Time flowed like the abyss's black rivers, and for the first time in its existence, the creature dreamed.
Once, it dreamed of wings. Not the stunted, skeletal flaps of its broodmates, but vast and shadowed—wings like its mother's, capable of swallowing the sky.
Another night, it dreamed of words. Not the guttural snarls of beasts, but a language sharp and deliberate, cutting through the dark like a knife.
It woke gasping, muscles coiled, scanning for threats that weren't there.
Only darkness remained.
And the echo of something it couldn't name.
Then, one day, as it passed the river that had once carried it to safety, it saw its reflection in the water:
Gaunt. Scarred. Eyes like poisoned moonlight. Fangs bared in a perpetual snarl, skin stretched taut over bone, a whip-thin tail.
It raised a claw, and the reflection mimicked.
Is this what I am?
Discomfort prickled down its spine. Too small. Too broken. Too… alone.
It struck the water, shattering the image.
But the question lingered as it journeyed on.
Later, it encountered something new—creatures. Strange beasts, unlike any it had seen. Among them, one stood out: a slime, golden and luminous, its tendrils pulsing with bioluminescent light.
The creature crept closer to their nest. What it saw there stirred both awe and dread.
A winged being hovered above the ground, its face obscured by radiance. "Take care, my children," it intoned, voice like wind through dead leaves. "Feed the abyss. Feed all creatures you can, for you are the sustenance that nourishes greater beasts."
The words were gibberish to the creature, but the luminous being left behind clutches of eggs, each birthing more of the mindless, gelatinous things. They spilled outward, spreading through the abyss like a slow, glowing tide.
The creature reached out, tapping one with a claw. The slime didn't react—only wobbled, extending a tentacle toward its talons.
Instinct whispered that devouring them would ease its gnawing hunger (it had gone days without meat). But they looked… tasteless.
It left the strange nest behind, emerging onto a vast ledge dominated by a gaping sinkhole.
Other beasts clung to the pit's walls, ambushing anything that strayed too close. The creature watched as a many-legged horror dragged a shrieking lizard into the depths.
It moved on, hunting smaller prey: fat, wriggling abyssal worms—a delicacy it crushed between its teeth.
Along the walls, lamps glowed. Not fire (it knew fire; fire was danger), but something trapped inside glass—cold, flickering.
Then, a scent stopped it dead.
Humans.
It ducked into the shadows just as a blue-haired boy strode past, clad in leather armor, a gleaming sword at his hip. Behind him trailed three hooded figures, their faces hidden, their armor dull and dented.
They moved toward a cavern glittering with red crystals.
The creature turned away, choosing another path—but something nagged at its mind.
Colors.
The humans had pale skin, warm tones, lips like fresh blood, cheeks flushed pink. Their hair varied—blue, black, gold. Even the beasts here were vivid: purple carapaces, emerald scales, bioluminescent veins.
It looked down at its own pallid flesh.
What other colors might I be made of?
The abyss was full of strange things, but nothing had prepared the creature for this.
A sound called to it—beautiful in a way it couldn't explain. It followed the melody into a cavern, where the walls shimmered with bioluminescent flora. Abyssal insects skittered across its claws as it walked, their tiny legs tickling its scales.
And there, in the center of a ring of glowing flowers, lay her.
A being almost human in shape, yet smaller—no larger than itself. A crown of wilted petals sat upon her head, her skin like woven grass, her tail a vine studded with dying blossoms. Her eyes shifted colors—sapphire to emerald to violet—as her lips parted in song.
The sound was a knife in the creature's chest.
Not pain. Not hunger. Something else.
It crept closer.
The floral creature lay broken, her body oozing violet sap. Her leafy skin was charred black in places, brittle brown in others. And then—the scent hit.
Fire. The same stench that clung to human torches.
They had done this.
The creature curled beside her, pressing its gaunt body against hers. She kept singing, her voice growing weaker, each note a weight on its ribs.
It fell asleep to her lullaby.
When it woke, the song had faded.
The floral creature was motionless—lifeless as stone.
The creature stood to leave, but then it saw it: one of her vine-like fingers had coiled around its wrist. A final, desperate grip. She hadn't wanted to die alone.
