Chapter 46 - Monarch of Shadows

283 26 2
                                        

Normal text
Thinking
Onomatopoeia

Rayne's POV
Darkness.

Not the kind behind closed eyes or beneath a moonless sky.

This was deeper.

Colder.

Weightless. Eternal.

I was drifting-untethered, unanchored-somewhere beyond pain, beyond thought.

No ground.

No sky.

Just... void.

I couldn't feel my body.

No broken bones. No blood. No breath rattling in my lungs.

Just silence.

The kind that whispered of endings.

The kind that swallowed stars.

I was dying.

No.

I was already dead.

The system was gone.

No UI. No prompts. No cooldowns. No second chances.

Just absence.

Then-something.

Faint.

A sound-barely audible. Like an echo underwater.

I strained to hear it... or imagined I did.

Nothing responded.

But the sound persisted.

Soft.

Gentle.

A woman's voice.

Calling.

"... Reina..."

I froze.

Or I thought I did.

The voice was distant, seeping through the cracks of this endless abyss.

Familiar.

Painfully familiar.

My heartbeat-dead moments ago-twitched.

A spark.

"Reina..."

Louder now. Clearer.

Not memory. Not hallucination.

Real.

Alive.

And unmistakable.

"Please... wake up..."

That voice.

I would've wept-if I had eyes left to cry.

"... Mom?"

The word left me as breathless as the void itself.

And then-

Light.

A sliver.

Thin as a blade's edge, piercing the dark.

Warm.

Golden.

The voice drew nearer. Close enough to feel.

"Reina."

Thud.

My eyes flew open.

I jolted upright in bed-chest heaving, lungs gasping like they'd never tasted air before.

Your Shadow Is My LightStories to obsess over. Discover now