"I never needed you, you bastard!"
Tears carve hot trails down Ava's cheeks as her fingers dig into her husband's throat. His pulse flutters against her palms like a dying moth. Through the blur of her tears, she watches the life drain from Remi's face—his eyes glazing over, lips slackening into a numb, waxy pallor. When his body finally goes still, she staggers back, laughter erupting from her chest in jagged, hysterical bursts.
"Did you see that?! Did you see what I—what I can do?!" Her voice ricochets off the walls of the darkened room.
Silence answers her.
She pants, waiting, her knuckles white around the gold card clutched in her fist. Then—
Fog.
Thick and suffocating, it coils around her ankles, swallowing Remi's corpse whole.
"Hey! Mr. Card!" Ava's voice cracks. "I did what you asked! Now get me out of—"
The fog vanishes.
Her breath hitches.
The room is gone.
Instead, she stands in a cavernous hall, its blood-red walls stretching into an abyss of darkness above. No ceiling, no end—just an endless corridor lined with towering pillars. The air reeks of iron and something older, something rotting.
Upon those walls were the intricate and bold carvings of time. The dim red light did not make it difficult for Ava to make out that the carvings weaved beautifully to showcase a grand expression of human torture. Their bodies weaved around each other to depict the various rings. Utpala, Padma, Pundarika.
These walls depicted Hell.
Ava's stomach lurches. "This makes no sense."
"Oh?"
A voice slithers from the shadows, deep enough to vibrate in her bones.
"What, precisely, do you find… senseless?"
Ava whirls toward the sound. "All of it! Where is Paradise? Is this a joke? Mr. Card, what the fuck is going on?"
"Silence."
The command knocks her to her knees. Her skull cracks against the floor, pain spreading through her temples.
She can't move. Can't breathe.
Can only stare, trembling, at the obsidian steps looming before her.
Someone was present above those stairs. Someone sinister.
The air thickens with a presence so vile her skin prickles.
What is going on? What the hell is going on?
'What am I afraid of?' Ava thinks.
'I didn't do anything wrong!'
I didn't do anything wrong...….?
Darkness swallows her consciousness and then, she hears a familiar voice around her.
Is that...…Remi?
The scent of Rinderrouladen wraps around her. Remi hums in their cramped college kitchen, sleeves rolled up, stirring a pot. Ava's fingers fly across her laptop keyboard, deadlines looming.
How long has he been in there? Three hours? Didn't we have an exam the next day?
The scene fractures—Ava had stopped attending any lectures or meeting the deadlines. The professors tell her that she will not be graduating if she continues doing this. Meanwhile, Ava had found a new career for herself. A small business of her making "chakra" bracelets online. She believed that was her "true spirit calling".
Her parents were furious with this decision as they were the ones paying for her tuition, rent and all academic books. Changing her goal from being an engineer to a small time "businesswoman" was simply out of line.
Now, she's sobbing on their bed, textbooks flung aside. "I cannot do this anymore Remi. I hate my major. I have no passion for it."
Remi puts his bag down and sits beside her. "Hey, don't cry babe. You know I will always support you no matter what, right?"
And that's exactly what Remi did. A year later when they turned twenty-six, Remi married Ava with a grand celebration. Remi's parents were heavily against this and refused to put down a single cent towards it. Remi had no choice but to liquify his lifetime savings to give Ava the wedding of her dreams in Spain.
The scene again moved forward by five years.
Remi had a full-time job as a software engineer in a cybersecurity company, while Ava was now selling beads on Etsy. Except for a few loans here and there, life was easy for Remi. He had a good job, a lovely wife. He could ask for nothing more.
But one day, he gets a call from his mother. The poor woman was sobbing on the phone begging him to come back.
"We need to go." Remi says, voice hollow. "Eli's dying."
"What?!" Ava was furious.
Ava's lip curls. "Your sister is sick, why should my life revolve around her?"
Remi had a sister, five years younger than him. Her entire life, she has had a weak constitution, a genetic disease. While his relationship with his parents became strained, his sister Eli was the only one who tried to close that gap. Right now, Eli was in a critical condition. Her parents' insurance was not enough to cover for her medical bills. No matter what happens in the future, she wanted to be with her entire family at this delicate moment.
Remi's job was flexible and so he immediately booked two flights back home. What he didn't expect was Ava's tacit refusal.
He was suddenly tired of it all.
"Fine. I will be back every other week." With that he packed his bags and left.
He left.
