, the crackle of the flames, and the twisting, seething whispers that filled the air. The world was dying—he could feel it in his bones. The gods had fallen. The rain had come. And now, the city would burn.

  Alaric closed his eyes, the weight of the thing in front of him crushing crushing his body, pain seeped in from every pore as the unholy smoke and fire surrounded him, consumed him entirely. But then the pain stopped. something was over top of him, blocking the smoke and rain from him, muting the maddened whispers of the fallen gods. He looked up, slowly, with fear in his eyes, and he saw Rax's lifeless body over top of him with lines of smoke curled around him like marionette strings attaching him to the creature. As he watched, the slightest amount of life returned to Rax's face, blood flow just starting for a moment as the fog in his eyes cleared and the corners of his lips tugged upwards.

  "I will always be with you Alaric, behind the veil of rain and smoke"

  Those were Rax's true final words as the smoke dissipated and his corpse toppled over. A feeling of the purest dread, horror and sorrow filled Alaric as he moved over to the corpse, streaks of the black rain down his face. Tears welled in Alaric's eyes, looking at the truly lifeless face of the one man he loved. The only sound that remained in the once magnificent city of the sun, was the falling rain around them, and a wail of a heartbroken man, battered by the maddened whispers of the rain.

  There would be no escape.

  The gods were dead.

  And the world was theirs no longer.