Ex's eyes snapped open, but the world around him felt… wrong. The air was thick, suffocating, heavy with an oppressive weight that twisted his every breath. The shadows stretched unnaturally long, creeping along the ground like living things, curling and writhing around him. He could feel them—each one a dark tendril of his own buried pain. Every corner of his mind was suddenly filled with the things he thought he'd buried.
The sky above was not the sky he remembered. It was bruised with dark purple and blood-red streaks, as if the heavens themselves had been torn open. A cold wind swept through, seeping into his bones.
"No…" The panic began to rise within him, bubbling to the surface.
His heartbeat thudded painfully against his chest as he staggered to his feet. Something was wrong. The ground beneath him rippled like water disturbed by a stone, and with every step he tried to take, the earth seemed to drag him back down, pulling at him, reminding him of the cold pulsing chains he'd once worn.
A sharp "clink—clink echoed through the stillness, cold and metallic, scraping against the silence like a memory Ex couldn't forget. "His breath froze. He knew that sound."
The sound slithered into his ears—faint, rhythmic, metallic. It shouldn't have meant anything, but it did. His pulse quickened. His mind recoiled. That sound didn't echo in the air—it echoed in his past. In the bones. In the blood. Each rattle cracked something open, something he'd buried. The battlefield faded. All he could hear was the weight of what once bound him… and the whisper that it still did."
" Ex." A voice echoed from the shadows, low and mocking. The words were familiar—his own voice, but distorted. The shadows coiled tighter, circling him.
A figure emerged from the darkness—a reflection of himself. Its face wore a cruel grin, stretched too wide, like it had been carved there. The cold eyes staring back were his, but emptier, sharper… like they had survived something Ex was too afraid to face.
Black chains clung to its wrists, ankles, and neck—thick and jagged, like they'd been forged from scorched bone and old curses. Dried blood crusted along the links, some of it fresh enough to glisten. They didn't just drag—they pulsed faintly, as if remembering every scream they'd once silenced. With every step the clone took, they rattled—not loud, not yet, but enough to gnaw at Ex's thoughts like teeth in the dark.
"Do you remember me?" the clone growled, voice like rusted metal grinding against stone. "We were your spine when you had nothing. Your fire when you wanted to die."
it stepped forward, bitterness in every motion.
We stood tall" when you wanted to fall.
Took the beatings, Swallowed the pain,
Wore the mask,
WE KEPT YOU ALIVE, and how did you repay us?" Its voice cracked with anger, not with approval—with fury. "You buried us. Pretended we never existed."
"You became ashamed of us. Of me. Of the pride that carried you through hell. And now… now you stand here, broken, acting like you suffered alone."
Ex froze, his eyes scanning the terrain—familiar… yet drowned in a suffocating strangeness. The air was heavy, every breath thick with memory and menace. His fists clenched by instinct, but the comfort that once came with readiness was gone. Confusion churned in his gut, a cold, gnawing weight that dragged at his chest.
He opened his mouth to speak, to ground himself—but nothing came. No words. No sound. His voice, like his control, had vanished.
He reached downward, hands trembling as they hovered over the ground. He didn't want to do this. He had sworn—promised—he would never call on them again. The shadows. His curse.His prison.
But now? Now, when he needed them most… they didn't come.
Nothing stirred.
Lifeless.
Silent.
Still.
They denied him. Just as he had denied them.
A bitter snarl pulled at his lips. He hissed under his breath, rage flickered behind his eyes, but beneath it. A gnawing desperation that made him feel small.
He hated them. Hated how they whispered in his head, how they wrapped around him like old scars.
But he hated this silence even more.
His Soel, once a raging fire in his veins, now slipped through him like mist, barely there. Distant. Detached. As if even it had turned its back on him.
"Why now?"
Then, from the deeper dark, stepped another. Taller. Sharper. Defined like a soldier cut from iron."Its grin was wide and cruel, eyes glowing twisted with contempt. it too wore chains but his were soaked in the blood of his prey
It moved slowly, deliberately —each step a challenge, each breath soaked in disdain. It stopped just inches from Ex, eyes burning with all the fury he buried.
Then it spoke.
"You let her die."Its voice was low, sharp—laced with the cold authority of his father, but twisted by something far darker.
"You stood there," it hissed, "and did nothing while she screamed for you."
A pause. Measured. Cruel.
"You failed your mother, Ex."
It stepped closer, every movement echoing the heavy march of war.
"She told you to run. Begged you to live." The clone's voice curled with venom, every word slicing deeper. "And you did. You ran—like a coward. You didn't even look back, did you?"
Its voice deepened, rumbling like a storm about to break—each word laced with venom, with memory. "Only the strong survive, Ex. That wasn't just his lesson—it was his law. Etched into your bones, beaten into your skin. And the worst part?"
it leaned in, its smirk hollow and cutting.
"You believed him."
It circled him slowly, like a vulture savoring the kill. "That's why you didn't run to save her. That's why you let her die. Because somewhere inside, you thought… she was too weak to matter."
It paused—letting the silence choke the air.
"You didn't just lose her…" the voice fell to a whisper, coiled with venom and loathing. "You became the embodiment of failure. A walking testament that weakness isn't a curse you overcame—it's your inheritance. It's the rot running through your veins."
The words cut deep but it wasn't the sting of truth that shook him. It was the tightening in his chest, the suffocating weight of failure that curled like a fist around his heart. He tried to speak, to lash out and silence the voice, but even his defiance felt hollow.
