A FLOWER FROM BLOOD

Hours flew by, bleeding into days, and days decayed into months.

And still he raged.

Seasons came and went, marked not by harvest or joy, but by cruelty.

The sun rose only to witness more blood.

The moon shied behind clouds, ashamed.

And the earth the poor, groaning earth-quaked beneath his boots.

Fields didn't grow anymore; they burned.

Rivers, once teeming with fish and laughter, now ran thick with blood.

Towns vanished, crumbling into ash, as though they had only ever been illusions.

And the man who had once freed a Djinn to satisfy his lust...

Now fed only on ruin.

She bore witness to everything.

She was there.

Each time he raised a blade.

Each time he issued a command that sentenced hundreds to death.

Each time a mother wailed over her child, or a city crumbled to the ground, or the sky filled with the thick smoke of another needless war

She was there.

A ghost at the edge of every massacre.

A whisper in the wind that carried the cries of the dying.

She watched, unseen by the victims, untouched by the flames, unfeeling in form but not in heart. Oh, her heart... it cracked, deeper with every scream. And still, she could do nothing.

That was her curse.

Not just imprisonment. Not just bondage.

But witnessing.

Knowing.

Standing inches away from horror, unable to lift a finger to stop it.

He had made no second wish after power-not right away. He didn't need to. His first had been so devastating, so complete, that the world itself bent around him. Whole kingdoms fell just at the sound of his approach.

And she followed.

Not by choice. Never by choice.

But because her lamp traveled with him. A trinket to him. An ornament of victory. He kept it close, polished it even, wore it on a chain slung across his chest like a twisted trophy.

So she saw it all.

She stood at the edge of every battlefield, forced to inhale the scent of smoldering flesh, to listen as the final whimpers of the innocent faded beneath his laughter.

She had tried, in the early years, to stop him. She had begged once or twice to his face.

"No more," she whispered. "Let them live. Let one live."

He had looked at her. Not with rage, not with confusion.

Or With delight.

He smiled. Slowly. Sadistically.

And then ordered the execution of every last soul in the village beneath them. Men. Women. Infants in their mothers' arms.

That was the last time she spoke to him.

After that, she moved like a mist.

Always watching.

Always grieving.

Never intervening.

Because she couldn't.

Not without his permission. Not without a wish.

And he never wished for mercy.

The cruelty became rhythmic. Predictable. He would kill, then feast on the fear. Then sleep.

And in those long, hushed hours between terror and torment, he would awaken to silence.

To her.

She was always there.

Never speaking.

Never pleading.

Just present.

And he hated her for it.

Hated the way she wouldn't cry anymore. Hated how she stood tall in the face of all he'd become.

He could burn the world, but not her.

He could ruin gods, but not bend her.

So, in a fit of fury so violent it shook the walls of his blood-soaked fortress, he screamed until the name exploded from his throat like venom.

"Bathsheba!"

He spat it like it hurt him.

It wasn't her name.

Not from before.

She didn't remember what had come before.

But it bound her.

Wrapped around her spirit like a collar.

She accepted it in silence, not because she wanted it...

But because it was all she had left of herself.

And even that silence?

Cut him deeper than any blade.

Because deep down, the monster knew-

No matter what he did,

No matter what he destroyed,

No matter how many bodies lined the roads in his name.

He could never truly possess her.

And that knowledge haunted him.

Almost as much as she haunted his shadow.

It took years-long, aching years before Bathsheba was saved again.

Not from her prison.

Not from the lamp.

But from him.

From the eyes that watched her like a curse.

From the silence between screams.

From the unending torment of being seen yet never touched.

Known yet never understood.

At first, he kept the lamp near. Wore it like a talisman across his chest. A golden chain. A glimmer of his first conquest, of the power he thought he'd mastered. But it didn't take long before her presence began to gnaw at him.

Because she was always there.

He couldn't escape her.

Couldn't command her.

Couldn't kill her.

She didn't scream. She didn't cry. She didn't beg.

She simply stood.

Watching.

Every time hed slaughter, she was there.

Every time he laughed as a city burned, she stood in the smoke.

Every time his blade came down, she didn't flinch.

And that infuriated him.

He couldn't conquer her the way he did kingdoms.

Couldn't break her like he did men.

She haunted him like a second shadow, one he could never outrun. And when the blood dried and his wars gave way to bitter solitude, it was her gaze he found in the quiet.

Un-judging.

Unshaken.

Unmoved.

He began to see her everywhere. In mirrors. In flames. In dreams.

And it ruined him.

He couldn't focus when the lamp was near.

Couldn't think.

Her silence was louder than screams. Her refusal to bow more violent than rebellion.

And so, in a rare moment of fragility, he left it.

He buried the lamp deep within the belly of his fortress, among all his treasures, among things no man would dare touch. The vault was a nest of nightmares. Traps within traps. Walls that breathed. Floors that shifted. Blades hidden in air. Death woven into gold.

And in the center, he placed her lamp tossed it like garbage, as far from his eyes as possible.

Yet even without her physical form, she remained.

In his dreams. In his doubts. In the hollow part of his chest that power had never managed to fill.

She was with him, always.

And it tormented him.

The years passed.

She felt herself fading into the lamp once moremind drifting in endless dark but she never truly left. Never stopped listening. Waiting.

