The world was a furnace of ruin, every breath thick with the stench of charred flesh and coppery blood. Ash drifted through the air, clinging to Luxana's sweat-soaked skin, mingling with the sticky splatter that coated her arms and face. The ground beneath her was a shifting mosaic of blackened bone, blistered earth, and twitching bodies, the heat so intense it seemed to peel the flesh from her bones.
Hades lunged from the smoke, his grip iron-tight around Luxana's arm. She laughed-a sound sharp as shattered glass-and drove her thumb into his eye socket. The orb burst with a wet pop, viscous fluid running down his cheek. As he howled, blinded, she rammed her burning blade through his chest. The sword's fire caught in his heart, igniting him from the inside out. Flames erupted from his mouth and eye sockets, his screams rising in pitch until they dissolved into a bubbling, crackling silence as his body collapsed, charred and hollow.
Isabella fell to her knees, begging, eyes wide with terror. Luxana wrenched a burning branch from the ground, the bark hissing and splitting in the heat. She forced it between Isabella's lips, shoving it down her throat. Isabella's body convulsed, hands clawing at her own face as smoke and fire poured from her mouth and nostrils. Her skin blistered and split, the scent of roasting meat thickening the air as her insides liquefied and oozed from her nose.
Daleyza tried to vanish among the corpses, but Luxana's hand closed in her hair. She yanked Daleyza out, stabbed her spine with the burning sword, severing it with a sickening crunch. Daleyza's legs went limp, her body a ragdoll as Luxana dragged her across the burning field, the smell of cooked flesh and singed hair trailing behind. Daleyza sobbed and begged, her voice dissolving into the roar of the flames.
Lily screamed for help. Luxana hurled a jagged shard of her own sword into Lily's open mouth. The glass split Lily's tongue and jaw, pinning her to the ground. Lily thrashed, choking and gargling, blood foaming from her lips as she suffocated, her eyes rolling back as her body twitched and finally stilled.
Myla swung a dagger in desperation. Luxana's blade flashed, severing both arms at the elbows in a single, elegant slice. Myla collapsed, stumps spurting blood, her mouth working in silent agony. Luxana knelt, drew the blade across Myla's throat with surgical precision, and watched as Myla's life poured out in a crimson river, her body collapsing like a marionette with its strings cut.
Mylo charged, roaring, trying to shield his sister. Luxana ducked under his wild swing, slashed his belly open with a savage upward stroke. His intestines spilled out in glistening, wet coils, steaming in the heat. She seized the slippery entrails, wrapped them around his throat, and strangled him as he kicked and gurgled, his face turning purple before he finally went limp.
Veles dropped to his knees, sobbing, hands raised in surrender. Luxana drove her sword through his back, the blade bursting from his chest in a spray of blood. She planted her foot on his spine and shoved, snapping his backbone with a sickening crack. Veles's body folded in on itself, blood pooling beneath him as he crumpled.
Fenris fought with desperate skill, but Luxana disarmed him with a backhand swing, then hacked both legs off at the thighs. He toppled, shrieking, blood spurting from the stumps. Luxana stood over him, smiling cruelly, and rammed the sword down through his forehead, the force cracking the earth beneath his twitching corpse.
Eamon turned to flee, but Luxana hurled her sword with unerring aim. The blade pierced his back, burst through his chest, and pinned him to a tree. He writhed, gasping blood, pinned like a grotesque butterfly, until his movements slowed and finally ceased.
Idris managed to cast a spell, but Luxana dodged the magic, closed in, and with two swift slashes, severed both his hands. Blood sprayed in hot jets, painting her face. Before he could scream, she sliced him cleanly in half at the waist, his torso flopping atop his legs, intestines slithering out onto the burning grass.
Lilith tried to reason, voice trembling. Luxana grabbed her by the hair, slammed her head against a boulder again and again, each impact splitting flesh and bone, until Lilith's skull burst open, gray matter splattering across the stone, her body twitching in the dirt.
Rudbeckia spat curses and fire, but Luxana was unfazed. She seized Rudbeckia by the throat, set her hair and robes ablaze with a touch of her blade, and watched as Rudbeckia screamed, the fire devouring her flesh, her shrieks echoing across the burning fields until only charred bones remained.
Ava almost vanished into the smoke, but Luxana hunted her down, eyes wild with bloodlust. She stabbed her sword through Ava's eye, the blade bursting out the back of her skull. Luxana twisted it slowly, methodically, grinding bone into dust as Ava's body convulsed, then fell limp.
When the last body fell, Luxana stood alone, her sword drooping at her side, dripping blood and blackened ash. Her royal dress was soaked red, stuck to her skin, torn and burned. Her breathing was ragged, her face a mask of salt trails and blood spatters. The fields around her burned, the sky blackened by smoke, the air heavy with the sickly-sweet stench of roasted flesh and charred bone.
She laughed-a single, broken chuckle that echoed through the inferno-then crumpled to her knees, her own sobs finally crashing down on her, surrounded by the smoldering, twisted bodies of everyone she had ever known.
Her blade carved through the fleeing mob, the fire searing flesh from bone, splitting bodies with a single, effortless swing. Limbs tumbled through the air, trailing arcs of blood that hissed as they struck the flames. Torsos split open, organs spilling in steaming heaps, the stench of burning meat and copper thick enough to choke. The ground became a quagmire of gore and ash, every step squelching, every breath saturated with the iron tang of death.
The survivors twisted into abominations-their limbs spider-long, fingers tipped with claws, jaws unhinging to reveal throats packed with writhing, black worms. They lunged at her, shrieking, but Luxana was a whirlwind of fire and steel. Her sword howled, cleaving through necks, torsos, skulls, the blade's infernal light melting faces into puddles of flesh. Blood rained in sheets, hissing and popping as it vaporized in the heat.
