Darkness.
Not the kind that comes when you close your eyes, but the kind that sinks into your bones. Cold. Wet. Alive.
The boy awoke in chains. His name was gone. His past—a smear of forgotten screams. Only the number etched in rusted iron above the cell door reminded the world he existed: Subject 313.
He didn't remember how long he'd been here. Time bled into nothing beneath the earth. No light, no day, no hope. Just silence—and the humming.
That infernal hum.
A low vibration pulsing from deep beneath the stone floor. It whispered to him in dreams, like a voice speaking through static, ancient and hungry.
He wasn't alone. The other subjects had long since lost their minds. Some tore at their own flesh. Some whispered to invisible gods. Others... simply stopped breathing.
But he endured.
Not out of strength.
Out of hatred.
Every second he spent shackled in that rotting dungeon, he remembered pain. Not memories—those had been stolen. But the pain remained. A brand seared into his soul.
And then, it came.
The humming stopped.
He raised his head, muscles twitching from disuse. For the first time in—days? years?—there was silence. True silence.
Then the voice.
"System Initialization... Abyss Code recognized."
Words etched themselves into his mind, glowing with cruel clarity.
You have been chosen.
You are now the Vessel of Forgotten Depths.
Welcome to the Abyss.
The boy screamed—not in fear, but something else.
Hope.
Twisted and sharp.
Something had awoken. And deep in the dark, he awoke with it.