The Bitter End, The Empty Start

Pain. Cold. The wetness seeping through torn fabric.

Dante Everett lay on the battlefield, his body motionless, his breath shallow. His fingers twitched as he tried to lift his arms, but the effort was met with nothing but the sharp sting of torn muscles and the crushing weight of exhaustion. The scent of iron filled his nostrils, an all-too-familiar stench of war and death. He coughed, feeling the hot trickle of blood at the corner of his lips.

Through the haze of his fading vision, the sky stretched endlessly above him, an indifferent witness to his demise. The clash of steel, the cries of the wounded—all of it had faded into a distant hum. His body, once trained for battle, now lay broken and spent.

"So, this is how it ends..." he thought bitterly.

Survival had been his only purpose for as long as he could remember. He fought not for honor or glory, but for the simple right to see another dawn. Every battle, every hardship had carved him into something more—something stronger. And yet, here he was, sprawled in the dirt, his body refusing to obey his will.

He had bled for his kingdom. Killed for it. And now, as he lay dying, he wondered if it had ever truly mattered.

A blurred memory surfaced—his mother's weak smile, the way her fingers had combed through his hair as she whispered promises of a better life. A life that never came.

Then came the streets, the alleys filled with desperate souls. He had clawed his way up from nothing, a boy turned into a soldier, a soldier turned into a killer.

He saw the faces of those he had lost. Comrades who had stood beside him, only to fall before him. Each death had taken a piece of him. Now, there was nothing left to give.

He had fought for a nation that would forget him by sunrise. The thought sent a bitter chuckle up his throat, though it barely escaped past his lips.

All the sacrifices, the blood, the agony—it had been for nothing.

The world darkened at the edges. His heartbeat slowed. The pain dulled, replaced by a strange numbness. His thoughts drifted, untethered.

The sky above him seemed to stretch farther, the stars blinking out one by one.

Then, silence.

A jarring shift.

The battlefield was gone. No scent of blood, no weight of his broken body. Only emptiness.

Dante was nowhere, surrounded by nothing.

No sound. No light. No ground beneath his feet. His body—was it even still his? He tried to move, but there was nothing to move. A soul adrift in the abyss.

Was this death?

Had he ceased to exist?

Time stretched and twisted. Seconds, minutes, hours—none of it mattered in this endless void.

Then—

A sharp, clear sound sliced through the silence, like a drop of water falling into an abyss. It was the first sign that something existed beyond the void.

A pulse of light. Then another.

A glowing blue rectangle flickered into existence before him, its luminescence a stark contrast to the darkness. Words formed on its surface, stark and unyielding.

Dante stared—or at least, he thought he did. Was he seeing, or was the information merely appearing in his mind?

"Conqueror?" The word felt foreign, yet it resonated within him, like a whisper of something forgotten.

What did it mean? Where was he?

The void remained silent, save for the gentle hum of the glowing screen. A creeping unease settled over him, but beneath it, something stirred.

Curiosity.

He was supposed to be dead.

And yet, something was calling him forward.