He really left me. For his sister?
'That can't be. He will be back soon. I am sure."
Days turned to weeks and Remi still did not come back. While he called her everyday it simply wasn't enough. She wanted him to come back but she just couldn't say it. She also refused to go visit him.
Weeks pass. Loneliness curdles into spite.
I don't need him. Who does he think he is? There are several idiots like him who would kill to be with me. I don't need him. I don't want him.
The cheap bed frame creaked with every thrust; loud moans filtered out of the flimsy walls of the motel. While Ava held the stranger on top of her, she kept thinking,
I don't need him. I need something better.
While she took a shower in the stained bathtub, something caught her eye.
Among the various sketchy advertisement pamphlets, a gold card was stuck in the middle of it. The card looked expensive and was mostly empty, but two lines were etched on it.
You deserve the world.
Her eyes widened with excitement.
Let's make that happen.
It was the evening of Remi's return when Ava stopped at a children's park and decided to call up the number behind the card.
"Hello Dear Customer! You have reached the guidance of Mr. Card. Press one to continue, press two to decline. Please note that the choice cannot be undone. To repeat the message press thre- "
She pressed one without any hesitation.
"You have now agreed to an appointment for tomorrow. Details will be sent via message. Thank you for cooperating with us."
The next day she walked inside a beautiful hospital. It almost felt like a 5-star hotel. The receptionist escorted her. She explained that Ava will be meeting with a licensed professional in hypnosis and there have been several successful cases. She had nothing to worry about.
Ava was starting to get a little sceptical when she entered the room and finally met this Mr. Card. The man was dressed in a white lab coat which couldn't hide his impressive physique. He was an Asian man who looked like he stepped out of a GQ magazine. His cold phoenix eyes pierced the heart of this married woman.
This is what I deserve.
"Mrs. Montgomery, please take a seat on that recliner. I want you to relax and trust me in this process. By the end of it you will have your destiny within your grasp." Mr. Card smiled.
That smile knocked out any remaining sensibility left in the woman.
"Close your eyes."
The moment she closed her eyes she was knocked out of reality. She was now in an abstract place where she could not distinguish up from down and yet this place was painfully familiar.
"Where am I?"
"This place belongs to your heart." a charming voice fell on her ears.
"My…. heart?" this dark, dark place is her heart?
"Revel in it, Ava. I want you to find your true desires hidden deep within it."
"Walk slowly down the path. Deep down you know what you need to do to achieve your dreams"
With his guidance she finally found the light.
I know what I need to do now.
"So," the voice above the throne booms, "you desired his death?"
Ava remains silent. Her mouth gaping up and down like a dying fish.
Another man steps out of the shadows and walks up the stairs.
A second figure—Mr. Card—steps from the shadows. "Ease the pressure already."
The pressure slowly rescinds, just enough for Ava to breath and barely lift her head.
A majestic throne looms above her with a tall figure sitting on it.
The man has his long jet-black hair tied in a messy ponytail and wears a red and black Hanfu. He adjusts the sleeves of his long red robes and flips through the pages of Ava's file.
He then throws it behind him like its trash and leans forward in his seat to look down at the subject. On a normal day Ava would have no trouble throwing herself at a man like him. He was, by far, the most exquisite looking man she has ever had the privilege to land her eyes on.
If she could, she would write a thousand-word poem about how perfectly his eyelashes fell over his high cheekbones or how his every feature was sculpted by God. But right now, she does not feel any heat in her body that normally drives her.
All she feels is the intense cold seeping through her like needles. She could no longer bear it anymore and screams in pain.
"It's the right one. I can see it in her eyes. Go take the fragment out." Zhang Xiyu orders Yutao.
Yutao flashes down the stairs. With his left hand he holds her shoulder and with his right he pierces her chest. While she is gasping for air, Ava watches Yutao pull her beating heart out, feeling every tug getting caught on her broken ribcage. Soon, her body drops down under his feet where she takes her final breath, bleeding to death.
Silence ensues in the vast hall.
Suddenly the shadows surrounding the room get agitated. There's major unrest among them.
Hungry.
I am hungry. Hungry. I want to eat it. Let me eat. Eat eat eat eat...
Zhang Xiyu slightly nods.
Swiftly the shadows pounce upon her dead body.
They don't want her flesh.
They want the cowering, shrivelled thing inside it—her soul.
"Why do they always think hiding will work?" Yutao remarks dryly.
