"Welcome to reality. Soon-to-beHER puppet." The voice was close—too close—scraping the inside of my skull. It didn't shout. It didn't need to.
I forced my eyes open.
Black filled my vision. Then pain—sharp, blooming—as the edge of a boot pressed into the right side of my face, grinding me back into the floor. The leather was cold. Heavy. Intentional.
My pulse spiked.
I tried to move and failed. The chair tipped with me, restraints biting into my wrists and ankles as I landed hard on my side. The boot didn't lift. It adjusted. I looked up as much as I could.
Tall. Broad shoulders. A man standing over me, dressed in black, his boots spotless. A mask hid most of his face, but dark, unruly hair spilled loose around it. I tried to catch his eyes through the opening—failed.
"Your recovery time is over," he said.
The words landed slowly, like they had to travel through fog before reaching me.
Recovery.
Then it hit me. where am I? What is this place?
"Who are you?" I rasped. "Why—why are you—"
My tongue felt thick. Dry. My throat burned. Dehydration, maybe. Exhaustion. Fear.
He laughed.
Not loud. Not sudden. A low, amused sound—measured, almost indulgent. The kind that meant he wasn't angry. He was entertained.
The pressure lifted. His boot left my face.
He turned, unhurried, and took a seat across from me. Then he leaned forward, bringing his face level with mine, close enough that I could feel his breath through the mask. A million questions collided in my head, but the place itself demanded my attention first—wrong in ways I couldn't yet name. Hands seized the chair from behind and wrenched it upright, snapping me back into position as metal scraped harshly against stone.
Now I could see properly.
The room was vast, cavernous, its air thick with the smell of rust and old iron. Exposed pipes ran along the walls, weeping steadily, while pale dust—asbestos, maybe—floated lazily through the light. This place wasn't abandoned. It was aged. Used. Remembered.
He sat across from me in a posture that didn't rely on force to assert dominance, his stillness heavier than movement ever could.
"Scared already?" he asked, tilting his head slightly.
I laughed. The sound surprised even me, rough and cracked as it left my throat.
"Why would I be?" I said hoarsely. "I believe the Goddess saved me. And she'll save me now too."
Laughter answered me, multiple voices, sharp and unrestrained. It echoed off the walls, bouncing through the chamber like it had been waiting for permission.
I turned my head as far as the restraints allowed and froze.
They stood behind me in a loose circle, their spacing deliberate, bodies angled inward. Only then did I notice the pattern in the floor tiles, how I had been positioned dead centre, like the focal point of a ritual already in motion.
The walls were marked with graffiti—symbols, words, images layered over one another. Every stroke mocked divinity. Not a goddess.
My Goddess.
"Laugh all you want," I said, coughing as the words scraped my throat. "Mock all you want. In the end, the Goddess will judge you."
Pain exploded at my scalp.
Fingers tangled in my hair and yanked my head back, nails digging deep enough to blur my vision. A woman stepped into view not facing me at first, not even acknowledging my struggle. She moved with controlled ease, draped in a black and golden laced robe, her face hidden behind a mask.
"Are we talking about the same Goddess?" she asked calmly.
Then her voice hardened, the words sharpened by something raw beneath the surface.
"Because mine executed my parents for telling the truth about her."
Her grip tightened. Even without seeing her eyes, I felt the weight of her focus, unwavering and precise.
"What do you mean?" I demanded. "The Goddess is one. The only MERCY one."
I clung to the words as if they were armor, repeating them silently even as doubt pressed in at the edges. I defended my faith. I defended my virtue. And for the first time since I woke up, no one laughed. The silence that followed was worse.
She didn't flinch. She reached into her robe and released a device no larger than a cuckoo—sleek, metallic, humming softly as it lifted into the air. A drone. It stabilized, then bloomed into light.
A projection snapped to life.
The woman stepped back, unhurried, and took a seat beside the masked man. Casual. Intimate. She leaned in and brushed a kiss against his cheek, eyes never leaving the projection.
She moved slowly, deliberately, circling behind me. Her hands came to my face, one cupping my jaw, the other steadying my forehead—guiding my gaze back to the projection as if correcting a child's posture.
"You can keep calling her your goddess," she said quietly. "But she will fall."
She leaned closer, her breath brushing my ear, intimate only in its certainty.
"And when she does," she continued, voice low and precise, "you won't be there on your knees, sobbing for her mercy."
Her fingers tightened for a brief second, just enough to remind me she could make me look wherever she wanted.
"This," she murmured, "is the last kindness you'll ever receive from us."
"You still have time," I said. "Kneel before the Goddess. Confess your sins. She is all-knowing. All-forgiving."
I turned my head as far as the restraints allowed.
They were everywhere.
A ring of masked figures in black robes stood behind me, silent, unmoving, their presence pressing in from all sides. I laughed weakly, clinging to the last familiar shape of belief.
"She is great," I said, forcing conviction into my voice. "She sees everything. She will forgive you all."
The man answered me.
"Do you really think we're some bratty teenagers doing this for amusement?" he asked, a short laugh cutting through the room. "We are not rebels playing dress-up."
He leaned forward slightly.
"We are a system."
His voice hardened. "A fault in hers. A glitch embedded deep in her operating logic. She knows every one of us—and she knows this much too: without us, she cannot survive."
Footsteps echoed from the left corridor.
Slow. Deliberate.
An old man emerged from the shadows. His mask was cracked at the forehead, the fracture running like a scar. The room changed instantly. Every masked figure lowered their head in unison.
