…Sl…

..Sla….

"WAKE UP!!"

SLAP!!!

Aether flinched when the voice smashed through his skull. His cheek stung sharply, heat blooming across his skin. He groaned as his eyes slowly fluttered open… and a blurry purple butterfly swayed in his vision like something drifting out of a nightmare.

"W-what the…" he muttered, blinking through the haze as his vision steadied, the soft violet glow sharpening into the small winged figure he knew.

"Grace?"

"Hmph! How dare you lie here and sleep soundly!!" Grace's voice cracked in a childish, offended tone. She pouted as her tiny wings beat hard enough to scatter faint purple dust, her glare fixed on Aether with an anger that somehow looked too cute to be taken seriously.

Aether blinked slower this time, trying to force his mind to settle. "How did you get ou— Wait—!" The words died suddenly as his hand shot to his neck.

His fingers dragged across his neck in confusion. "My head…?"

His chest trembled with uneven breaths. The sweat gathering on his forehead felt far too real.

Something had gripped him and...

Before the thought settled, Grace snapped at him again. "Oi? Are you listening to me?" Her annoyed expression deepened as her wings fluttered more violently, pushing her a few inches from his face.

"Huh? Yeah?" Aether blinked again... Everything around him remained pitch black… nothing but an endless, suffocating void—

"OI! ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?!!"

SLAP!!!

Her scream cracked like thunder. Then came the second slap. It hit harder than the first, and Aether felt his body fling backwards, rolling through the darkness as if the void itself tossed him aside.

"Ouch."

He groaned as his hand rose to his cheek. A reddened print of tiny fingers burned on his skin. "The fuck!" he snapped, pushing himself up just in time to see that same small purple light cutting through the dark toward him.

Grace's wings fluttered furiously as she hovered in front of him. She placed her tiny hands on her hips, her eyes narrowed. "Are you fucking listening to me, brat?"

Aether nodded without even thinking. His stare drifted to her small hands again. Those tiny things had slapped him hard enough to throw him meters away.

What the fuck indeed!

And if she ever got her full power back…Nope. He refused to imagine it.

"How did you get out from the cage?" he asked while brushing dirt off his clothes, pretending the slap and the fall didn't happen.

Grace shook her head lightly. "No. I didn't get out of the cage."

"Then?" Aether frowned. If she wasn't free physically, then what was he seeing? What was floating in front of him in this darkness?

Grace's voice softened, almost hesitant. "This is my ethereal form… and unfortunately, the place you're in made it easier for me to pull it out. I gathered some of my energies as well."

Her glow flickered faintly, as if the darkness was trying to swallow her too.

Aether gulped. She got her energies as well… 'Oh shit…'

Grace took a deep breath, her tiny chest rising as her glow flickered. When she exhaled, her expression shifted into something cold and dangerous.

"What the fuck did you do to get stuck here?"

Aether shook his head with an almost wounded innocence. "No, I didn't do anything, believe me! I-I just opened my eyes and… ended up here."

Grace stared. Her face turned completely deadpan.

"So you're telling me you did nothing, absolutely nothing… and you somehow got into this place like... You tripped and fell into this fucking shit?"

Aether nodded with innocent eyes, "Yep!"

"Motherfucker!!"

She suddenly screamed and launched herself at him, thrashing wildly. Her tiny fists and feet beat against him with frantic desperation. This time her blows weren't as monstrous as the earlier slap, but they still burned his skin, leaving stinging trails.

"How the hell do you always manage to drag me into shit like this?!" she yelled through clenched teeth as she kicked at his shoulder, his ribs, anywhere she could reach.

"Arrh!" Aether groaned, arm raising instinctively to shield himself. Despite the pain, despite her tiny rage, he couldn't stop the corner of his mouth from twitching. She looked absurdly cute when she was angry.

He was definitely losing his sanity if this was the time his brain chose to think that—

"SHIT!!" Aether shouted as he barely blocked her next kick from crushing his crotch. "Grace! What the fuck are you trying to do?!"

Grace glared at him fiercely. "The fuck you need this anymore if you die here?!"

"Okay, okay, calm down!" Aether snapped as a vein throbbed on his forehead. "Let's just breathe for a second. I think we're both on edge… alright?"

Grace hovered there for a moment, wings buzzing angrily. Then she inhaled sharply and exhaled through tight lips. "Fine…" She crossed her arms, still glaring at him like she wasn't done being furious.

Aether nodded and forced his heartbeat to settle. He swallowed and asked, "So tell me… do you know this place, at least?"

Grace nodded with a stern and unsettlingly serious expression. "I do."

Aether's shoulders slackened with relief. "Good. Then maybe you can get me out of this shit hole? Please tell me you can."

Grace stared at him with an empty, soul-drained expression.

"…What?"

Grace shook her head slowly.

