The food was better now. Not good, but better. It came regularly. A tray slid into the cell every time he woke up, like someone, or something, knew his sleep cycle. Which was funny, considering he didn’t even know it himself anymore. There was no sunrise here. No clocks. Just… existence.He ate it all. Grub and what looked like undercooked stake meat. It stank. It was greasy. Probably demon flesh. But he didn’t care. His stomach didn’t care. It was food. It kept him from falling apart. He chewed fast, eyes darting between bites like he was expecting someone to snatch it away but no one came except his paranoia.He was alone. Just him and the walls.The new cell was quieter than the last. The air didn’t choke him as much. It was dry, but not thick with ash. Still, it wasn’t safe. It wasn’t home, it was still a cage.But something had changed.He first noticed it while lying awake, staring at the ceiling. At first, it sounded like his own voice. A soft mutter, not quite words, but close

Kirin had grown used to the silence. Used to the half-rotten meat that passed as food. Used to the stone walls, the damp air, and the slow crawl of time. Days meant nothing. Hours were just hollow shadows passing over his broken body. Pain, hunger, boredom, they all blurred together until it felt like floating in a sea of nothing.So when the footsteps came, measured and deliberate, not like the usual marching stomp of demon guards, Kirin immediately sat up. His ribs ached from even that simple movement, but his eyes were sharp, expectant and suspicious.The door creaked open, and in stepped a demon.But not like the others.This one didn’t snarl. He didn’t bark orders or throw a tray of food at Kirin like trash. He simply stood there, just inside the threshold of the cell, studying Kirin like he was a puzzle piece that didn’t fit the rest of the board.He was tall, but thin. Not the brutish type. His horns curled backward, almost like a ram’s, and his eyes—black eyes with pale gold i

It started with a low hum. A sound so deep it didn’t shake the cell, it shook something inside Kirin.At first, he thought it was his stomach rumbling again. Hunger did that. It tricked your senses, made you feel things that weren’t there. Made you think your mother’s voice was calling through stone. Made you dream of roast chicken while your body fed on its own muscle. But this… this was different. This wasn’t the kind of shake that came from the actual fucking ground.The ground rumbled again. Louder this time, the ceiling dropped dust into his hair, and the cup of stale water on the floor tipped over and rolled into the corner.Earthquake? In the underworld?Everything groaned, the walls, the chains. The very bones of the prison. Cracks began to spider across the corners of the stone. For a brief moment, Kirin thought maybe it was finally happening, maybe the entire prison was about to collapse. Maybe, finally, he'd get what he wanted. Maybe death had come dressed as mercy.He pres

Kirin didn’t sleep much anymore. Not out of fear, or because of nightmares. He just didn’t see the point.The dark didn’t bother him. The silence didn’t either. What bothered him, what really got under his skin were the stories. The blind old man on the other side of the cracked wall had been feeding him tales like fire feeds on dry wood. Rebellions. Gods. Betrayals. He spoke as though the world had ended long before Kirin was ever born. And the worst part?Kirin believed him.Tonight, the silence had returned. The old man hadn’t spoken since dusk. Not a whisper. Not even one of his nonsense chants. Kirin pressed his ear to the cracked wall, feeling the rough edges of the broken stone dig into his cheek.Nothing.That’s when he heard it. Not a whisper, not a story, but a sharp clink. Like metal against rock. He turned fast, his back against the far side of the cell. He expected a rat. Maybe one of the smaller demons coming to drop off that sludge they called food.But no. It wasn’t foo

The heat had come and gone, as if the cell itself had taken a breath and exhaled fire. Now, the stone floor was cold again. Lifeless again and still.Kirin’s body was too weak to pace, but his thoughts refused to rest. He had carved those words.I AM STILL HERE Into the stone as if it were a spell. A rebellion. A refusal to vanish. And something… something had heard him.The pulsing rock, the heat, the air that tasted like coal and lightning, none of it made sense. Not yet.And maybe because of all that strangeness, or maybe just from sheer exhaustion, he collapsed onto the cold slab of rock he called a bed. The blade clutched to his chest. The words burning behind his eyelids.Then, sleep took him.But this time… it wasn’t empty.***Flames danced in every direction, not the suffocating kind, but flames that flickered like old memories. The air shimmered with smoke and ash, but Kirin could breathe in this place, a dream, a vision, or something in between.The world before him was on