"Humans have always repeated themselves throughout history. They all think they are different and that's what makes them all same." Zhang Xiyu walks past all the wailing and tearing done amongst the damned souls.
Yutao follows him and passes him a deep blue coloured fragment. It is a sharp icicle-like structure which was half the size of his palm.
"We are only eighty percent done. And these fragments are just getting harder to find." Zhang Xiyu studies the fragment.
"For the rest of it you have no choice but to soon go back to the mortal world. What do you think?"
"I'll leave today." Yutao nods his head.
A beat of silence. The air grows heavier, thick with the scent of charred flesh.
"But before that…" Zhang Xiyu's voice drops, low and dangerous.
"Lord Enma."
Yutao freezes.
Dread slithers up his spine, cold as a blade pressed to his throat.
Zhang Xiyu sighs and turns Yutao towards him by grabbing his shoulder. He meets his guarded gaze with his firm one. He has to make sure to uphold Yutao's confidence in this plan that has trapped them here in Hell for centuries.
"A sister told me. Lord Enma will soon awaken."
Yutao looks down at the blue gem that faintly glows in his hands, grasping it tighter than ever. He has collected countless such fragments for now over a century. Trespassing the mortal world, detecting its presence, luring it out. And now that tedious job would soon come to an end.
"I'll find the last pieces," Yutao snaps, voice fraying. "Before he—"
"Yutao-"
"You have to make sure!" Yutao's shaky voice echoing through the hollow expanse of the hall.
Somewhere in the shadows, the damned souls pause their feasting. The wet, gnashing sounds of teeth on flesh stutter—then resume, hesitantly.
"We have to make sure that we succeed. Tell me what else did you hear?"
Zhang Xiyu looks at him with dark unperturbed eyes. His demeanour radiated a sinister intimidation as he toyed with his internal thoughts. This was enough for the damned souls to know that they needed to scramble away for their lives.
The chewing sounds subsided, meanwhile, Yutao stood unaffected under Zhang Xiyu's pressure.
He knew that it wasn't directed at him.
A slow, venomous smile curls Zhang Xiyu's lips. "The princes."
"The two who matter. They'll know their father wakes soon—and when they do, the knives they've sharpened for us?" He leans in. "They'll turn them on themselves."
Yutao slowly regains his composure but still looks with wonder at Zhang Xiyu.
"Enma's sons have been keen on patricide. Ever since they were swinging in their cot."
"But one simply cannot kill Lord Enma."
Yutao mulls over it and says "I know. Isn't that why they are after us? They already believe that we possess the Blue Lotus."
"If only they knew what our situation really is." Yutao mutters
"In any case, they think they have two options but really, they have only one. Their ignorance will tell them that stealing the blue lotus from us is more achievable than forcing their father back to sleep."
"Once the lotus achieves its full form, they will know the truth." Yutao retorts.
"I don't care about their doltish plans anyways." Zhang Xiyu scoffs and starts walking out of the hall.
Yutao follows him as Zhang Xiyu explains. "Their ambitions are nothing but a childish daydream. Killing Lord Enma, God of death, is already absurd enough. Those spoiled brats think they can now obtain the Blue Lotus."
"Are you sure they are not worth our time?"
"Yes. Now, where the fuck is Renhu?"
Yutao ignores the last part and asks "Why would he reawaken so suddenly? It was him who decided to ignore the peculiarities of Hell by going in some sham solitary meditation"
"He must have felt it." Zhang Xiyu dangles the blue fragment carelessly.
"Leaving the affairs of hell to Enma, the Blue Lotus had retired itself by shattering its own power. Now that they are gathering again, a bit suspiciously..."
"He detected us." Yutao concludes.
"Let's just hope his useless sons buy us some time."
Zhang Xiyu abruptly stops in his place, leading Yutao to bump into his back. "What-"
Zhang Xiyu turns around and looks at Yutao with hesitancy. "The princes are not useless"
Yutao's face holds a light confusion which drops down into a blank expression. "The fragments."
Zhang Xiyu flicks the fragment into the air, catching it lazily. "They have pieces too."
Yutao looks at Zhang Xiyu with concern at which he could only throw a careless smile. "Focus on the fragments. Leave the princes to me."
"And Renhu?" Yutao grits out. "While you're courting disaster in the royal court, and I'm scouring the mortal world—he holds your army together?"
Zhang Xiyu barks a laugh. "Isn't that why we made him? Now go."
Yutao turns on his heel, nails digging in his palm. "By the time I return, this palace will go back to being dust."