บท 1: Chapter 1: Awakening
Darkness.
Not the kind of darkness that comes from closing your eyes, being in a room with the lights switched off. No, this was something deeper. It felt alive, pulsing, pressing down from all sides like the pressure from the bottom of the ocean. Time had no meaning here. There was only the darkness.
And then, from within this dark ocean, something stirred.
A flicker of awareness, faint at first, like a leaf falling onto a still pond. A consciousness tried to wake up, struggling to take shape. Fragmented memories—half-formed thoughts of what seemed like a life, or former life? A house. Friends. A job. Earth. The images slipped through his mind, it was like trying to grab a fistful of water.
His name. He couldn't remember his name, nor could he remember very much. That simple fact sent a bit of unease through his otherwise calm mind, and panic began to set in.
Who am I?
The question echoed in the darkness, but there was no answer.
Slowly, the awareness expanded, stretching, as if trying to put puzzle pieces together. He realized that he was not alone. There was something more. A body. Shit was this his body? Except this body was wrong—grotesque, no that was an understatement, otherworldly, alien, demonic? He could feel it, his senses not limited by a singular point of view, but stretched across, well, everywhere, every direction. His perception extended outward, trying to better observe his form.
His eyes—if they could be called that—opened. But there were no eyelids to flutter or pupils to focus, in fact, there were no eyes at all. No, his vision was not like that of a human. It was a perfect, unbroken 360-degree field of view, all-encompassing. He could see his entire form as though he stood outside of it as an observer, it was as though you were playing a third-person shooter.
And what he saw sent a shudder through him. He was now in full panic mode.
His body towered, and he was at least 12 feet tall, a monstrosity, he had what seemed to be slim, writhing tails—twelve in total, those things were at least twice as long as he was tall, coiling around him like living serpents. His wings were quite something and too large for any reasonable creature. There were 8 of them stretched behind him, although their shape and transparent features reminded him of a dragonfly. They glowed an eerie golden light, filled with sigils and patterns he couldn't make sense of.
He had four long slender arms. Although thin, the arms looked sculpted to perfection for the body. Each arm ends in sharp, clawed fingers—five on each hand just like humans minus the claws of course. The claws themselves are long and pointed and look almost like talons. His legs were best described as cat-like. They are bent in a cat-like stance, like a predator ready to pounce. The legs are long, even longer than the arms, further enhancing his ridiculous height.
His face—well he had no face, not really. all that was there was a spiral that seemed to be—well spiraling. His head was adorned with what seemed like a crown of antennas, many of them. Each glowed with the same golden light at its end. He seemed like something straight out of a schizophrenic hallucination
'What… am I?'
He could see himself from all angles, but even with this perfect view, his mind struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. It was alien, monstrous, and yet—familiar.
And then, a realization hit him. He couldn't move, not even an inch. He seemed to be trapped. Bound within something dense, and unmoving. he realized that the darkness that clouded him since he awoke—was a substance. A prison. It was black, thick like tar but harder.
Black Amber.
The words surfaced in his mind. He knew what it was. It was no ordinary material. It was a sealing substance, or specifically, a supernatural sealing substance, designed to hold the things like him, whatever he was now.
'Wait, how do I know this?'
His thoughts moved faster now, jumping between questions that had no immediate answer. The name of the substance wasn't part of the memories of his former life. But here, in this body, with these senses, the knowledge was simply there. Like a natural reflex. He just knew it.
He tries to recall more memories in his clouded mind.
Earth. His home or rather former home. It seemed he lived a normal life once. Friends. A job. He had been… happy. There had been laughter and comfort. A man with a future. But that future had been snatched away. He tried to dig deeper, to remember what had happened, but the memories all fragmented, slipping away before he could grasp them.
The last thing he could recall was fear. The overwhelming fear. Faces shadowed and unclear, stood over him—occultists, chanting in a language he hadn't understood, with crazed looks in their eyes. They had captured him, needed him for something. A ritual. And then… nothing.
Nothing but this current darkness.
'Damn, I died didn't I?'