"Nothing… gets out from here."

"…Pardon?" Aether blinked, tilted his head like he misheard her.

Grace sighed again, deeper this time, and glanced around at the infinite darkness pressing around them.

"This is… a prison."

"Prison?" Aether raised an eyebrow.

Grace nodded. "A prison made to hold the…. P-" Her voice caught, the purple glow across her wings dimming.

"…Gods."

Aether felt his blood go cold.

Grace bit her trembling lip. Her tiny hands gripped her arms, her shoulders shaking as she stared into the void that swallowed everything. Her next words were barely more than a breath.

"The Eternal Prison."

She looked up at him... eyes small and terrified!

Aether's baffled as his eyes widened in utter shock.

Grace pointed at his hands and legs, her voice shaking with a mixture of rage and dread.

"Look at your hand and leg… You were almost chained here."

"Huh? Chain?" Aether blinked, confusion stirring as he looked down. The darkness smothered everything until Grace's purple particles brightened, floating around him like glowing embers.

They flickered, then flared brighter... finally illuminating the void space enough around him.

Aether's breath stumbled.

Metallic chains wrapped around his wrists and ankles... massive, ancient, carved with unknown sigils, and... they were cut off!

No! They were shattered violently, as if something had ripped through them in a single impossible burst of strength.

The cracks at the ends looked jagged.

Grace muttered, voice trembling.

"I don't know how you broke those impossible chains that even hold the gods, but… from the look of it… I think they made a mistake, so they decided to let you off the hook?

Which shouldn't be possible?

Fuck, I'm getting freaking confused right now!" She clutched her head with both hands, her wings shaking, her expression twisted with fear. "How in the world did you get into this shit?! Arrrhh!!"

Aether swallowed hard, gaze locked on the chains still clinging to him. They looked heavy, suffocating, but… he couldn't feel them.

He reached out slowly, grabbing at the broken links—only for his hand to pass through like mist.

As if the chains were ghosts of something that once held him.

He tried again, more desperate this time. His hand slipped through the metal.

Grace watched him struggle and shook her head slowly. "It's impossible… once they warp around you… It's impossible to put them aside.

They named it Eternal Chains for that reason. They cling to your soul, not your skin."

Aether's eyes widened even more, "…You mean the Chains of Eternal Slave?"

Grace blinked sharply before she turned her head away, wings stiffening as though she had revealed something forbidden.

Aether frowned, voice tense. "Grace, tell me—" But before he could finish,

..h….

The faint sound slid through the void like a whisper crawling over his skin. Aether flinched. Something was approaching.

He turned toward Grace to warn her—

But Grace's eyes were already wide, pupils shrinking as terror swallowed her face whole.

She stared into the darkness at something Aether couldn't see.

And she vanished.

No flicker... Just gone.

The purple light vanished with her, leaving him drowned in choking black.

"Fuc—"

Flapp~

Chuckkk!

Crack!

Aether's headless body collapsed into the void, blood erupting in a violent arc before the darkness swallowed it whole.

Meanwhile,

Delphine crouched down, breath trembling uncontrollably. Her fingers dug into her knees, knuckles whitening. Her face twitched with raw fear, her eyes shaking like shattered glass. She remained frozen, unable to breathe properly, unable to even blink.

"I… I am not moving… I am not… I am not…" she whispered, voice splintering as she held herself tighter. Tears streamed down her cheeks, warm trails cutting through her cold skin.

Three times.

She had fucking died three times in moments.

Three times she felt her neck break, her skull crush—each pain sharper than the last.

She didn't know if this was an illusion or madness, but every sensation burned into her nerves.

And that first time…

The rainbow-colored liquid was dripping on her shoulder.

Cold and Alive!

"A-Aether… sniff…" She wiped her nose with shaking fingers. Her chest trembled violently. She couldn't see anything. She could barely hear her own heartbeat.

She was alone—scarily, horrifyingly alone.

She didn't want this.

She didn't need this.

This crushing silence, this crawling nightmare pressing against her skin, this echoing emptiness swallowing her heart—she didn't want any of it.

"Del?... Is that you?"

She flinched so violently she almost toppled over.

That wasn't Aether.

Her toes curled, her body folding smaller, her knees pulling tight against her chest. She tried to disappear, to shrink, to hide from whatever was standing in that suffocating darkness.

"Del?..."

Her breath hitched painfully... Something was undeniably standing in front of her.

"A-Aether… please…" she whispered, voice cracking into broken pieces. Tears flooded down her face.

"Is… that… you?"

Delphine slowly lifted her tear-blurred gaze—

And saw nothing... Absolutely nothing.

But,

Flapp~

Chuckkk!

Crack!

Delphine's headless body fell backwards, a spray of blood splattering through the void before disappearing as if the darkness drank every drop.

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