A child-shaped thing, its face a grotesque parody of innocence, staggered toward her, arms outstretched. Luxana decapitated it in a single, merciless stroke. The head rolled, mouth still mouthing silent pleas, eyes leaking black ichor that sizzled on the burning ground.
She did not stop. She could not stop.
The fireblade was fused to her soul, its hunger a bottomless pit. Her regalia drank in the blood, the jewels pulsing with a sick, hungry light. The earth split, magma bubbling up to swallow the carnage, the air vibrating with the screams of the damned.
When the last horror fell, Luxana stood alone in a wasteland of cinders and bone. The sword dissolved into a cloud of embers, its final shriek echoing into the endless night.
She looked down.
Her hands were caked in blood and ash, her fingers raw and cracked, nails torn and blackened. Her crown of thorns wept crimson, rivulets running down her temples, dripping from her chin.
And in the distance, the sky itself was torn open-a gaping, bleeding wound that wept darkness across the ruined world. The horizon was a jagged seam of red and black, the heavens leaking shadow and sorrow over the burning fields below. Ash drifted through the air like malignant snow, swirling around the last remnants of a world devoured by wrath and grief.
And then, there stood the little girl.
Diana. No more than twelve. The Daughter of the Whisperer and the Ruler of Omeen-her lineage etched into the delicate lines of her face, her innocence now a trembling mask of terror. She hovered, suspended in the air, as if the very laws of nature dared not touch her. Blood and fire painted the world beneath her feet, the carnage reflected in her wide, glassy eyes. She was frozen-caught between sky and earth, between childhood and the nightmare that had become her inheritance.
Nothing but pure, petrified fear rendered in her eyes.
"Come down, my child. Come down." Luxana's voice drifted upward, sweet and lilting, a candy-coated melody that belied the carnage she had wrought. It was the voice of a mother, but also of a monster-a lullaby sung over a graveyard.
Diana's body trembled at the sound. This was HER-the woman who had razed the world, who had not spared a single breath for mercy, who had slain all who dared meet her gaze. The air itself seemed to recoil from Luxana's presence, the flames bending away from her as if afraid to touch her shadow.
"Mother is waiting, child. Do not keep her waiting." Luxana called again, extending her right arm, blood and ash streaking her skin, fingers splayed as if to cradle a dove.
"P-please…" The word slipped from Luxana's lips, a whimper fractured by grief. Tears streamed down her cheeks in torrents, carving rivers through the blood and soot. Her arm remained suspended for an eternity-two minutes, maybe more-before her body finally crumpled, folding in on itself like a marionette with cut strings. She collapsed to the scorched earth, burying her face in her bloodied hands, sobbing with the rawness of a wounded animal.
Diana's expression drained of all color. She hovered for a moment longer, her small frame outlined by the burning fog and the oily, bloodstained sky. Then, as if drawn by some invisible thread, she descended-feet barely brushing the ground, eyes never leaving the woman who had become both her nightmare and her only tether to the world.
At a cautious distance, Diana stood. She stared at Luxana, the girl who had killed everyone, the woman who now wept like a child abandoned in the dark.
"Won-won't you console mother?" Luxana's voice was a shattering thing, broken and pleading, her features slick with tears and blood until she seemed more specter than flesh.
Diana flinched. Why is she calling herself my mother? The thought ricocheted inside the little girl's mind, a frantic, desperate confusion. She wanted to run, to vanish into the smoke, but found herself rooted to the spot by the gravity of Luxana's grief.
Luxana extended both arms, head tilted in a silent, aching plea for comfort. Her body shook with sobs, her hands trembling as if she might shatter at the slightest touch.
And, as if compelled by something deeper than fear, Diana stepped forward-each movement slow, deliberate, her gaze locked on Luxana's. She was terrified, but Luxana's smile, warped and glistening with tears, drew her in like a moth to a dying flame.
When Diana finally stood within the circle of Luxana's outstretched arms, Luxana closed them around her, pulling her close. The embrace was desperate, suffocating, as if Luxana feared the world would snatch Diana away if she let go for even a moment.
"Diana… Diana… Diana…" Luxana sobbed, her voice unraveling into incoherent murmurs, a litany of longing and loss. She clung to the little girl, her tears soaking Diana's hair, her words tumbling out in a torrent of grief and madness-a mother's love twisted by devastation, a broken lullaby for the last child in a dying world.
And above them, the wounded sky wept darkness, sealing the moment in a shroud of endless night.
"No one ever loves me, no one ever thinks of me, no one ever asks me, no one ever even cares about me, they don't ask me if I'm feeling okay or if I want them to be by my side so I find solace and peace with them, they never come to me, or they never listen to me when I come to them, they never put in effort to feel my pain or even understand what I'm going through because of them, I am always the afterthought, the shadow in the corner, the ghost at the feast. I scream inside and they talk over me. I cry and they look away. When I bleed, they pretend not to see the stains. When I reach out, my hand closes on empty air. I am so tired of being invisible, of being the one who is supposed to be strong, the one who is supposed to understand, to forgive, to wait, to endure.
I want someone to notice when my voice cracks. I want someone to see the way my hands shake. I want someone to hold me without me having to beg for it. I want someone to love me, not for what I can give or what I can fix or how well I can hide my wounds, but for the trembling, desperate, hurting person I am.
Why is it always me who has to ask? Why is it always me who has to explain, to justify, to apologize for needing something as simple as kindness? Why do I have to be the one who is grateful for scraps of affection, for crumbs of attention, for fleeting glances that never linger, for words that never mean what I need them to mean?
To be Continued...