One Shots

Athazagoraphobia

"The one who unleashed the void should be the one sacrificed to seal it away again."

Kiran heard those words and their head shot up and looked at their person of origin. "W-what?! I-It was an accident, I didn't mean to let it out, you..you all believe me, r-right?" They glanced around the room, searching-mentally pleading for someone to vouch for them. "...Right...?" They inwardly grimaced as their voice cracked on the last part of the word. "I'm sorry, Kiran. But it is a fair decision. Whether you meant to or not, you were the one to open it."

They felt hands grab onto their shoulders and they snapped their head behind them to see who it was. Wisterian, their mentor. Kiran felt like their heart had stopped beating as their stomach contorted and twisted in uneasy pain. Kiran wanted to burst out sobbing right then and there. "...'Rian..?" "I'm so sorry, my dear." He wrapped his arms around their upper body and started carrying them over to the pool where the liquified portal to the abyssal void laid.

Kiran wretched within his grasp, screaming and yelling for help, mercy, whatever. Just something to make their inevitable fate feel avoidable. But alas, all the group of people did was turn a silent and blind eye. Some closed their eyes, others didn't. Their eyes were fixated on Kiran's struggling form but move a single muscle, they did not.

Kiran felt hot, salty tears start leaking from their eyes and roll down their cheeks in steady streams. Oh gods, they were really about to be sacrificed. Over an honest mistake they were coerced into making.

Everyone knew it was no fault of Kiran's own.
But intention, present or not, wouldn't change a single damn thing.

Before they knew it, they were thrown into the lagoon made of not freshwater, but rather a dark, black tar. They thrashed and thrashed but the void grabbed onto their legs and began pulling them under. They tried to grab onto the ledge but stopped themself when they saw the sentient liquid had skillfully covered it with its contents so it could easily stop their escape. They started begging for help once more, all pride and dignity they've ever had in their life span long forgotten about as they sobbed for assistance.

"PLEASE! I-I DIDN'T MEAN TO! Y-YOU ALL KNOW IT WAS A-AN ACCIDENT! I DON'T WANT TO DIE, IVE BARELY LIVED! PLEASE IM SORRY!"

No one responded to their cries. They all simply stared, listened, or both. Kiran felt themselves being pulled in deeper. It captured their arms now, they had no reason to believe they would survive. But they refused to let go of the sliver of hope they desperately held on to.

Kiran continued their pleads and cries until only their upper body remained above the tar. They couldn't feel the rest of their body. Nor could they move it. Granted, they hadn't tried but they could only assume they couldn't due to the iron grip the void held on its prey.

Time felt like it paused for a moment and Kiran decided there is nothing else they can do but reflect. They didn't have any blood family remaining in the mortal realm so Kiran couldn't worry about if they would miss them as Kiran finally accepted that they were going to be together soon. Would the ones who had put them in there miss them? Regret what they had done? Would they try to repent their sin and beg Kiran's disembodied soul for forgiveness?

A small but bitter part of them hoped they did. That part of them wanted the group to suffer for the agony they're causing Kiran right now. They wanted karma to work quicker than she ever had before and pay back their actions ten—no a thousand times over. It wanted them to get on their knees and beg Kiran's soul for mercy, just as they're listening to Kiran do now.

Normally Kiran would've pushed away that kind of thinking since Wisterian had taught them to not let negativity overwhelm you and guide your actions. But right now, they couldn't give a single damn about what that traitor had taught them and they were going to do and think whatever they wanted in what was most likely their last moments alive.

The young mage apologized and made mental amends to those they planned on mending relationships with when they thought they had the time to. They damned those to hell who stood there as bystanders and watched their slow, antagonizing demise and any others who they felt were deserving of their sudden wrath.

They tried to forgive their friends. They tried so hard; rationalizing their actions over and over again to convince themself that their friends were only doing what they thought would benefit the world.

But Kiran couldn't.
They just couldn't bring themself to forgive.
They would not forgive; and they certainly would never forget the betrayal done by their 'friends'.

Finally done with their inner reflection, they came back to reality and was quickly overwhelmed with a feeling of looming fear and danger which they had unfortunately become all too familiar with in such a short span of time.

They were almost fully submerged and they let out one last sentence, a sudden determination to make a last ditch attempt for survival. "P-PLEASE! IM SORRY!--"

Those words ended up becoming their dying words.
Their head was pulled under.
The black liquid rippled and bubbled for a few minutes and then,

Silence.

The group thought the deed was finally done and readied themselves to leave the cursed temple but not before a young, small forearm, presumably the forearm of the child they had just sacrificed to the void, emerged from the pool, twitching and moving in an crazy, uncoordinated manner. Tendrils of the void snaked up the forearm and it seemed to notice as it began to speed up its sporadic movement. The thin tentacles reached the wrist of the arm and all movement from the limb slowed down until it finally stopped all motion. And then, the limb was slowly, almost...gently pulled down into the portal and with that, the void became dormant and still, once more.

They stopped the oncoming apocalypse before it could even leave the room of its origin. But, was it worth sacrificing the life of a young, naive child who had once shined bright with a beaming light of potential?

The answer at the current moment was simply an undecided.

But, they would soon change that to no, as they had not stopped the apocalypse, but rather started the creation of something much worse.