"We're everywhere, Orhan," the old man said calmly.
He spoke briefly with the masked couple in a voice too low for me to catch, then moved past me toward the seat behind my chair. As he did, he paused.
His hand rested on my shoulder.
Not gripping. Not restraining.
Almost gentle.
"You are our last hope," he said.
Then he walked on and took his place. For some reason he seemed to be gentler.
And for the first time, I understood something far worse than captivity.
I wasn't caught between gods and heretics.
I was standing inside a war she had already planned for—and they had already survived.
"We waited for you to wake up," she said smoothly, smiled behind the mask. "We're having a show, babe."
Every head in the room turned toward the hovering image. Including theirs.
And suddenly, I understood: I wasn't the audience. I was the content.
The drone hummed softly as the projection flared to life.
An old recording.
The image was grainy, the sound warped by static that breathed in and out like a living thing. Syndra stood at the center of a vast marble hall, I couldn't see her beautiful face clearly although I assumed she'd be breathtaking at my coronation. The tape continued, immaculate and luminous, her stillness so complete it felt reverent. Before her, a group of scientists knelt on the polished floor, their faces hidden, their bodies trembling despite their attempts at composure.
She lifted her hand.
There was no speech. No accusation. No ritual of judgment.
The marble beneath them bloomed red.
The screen went dark.
I swallowed hard, struggling to process what I had just seen.
My Goddess.
No.
The man seated across from me spoke lightly, almost conversational. "So merciful," he said. "Isn't she?"
The woman beside him leaned closer and nudged his arm. "Careful," she murmured, her tone laced with mock concern. "You'll hurt his fragile feelings."
Heat rushed to my face. "You'll pay for this," I snapped. "Every one of you. You wretches."
The words felt thin the moment they left my mouth.
I turned back to the screen.
LOADING…
Another file opened.
This one was different. Smaller. Claustrophobic. A cramped room crowded with shelves sagging under the weight of books and scattered papers. Two figures moved frantically through the frame, their motions sharp with urgency.
"She'll kill us," the man gasped, forcing classified files into a bundle with shaking hands. "There's no time."
He turned suddenly, panic cracking his voice. "Where is our son?"
The woman stood just beyond the camera's focus. When she spoke, her voice carried pain rather than fear, thin and unsteady.
"He's safe," she said. "With her."
She staggered, clutching her head.
"My head hurts."
The man crossed the room in two strides and cupped her face gently, as if afraid she might fracture beneath his hands. "It's the aftershock," he murmured. "From removing the Dominion Lattice."
The words struck me harder than the executions had.
He closed his eyes briefly, breath shuddering out of him. "The rest," he said quietly, "is in the real god's hands now."
The footage glitched.
Restarted.
"They're here!" the woman screamed.
The man dragged her toward the window, wrenched it open, and lifted her out into the night. Papers scattered across the floor as he turned back for the bundle, fingers brushing documents he would never have time to gather.
The door exploded inward.
They entered.
Angels.
White armor gleamed beneath the harsh lights, wing-like extensions folding and unfolding with mechanical precision. Their eyes burned red behind their visors, laser weapons humming with a calm that felt surgical rather than violent.
The man hurled the documents through the window—
—and the feed cut out.
Silence collapsed over the room.
My breathing finally steadied, though my chest felt hollow.
"Who were they?" I asked, my voice barely holding together.
I turned toward the masked figures.
The man answered first. "Orhan… they are the reason you're alive."
My stomach dropped. "How?"
The masked woman released a slow breath, the kind someone exhales after carrying a truth for far too long.
"The room you saw," she said, "was the Sanctum ofAshen Index."
She stepped closer, her presence tightening the air between us.
"And we need you to go there. The remaining classified documents are still inside."
Her gaze sharpened behind the mask, deliberate and unflinching.
"We didn't wake you to punish you," she said at last. "We woke you because you are the only one who can retrieve what was buried, and because whether you accept it or not, your existence was shaped for this moment."
"None of this is real," I said, forcing the words through the pressure in my chest. "This is brainwashing. Blasphemy. I'm not that easy to deceive overnight. I worship her. I believe in my faith."
The old man stepped forward, his laughter genuine this time—brief, almost amused.
"It's fascinating," he said, "that you think we brought you here to convert you."
He shook his head lightly. "That was never the goal."
I sneered at him. "Then what is this?"
The masked woman moved closer and gripped the handles of the chair, steadying it as if I were the unstable part of the room.
"We showed you this as a warning," she said.
She tilted her head, and for a fleeting second I caught her eyes through the broken line of her mask—an unnatural, striking blue that didn't belong in a place like this.
"Perhaps now," she continued calmly, "you remember the shelves. The tables. The layout of the Sanctum of Ashen Index."
She released the chair and turned toward the projection.
"Good," she said. "Then you can retrieve the documents for us."
"There must be millions of books and documents in that place," I said despite myself. Curiosity slipped past my caution before I could stop it. "What exactly do you want me to retrieve?"
The man blinked, genuinely impressed.
"Well, well," he said with a low laugh. "Look at that. Compliance already."
He tilted his head. "Like a good boy."
The woman laughed openly this time, unbothered by restraint or subtlety.
"Careful," she said. "He hasn't realized it yet."
She turned toward the screen, her voice shifting—no longer mocking, no longer explanatory. Professional. Final.
"Project BLUE ASCENSION."
The room went quiet.
"That," she continued, "is what you're bringing back."