It didn't understand.
But it lay back down anyway, its claws tracing the cracks in her body.
And then, unbidden, a word rose from the dark of its mind:
"Loneliness."
***
Time flowed strangely in the abyss—if it flowed at all. The amorphous creature still carried the memory of the floral being like a thorn lodged in his chest. Why were humans so cruel? Those strange, two-legged things fascinated and repelled him in equal measure.
As he wandered, he stumbled upon something unnatural—a path. Not the jagged tunnels carved by beasts or the winding veins of the abyss, but something made. Smooth stone, deliberate steps. His claws clicked against the worked surface as he followed it upward, through twisting passages that led to the so-called third stratum.
The moment he breached the threshold, the stench hit him.
Blood. Rot. The sour tang of decay.
Humans were everywhere.
He slithered into the shadows, pressing himself into crevices as he observed the carnage. Corpses littered the ground—some fresh, others bloated with days of decomposition. Scavengers feasted on them: multi-jawed worms, carrion birds with too many eyes, things that pulsed like living tumors.
Cautiously, he approached one of the dead humans and tore into its flesh. The taste was bitter, wrong—nothing like the morsel he'd stolen from the hunter who'd slaughtered his brood. This meat lacked that electric rush, that awakening.
The third stratum was different. The beasts here were sharper, their movements calculated. Some even watched him as he passed, their eyes glinting with something eerily close to recognition.
Then he saw them: the Fungal Ones.
Mushroom-like horrors, their caps leathery and veined with bioluminescent spores. They scuttled on clawed limbs, shrieking in a language of clicks and hisses. Humans hunted them relentlessly—their brittle bodies were easy prey.
He moved on, leaving the spore-choked caverns behind.
The next passage opened into a cathedral of crystal.
The walls glittered with prismatic veins, refracting light into spectral shards. Insects with glassine wings flitted around him, their hum harmonizing with the distant chime of growing geodes. And then—movement.
Creatures like him, yet not.
Zhar-Kehl.
Crystalline lizards, their scales sheathed in jagged mineral armor. They moved with deliberate grace, gnawing at the walls with jaws capable of crushing stone. Some dug burrows, their tails—tipped with glowing rhomboid plates—pulsing like slow heartbeats.
He kept his distance.
But then—noise.
A voice, loud and alien.
"Guys, we hit the jackpot—Zhar-Kehl hatchlings! Luck's on our side today, hahaha!"
A human.
The creature ducked behind a stalagmite as the intruders advanced.
A boy, wrapped in fire.
Clad in dark leather, a hood shadowing his face, he moved with the confidence of a predator. Flame coiled around his fingers, licking at the air like a living thing. Behind him, three hunters—armor dented, blades serrated with use.
With a flick of his wrist, the fire-mage blasted a hole in the cavern wall. The Zhar-Kehl hatchlings screeched, their crystalline hides deflecting the first blows—but they were young. Fragile.
A blade found a gap in their armor.
Sap-like blood, iridescent as liquid opal, spilled onto the stone.
The creature tensed, claws digging into the earth.
Then—the ground shook.
An adult Zhar-Kehl erupted from the floor, its obsidian eyes reflecting the hunters' terrified faces.
It moved like a landslide.
One hunter died instantly, impaled on a spine of living quartz. Another fell to a tail-swipe that shattered his ribs. The fire-mage fled, his laughter replaced by screams.
The remaining humans didn't stand a chance.
The Zhar-Kehl's scales flared, casting prismatic shards of light that seared the air. Blinded, the hunters swung wildly—until the beast silenced them, one by one.
When it was over, the Zhar-Kehl turned its head.
It looked directly at him.
For a heartbeat, neither moved.
Then the beast burrowed back into the earth, leaving only glittering dust in its wake.
The creature exhaled.
The corpses at his feet were already crumbling, their flesh dissolving into crimson crystal—valuable, if the humans' greed was any indication.
He crouched, pressing a claw into the powder.
A whisper of warmth. A flicker of memory not his own.
The abyss had more secrets than he'd imagined.