And then one night, under a moonless sky and a world still trembling from the monster's last rampage, something shifted.

A tremor in the warding spells.

A disturbance in the curse-laden vault.

A presence.

She felt it before she saw it.

A ripple.

A hum.

Alive.

Someone was coming. Through the maze of death. Through the maze of him.

Not through force but through will.

A man.

He had entered the monster's lair.

Slipped past the poisoned statues.

Dodged the cursed arrows.

Survived the collapsing floors, the illusions, the whispers that had driven greater warriors mad.

He had made it to her.

Bathsheba stirred within the lamp. Not summoned awakened. Her essence quaked as he neared, as his warmth pressed through the cold layers of her prison.

She had grown so used to the monster's touch

clammy with greed, tainted with bile. This touch was different. Soft. Intentional. Reverent.

When his fingertips brushed the lamp, she didn't resist.

She yearned.

In a sudden burst of light and heat, she rose from the lamp like fire stretching for sky.

And there he stood.

He gasped-not in fear, but wonder.

His chest rose and fell, steady despite the danger around him.

His eyes, wide but not afraid, drank her in.

Bathsheba froze.

He was real.

Tall. Muscular. Slender. His frame hinted at grace earned through trial, not luxury. His face was cut from stories sharp jaw, strong brow, skin kissed by sun and shadow. And his eyes gods, his eyes were clear. Unclouded by rage. Unburdened by guilt.

She couldn't speak at first. Her throat was a knot of disbelief and grief and something dangerously close to hope.

Her lips parted slightly, and she tasted air the same air he breathed. That alone almost broke her.

Her tongue darted out, wetting her lips before she could stop it.

Still, she said nothing.

The moment was too fragile. A bubble between two eternities.

Because she knew.

He could return.

The monster.

He was always near. Always watching. His hunger never slept for long.

Bathsheba stepped forward, slowly. The brave stranger didn't move, didn't retreat. He only stared gentle, curious, open.

Her voice came like a whisper torn from stone.

"You shouldn't be here," she said, her tone trembling between awe and warning.

But even as she said it She hoped he wouldn't leave.

Because for the first time in centuries someone had chosen her.

Not to command.

Not to control.

But simply to find.

The man stood before her, all adrenaline and bravado, as if he hadn't just survived the horrors of a vault built to keep gods out.

There was dust on his shoulders, a scratch across his cheek, and his smile was crooked cocky, but not arrogant. His chest rose fast, adrenaline still pumping, but there was something calm in his presence, too. Like the danger had never really touched him. Like he'd known from the beginning that he would find her.

He placed a fist over his heart, bowed low, and looked up at her with a gleam in his eye that made the corners of her mouth twitch.

"Kaluk," he said. "My name is Kaluk. And you…"

He rose slowly, eyes trailing her like he couldn't believe she was real,

"…are beyond anything I expected."

Bathsheba blinked. Her lips parted, but no sound came out.

For the first time in centuries, she didn't know what to say.

She had been silent out of grief. Out of rage. Out of resistance.

But now?

Now she was quiet because something fluttered in her chest.

Something… dangerous.

Hope.

No, not just hope delight.

She nearly giggled.

The feeling was alien. Dizzying. She clamped her lips shut before it could escape her. Her cheeks warmed, her fingers curled into her palms, and still she couldn't speak.

So Kaluk did.

He looked around the vault, then back to her, that smile softening at the edges.

"Well, it would seem I found what I was looking for," he said.

He took a slow step forward, watching her closely. Not like a predator sizing up prey, but like a man standing before a legend he didn't quite believe in.

"You're her, aren't you?" he asked, voice low, reverent. "The one who gave the mighty Barruk his immense power?"

The name hit the air like poison.

Bathsheba flinched.

It was slight but it was there.

Her body stiffened, her jaw clenched, and the light in her eyes dimmed.

Barruk.

She hated the name. Hated the way it sounded in her ears, the way it tasted in the air.

He had cursed her with his touch, with his shadow, with that name.

To Kaluk, it was just a question. But to her?

It was a wound.

She preferred the name she gave him in silence.

The one that truly fit.

The Monster.

Kaluk must've noticed the shift. His expression changed subtle, respectful. He said nothing more.

She didn't have to answer.

He saw it in her eyes.

And then a wind.

A ripple.

A sudden drop in the air.

Bathsheba turned before Kaluk could react.

He was coming.

The monster had felt her stir.

In the distance through the twisted shadows of the vault they heard the roar. A sound like a thousand storms crashing through a tunnel of rage. The walls shook, the treasures trembled, and the temperature dropped to bone chilling cold.

Kaluk looked to her, breath caught in his throat. "What?"

But she raised a hand. Just one. Delicate. Steady.

Her eyes never left the dark.

She didn't scream.

She didn't run.

She snapped her fingers.

A crack of golden light split the vault light soaked in heat and rebellion and in an instant, they were gone.

Vanished like smoke.

Behind them, far away now, Barruk the Monster burst into the vault just in time to see the last flicker of gold disappear.

He stood, massive and trembling, chest heaving with fury.

"BATHSHEBA!" he roared, voice echoing like thunder across dead stone.

The name he had given her.

The name she now used to defy him.

She was gone.

And she had taken something someone with her.

He screamed into the empty vault, his rage shaking the very foundation of the world.

But Bathsheba only smiled.