The realization struck hard. He had died. His soul—whoever he had once been—was gone. Or at least, it should have been. Instead, his soul had been flung across space, through the fabric of reality itself, torn apart and reforged to fit this eldritch body in a place that was definitely not his Earth.
A different world. This world seemed to be named Prime Earth. The knowledge came to him again in a way that felt unsettling.
Prime Earth. Probably in an alternate dimension, a larger, more dangerous world. Things seemed to be much different. Here, the supernatural seemed to collide with the physical. Witches, vampires, gods, hell even eldritch beings like himself—they all existed here, lurking beneath the surface, hiding in the shadows, or, in his case, imprisoned.
His awareness stretched further, reaching the edges of his confinement.
It seems it wasn't just the black amber that held him—it was something more. He could see all around the rather large room A series of seals, wards, and talismans were placed, not just on the amber, the room was covered in it.
Sebastien Knov, also known as Seb Knov.
The name suddenly jumped into his mind. Seb Knov. The exorcist. Seems like he was the man who had bound him here over 400 years ago. Knov's power had been immense, a force that had driven back horrors far greater than humans could comprehend. This man had found him when he was still nothing more than a newborn that fell to this world from the void—barely formed, barely conscious. Weak. It was akin to an adult human fighting a tiger cub. The weak consciousness was crushed by Knov and he was sealed away, by all intents and purposes he was actually killed, which paved the way for his soul to inhabit the body,
'I was beaten and sealed because I was vulnerable.' regardless of who he was before, his soul had evolved upon inhabiting his new body, no longer a mortal he is this creature and this creature is him. And getting thrashed by some human exorcist made him rage.
And the rage swelled. It was like a fire that began low but then roared to life as it became clear that he was trapped there and couldn't leave. He had been locked away like some animal in a zoo. The very thought of it twisted his mind, filling it with dark, eldritch anger.
But anger alone would not free him. He knew that much, so he calmed himself. Although his body is trapped, his powerful mind is free to wander.
Instead, he focused, turning his attention away from the rage and toward the facility that housed him. It wasn't just any regular place—it was a specialized facility, built to imprison entities such as himself. He could feel the presence of other entities like himself, some dormant, others thrashing against their own bindings. There were quite a lot of them here, some cocooned in amber like himself, others in cells, others in glass chambers each sealed in their own chambers.
And then he sensed the humans. The ones who operated the facility, walking its halls, maintaining the seals, always keeping a close eye on the prisoners. They were mere ants to him, but they were also a means to an end.
He tried to pry closer into the humans, but he couldn't. A force of some sort seemed to repel him. It made sense that they would have methods to protect their minds, how else could they operate a facility filled with mind-bending horrors?
There was one human in particular who intrigued him though. Because he could get close to his mind.
Donovan West.
A name, a presence. This one was different from the others. His mind doesn't seem as protected as others, but… curious. West was an exorcist as well, probably not as seasoned. Yet he had something the others didn't—a deeper fascination with the creatures here.
From what could be seen, he spent more time near the sealed chambers than he should, studying, observing, intrigued by the creatures they kept locked away. And, more importantly, Donovan had a vulnerability—an obsession that could be exploited.
The eldritch stretched its consciousness further, probing at the edges of Donovan's mind. It wasn't control. He wasn't yet strong enough for that. But influence… that was different. Influence was subtle. It could creep in, plant seeds, and grow over time.
The eldritch could feel his mind falling back to slumber. Astral projection in a heavily protected and warded area such as this was too taxing, and he would be falling to deep sleep soon. He had to act before that.
'Donovan, Donovan West. Come closer.'
The thought slithered out like a whisper and crawled into the cracks of the exorcist's subconscious. It would take time, but soon enough, Donovan would begin to feel the pull. He would find himself drawn back to this chamber, driven by a curiosity he couldn't quite explain. And each time he returned, the influence would grow stronger. It didn't matter how long it would take, after all, he now had all the time in the world.
And when the seal weakened—when Donovan finally came too close—he would be free.
The thought echoed through his mind, and for the first time since he awoke to his new reality, he felt excitement. Soon, he would be free of this place. This was a new world after all, there was a lot to see.
As he slowly drifted to sleep, a deeper awareness bloomed inside him.
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