"Shut up," he muttered, but it came out brittle, barely more than a breath.
They closed in—closer, tighter—"smothering him with their silence.
"And then —"
the first clone surged forward, its movement a blur of violent intent. A thunderous crack echoed as its fist drove into Ex's gut, burying deep with terrifying force. The impact stole the breath from his lungs, folding him in half like paper. His boots dragged uselessly across the cracked stone beneath him, scraping as he staggered backward, choking on air that refused to fill his lungs.
Pain detonated through his abdomen—a white-hot shock that tore through nerves like fire. But he had no time. No room to brace. The second clone was already in motion.
A blur swept past his vision. Then agony bloomed.
The second clone's fist collided with his chest just below the ribs, not wild or reckless, but calculated—precise. The kind of strike designed not just to hurt, but to break. The blow thundered through his ribcage, and the sound of bone cracking echoed like snapping wood in the dead of night. His body crumpled, legs giving out as he dropped to his knees with a ragged gasp. Blood rose in his throat.
the silence that followed—the unbearable stillness—that chilled him most. As the clones moved around carelessly.
The world around him warped. curling at the edges. Shadows bled through the corners of his vision like ink dropped in water. His breaths came in shuddered fragments, shallow and desperate. The air was thick now, syrupy, heavy, like every molecule conspired against him. The pain didn't fade—it multiplied, wrapping around his insides like thorns.
His fingers clawed at the floor, trembling, trying to push himself up
The shadows around him pulsed. Alive. Watching.
Mocking.
They curled at the edges of the scene like vultures, waiting—his old companions, silent and unmoved by his suffering. He reached for them, desperation in his blood… but they remained still. Cold. Lifeless.
And in that moment, Ex realized the truth: the shadows weren't silent because they couldn't hear him.
They were silent because they were choosing not to answer.
"You can't escape us," the second clone growled, stepping closer, with a rattle from the chains he adorned,its voice not just mocking—commanding. A venomous echo laced with malice, and something worse: truth. "You can't escape yourself Ex."
The air thickened. Heavy. Charged with a presence Ex hadn't felt in years.
He tried to rise—force his body to fight—but something bound him, something familiar.. They dragged with a crushing weight.
He looked down.
Chains.Not just any chains.
His chains.
The ones his father had forced onto him—thick, cruel things, scorched black and etched with runes that burned against his skin like they remembered every moment of his suffering. They pulsed now, alive with that same oppressive presence… like his father was watching, laughing.
pain suddenly bloomed.
It didn't just settle in his bones—it erupted.
A deep, searing ache that started in his wrists and crawled up his arms like fire, spreading through his chest, his spine, circulating around his lungs. His body convulsed. His breath hitched, sharp and ragged. The chains weren't just holding him—they were reminding him. Every failure. Every scream. Every time he begged for mercy that never came.
His muscles spasmed, seized by invisible torment. His knees slammed into the ground, and still the pain surged, each link of the chains digging deeper—into him.
A scream clawed at his throat, but he swallowed it down, choking on silence.
A vision flashed.
His father's eyes—cold, merciless.
His voice—"You're still too weak"
The chains tightened in response, as if feeding on those words. As if agreeing.
Ex grit his teeth, eyes burning. Damnit, not again.
But the pain didn't stop.
It grew.
It reached inside, scraping at the edges of something raw. Something he thought he'd buried. Something made of grief… and guilt.
And in the darkness, the shadows only watched—smiling.
Then they stirred like wine in a glass, they slithered toward him—slick and writhing—twisting up from the floor like black vines. They encircled him. Wrapped around his limbs. "To bind? No,To make him rewatch. Relive".
The ground beneath him fractured like a mirror dropped from a great height. In the splinters of that broken surface, the past came flooding back.
A storm of blood and ash.
He saw his hands—small, trembling, soaked in red.
A man's neck snapped beneath his grip.
A dagger driven into a child's chest.
Screams. So many screams.
Each one layered over the other, a crescendo of madness—like a choir of the damned wailing inside his skull.
His eyes widened, struggling to pull away from the images. "No—stop—this isn't me anymore—"
But the shadows didn't listen.
They dragged more from the depths.
His father's voice echoed, thunderous and merciless:
"Feel nothing…Kill quickly… Never hesitate….Weakness is disease, and you—you were born infected."
the thunderous sounds of flesh hitting the ground
a blade slicing through flesh
The pain, the shame, the fury—every ounce of hatred they'd ever spat at him—it all returned, pressing against his chest like a mountain. His heart thundered in his ribs, a war drum in his ears.
The clones moved in tighter, their forms almost blending into the shadows now—no longer merely imitations, but reflections of the monster he once was.
"Look at you," one sneered. "Bleeding. Crawling. Still pretending you're more than what you were made to be."
The second leaned close, whispering against his ear, breath like frostbite.
"We don't want to kill you, Ex. That would be mercy.
We just want you to wake up.
And remember who you are.
Who you've always been."
the shadows answered.. and welcomed him home.
They rose—not just around him—but into him. Creeping up his arms, his throat, seeping into his skin like ink poured into cracked porcelain. They whispered. They hissed. They seduced.
take off those damn chains, make them feel all your hurt
And in that moment, Ex saw himself. Not now. Not broken.
But whole.
The killer. The weapon.
And for a second… it felt easier.
Easier to become him again