Chosen

There was only darkness.

Zale's consciousness drifted, weightless and detached, suspended in an infinite void. There was no warmth here, no cold, no sensation beyond the crushing emptiness that swirled around him. A darkness so deep it pressed against his mind like a physical force, muffling his thoughts, dulling his awareness.

Was this death?

The last thing he remembered was pain. Fists and boots hammering against his body, blows delivered with ruthless precision until all he could do was curl up and choke on his own blood. The company's enforcers had been thorough. He'd felt his ribs snap, his flesh bruise and tear under their assault. And in his final moments, the agony had melted away into something worse: regret.

His fingers twitched, or at least he thought they did. But there was nothing to move. No body, no ground beneath him, just the endless darkness stretching out like a prison without walls.

He tried to focus, tried to grasp the disjointed fragments of his mind that threatened to slip away. But his thoughts were slow, muddied by exhaustion and pain. His entire existence felt fractured, held together by nothing more than the stubborn desire to think, to feel, to be.

Images began to surface, jagged and incomplete. The company's sterile walls, the screens that blinked with impossible deadlines and endless tasks. His own body deteriorating under the weight of constant demands. Muscles aching from overwork, eyes burning from sleepless nights. Each new day blending into the next, a relentless cycle of labor and suffering.

He had tried so hard to convince himself it was worth it. That all the pain and sacrifice would one day amount to something. That he could build a life worth living if he just worked harder. If he just endured.

But nothing changed.

They took everything he offered and demanded more. Drained him of all his energy, his spirit, until he was nothing but a hollow shell performing tasks out of habit, not hope. And when he had finally found the courage to say no, to take back what little remained of his own life, they had torn him apart.

His own hands trembled with the memory of it, the terror that had seized him as they dragged him away like discarded trash. His voice choked into silence by fear and the realization that he was truly nothing to them.

He had been so weak. So pathetically helpless.

Maybe he deserved this. This dark, formless place where he was forced to relive his mistakes over and over again. A void that echoed with his own failures, his own wasted years.

But beneath the self-loathing, beneath the shame and regret, something else stirred. A slow-burning ember that refused to be smothered.

Rage.

They had destroyed him. Ripped away his dignity, his dreams, his very existence. All because he had dared to defy them. Because he had tried to reclaim the life they had stolen.

The memory of their sneers, their smug indifference, clawed at him, feeding the fire that grew within his chest. It was a heat that pushed back against the cold, a force that allowed him to feel something other than the crushing weight of failure.

His heartbeat pounded within the darkness, a defiant thud that refused to be silenced. They had taken everything from him, left him broken and bleeding, but his anger still remained. His hatred for those who had torn his life apart, who had used him and discarded him like he was nothing.

No. He wouldn't accept this. He couldn't.

But even as the fury boiled within him, another sensation crept in, slow and insidious. Fatigue. The weight of years spent grinding himself down for their approval. The pain he had ignored, the exhaustion he had buried beneath layers of desperation.

It was all crashing down on him now. The overwhelming urge to simply let go. To stop fighting. To finally rest.

But he couldn't.

The darkness twisted and swirled around him, a shifting sea of agony and resentment. His thoughts warred against each other, the yearning for rest clashing violently with the hunger for vengeance.

He didn't want to feel this way anymore. Didn't want to be torn between anger and despair. All he wanted was peace. An end to the suffering.

But peace wouldn't come. Not like this. Not with his rage still clawing at his soul, refusing to fade away.

A spark of light flickered in the distance.

Zale's attention snapped to it, his senses sharpening with a desperation he hadn't realized he still possessed. It was small, a speck of radiance adrift in the endless void. But it was there, shimmering faintly as if struggling against the darkness that surrounded it.

He reached out instinctively, his thoughts narrowing to a single, burning purpose.

The light pulsed, its glow intensifying the closer he came. It was warm, its heat brushing against him like the first touch of sunlight after a long, bitter night. The sensation filled him with something he hadn't felt in so long—hope.

His fingers stretched toward the sphere of light, trembling from the effort of reaching, of fighting against the weariness that threatened to drag him down. But his anger drove him forward, the hatred refusing to be extinguished.

As his hand made contact with the glowing orb, a shock of energy rippled through him. A warmth that seeped into his bones, igniting every frayed nerve until he felt more alive than he ever had before.

And then the words came.

"The Sin of Sloth."

The message tore through his mind, clear and undeniable. Its weight pressed against him, stirring something deep within his core.

Sloth. Was that what had brought him to this place? The years of pushing himself beyond his limits, of sacrificing his own health and sanity for the company's demands. Was it sloth to have allowed himself to be broken down? To have chosen the path of least resistance instead of fighting for his own freedom?

Or was the sin something else entirely?

His fingers tightened around the orb, the light spilling through his clenched fist. Its warmth continued to flow into him, coaxing his anger to the surface, sharpening it into something colder. More precise.

He didn't understand what this power was or why it had come to him. But in that moment, it didn't matter. All he knew was that it was his. A weapon against those who had left him for dead.

The darkness around him trembled, the void seeming to bend beneath the intensity of his resolve. He had been weak. He had been beaten. But he was still here. And as long as he drew breath, his vengeance would be absolute.

His eyes blazed with the light he held, the fire within him refusing to be extinguished.

"Peace..." he whispered, his voice steady and resolute. "I'll find it. But not before I make them pay."