Creature Inside Her

The Vault sealed behind her with a sound like stone swallowing thunder.

The runes on the arch flared once—then went silent.

A long silence followed.

No one moved.

Not the Seven Sins who stood outside, still ringed around the throne.

Not Uriel, who waited at the bottom of the stairs, staring at the sealed entrance as if willing it to open.

And not Zeus, who sat unmoved upon his obsidian throne, eyes half-lidded, one hand resting on the jaw of a carved lion skull.

Time in Hades did not pass like time in the mortal world.

It brooded, counted by choice.

And when the vault finally cracked open, the realm itself seemed to hold its breath.

A single wave of heat spilled outward—not wild, not destructive.

Then she stepped out.

Anubis emerged not walking, but gliding—her feet not quite touching the blackstone as the magic around her bled into the floor like a second shadow.

Her hair hung in slow-motion strands, moving as though underwater. The runes carved into her skin now pulsed in white fire—a stark, divine contrast to the violet flame that still trailed her like a cloak.

One new rune marked the center of her chest, pulsing gently like a heartbeat. Its color—neither infernal nor divine—burned like the memory she had chosen to give up.

She no longer needed to be seen.

She had become sight itself.

Uriel took a stunned step back, awe lining his face.

Wrath murmured something under his breath.

Lust bit her lip, stunned. "She's... she's divine."

Even Pride lowered his gaze.

Only one didn't speak.

Sloth.

Her jaw clenched, her face pale and unreadable.

Pride turned toward her slowly, voice gentle—but edged. "You made a promise, Sloth."

She didn't move.

Zeus's voice followed, rumbling low from the throne like a mountain cracking open.

"Say it. Or walk from this court forever."

Everyone turned to her.

The Sin who had mocked Anubis. Doubted her. Spoken prophecy against her.

She didn't bow.

Not immediately.

She took one step forward, trembling with suppressed wrath and shame.

And then with eyes that refused to meet Anubis's, Sloth knelt.

Both knees on the stone. Head bowed.

Hand clenched over her chest.

"I was wrong," she said. The words were poison. "She has passed through what none of us dared enter. She has claimed flame not even Zeus offered."

"I will kneel to none," she hissed softly.

"But I will bow… to her."

The room was still.

Anubis stood before her, quiet.

And then she spoke—not to humiliate, not to gloat, but to command.

"You didn't bow because I forced you. You bowed because you saw me."

She turned to the others.

"And you'll see much more."

Zeus leaned back in his throne, expression unreadable.

When he finally spoke, it was only one sentence:

"Now she's ready."

Then he vanished in a whisper of lightning and gold ash, leaving his court silent and shaken in his absence.

Uriel stepped beside Anubis, still wide-eyed.

"What happened in there?"

Anubis looked straight ahead, her voice barely above a whisper.

"You will not understand even if I explain to you."

He didn't press.

As the flames curled around her footsteps, the Seven Sins began to disperse one by one—most in silence.

But Pride lingered.

He looked at her one final time, then dipped his head—not fully, but enough to mark acknowledgment.

"You've begun something, Flame-Lord," he said. "Just pray you can finish it."

Anubis didn't reply because she didn't need to.

After Pride left, Uriel stepped forward. His heart was brimming with pride, not for himself but for his master.

"My Lord, what next?" He asked her.

"There is a place I want to go," she replied.

"Where is that? Can I follow?" Uriel asked.

"No, I can only go. You will wait for me in my chambers."

---------

The air above the Bone River was still.

Not quiet still but as though even the wind knew it did not belong here.

Anubis stood on the blackened cliff edge, the current of pale, skeletal water rolling beneath her feet like a great whisper. The river wasn't made of water—it was made of essence. The marrow of forgotten beasts. The blood of crushed titans. The dreams of old gods reduced to vapor and drift.

Every drop in that river had once been alive.

Now it remembered.

Behind her, the great city of Hades glowed dimly in the distance—far enough to feel foreign, but close enough to remind her who ruled these lands. She had not asked Zeus's permission to come here.

The runes on her arms still pulsed with white fire, the mark of the Vault's trials fresh upon her skin.

But that wasn't what led her here.

The brand—Noctis's brand was burning tonight.

Not in pain but it was calling her.

She stepped forward and let her aura part the mist.

Below, the river rippled with her presence. Bones shifted beneath its surface, clicking faintly—skulls, spines, femurs of giants and gods alike.

And above the center of the river hung a stone dais—floating, supported by no visible force.

The old demons called it 'The Listening Place.'

Only those carrying something foreign in their soul could step onto it.

She inhaled slowly and then she jumped.

Her body didn't fall.

It simply moved—across air as if it were solid, crossing the divide in three silent steps.

When her feet touched the dais, it sighed beneath her weight—a ripple passed through the ancient stone like a memory stirring from centuries of slumber.

Then—

A voice.

Not really a voice but sounded like one.

It was more like breath in the shape of words, rising up from the riverbed below.

"You carry something that is not yours."

Anubis stood tall.

"I know," she said.

"What do you wish to know?"

She didn't answer right away.

Because what she wanted to ask... she feared she already knew.

Still—she spoke.

"What is its name? The thing inside me. The thing that Noctis gave me when he struck."

The mist swirled and the river glowed.

And the voice whispered back:

"It has no name of its own."

"It is something that was made."

Anubis narrowed her eyes. "By Yama?"

"Yes. Forged in the memory of broken gods, caged within Noctis and planted within you."

She clenched her fists.

"What does it want?"

"Nothing."

"It obeys."

"And now it waits… to be given command."

That chilled her more than anything else could have.

She'd thought it was a curse.

She hadn't realized it was a tool.

Yama hadn't just branded her.

He had tried to plant a weapon in her spine.

A silent, waiting thing that would awaken on command.

A blade wrapped in skin.

"Its purpose is not yours."

"But it listens to the louder voice."

She looked down at her hands.

"And what if I silence both?"

The voice stilled.

The river held its breath.

Then, softly—

"Then you will become the voice it'll listen to."

The dais began to crumble at the edges—its time spent. The knowledge given.

Anubis didn't flinch.

She turned. Leapt back across the divider and landed at the cliff's edge.

The brand on her ribcage still pulsed.

But now she knew its name. Or rather, the lack of one.

A hollow blade, forged by her enemy, buried in her body like a waiting key.

She would deal with it when the time comes

For now, she had clarity.

And with that clarity came a calm rage.