Breno12456

There had never been silence like that.

It wasn’t the absence of sound — it was presence.
Heavy. Alive. A stillness that crushed memory, breath, time.

Elías awakens on cracked earth beneath a sky of rotten red and black-blue. The stars above drift like bloated, decaying eyes — floating in stagnant fluid.

There is no sun. No moon. Only a damp, unholy light that seeps from nowhere. The air tastes like ash and burns like guilt — and something inside him stirs.

He doesn’t remember this world, but it remembers him.
He doesn’t know what he lost, but it’s still bleeding.

When the silence finally whispers his name, he understands:

Elías is not alive. Not dead.
He is what remains.

And this world — whether the last, or just the next — will bleed before it forgets him again

Refuge of the Last Name

The stone road bled beneath our feet.

Ash fell like rain, swirling in the broken air. What remained of the city was a silhouette of agony — towers snapped in half, buildings crawling with silent things, and corpses fused to walls like forgotten prayers.

We moved through the ruin like ghosts, but ghosts do not bleed.

Elías tightened his grip on the Death Scythe. The metal hissed, craving. Around him, four figures — the friends he had earned through blood and silence — each bore weapons that had tasted nightmares.

A low growl echoed. The ground cracked. From the ash rose the first of them — twisted hounds with bones exposed and eyes of molten gold. They came in packs, summoned by the kneeling flame that burned at the end of the street. That fire had a shape now. A face. A god… or something worse.

"Don't stop," whispered Kael, drawing his blade, which pulsed with inner runes. "If we stop, they take the name from our bones."

The first hound lunged. Elías spun the scythe in a downward arc. The blade split it in two, and its scream shattered a window behind him.

Twenty. Thirty. Claws and tongues and smoke and teeth.

Elías moved like a dying star — falling and destroying everything it touched. His blade cut in crescents of voidlight. Every strike left trails in the air like memories being erased. At his side, Riven conjured chains of red fire, binding beasts mid-air only for Aerin to leap and shatter their skulls with her gauntlet.

They fought like a unit, but not without wounds. One hound latched onto Kael's shoulder. Blood sprayed. He howled but did not fall. He turned the pain into fury, driving his sword through the beast's throat and out the other side — skewering two more.

From the rooftops, shadows leapt. Not hounds — something worse.

Pale warriors with faces stolen from the dead. Each bore a brand on their chest: the Mark of the Kneeling Flame.

"Flamebound," Elías spat. "They're not just watching anymore."

The Flamebound landed around them. One raised a hand and time bent. Elías felt his knees buckle — not from exhaustion, but from some divine pressure that tried to make him kneel.

With a roar, he surged forward, slicing the Flamebound in half. Its upper body floated in the air for a heartbeat, then burned into ash. The others fought back — blades of bloodsteel clashing, eyes burning with borrowed godfire. These weren't monsters. These were once-men who had given up their names in exchange for divine favor.

One by one, Elías and his companions took them down — burning, breaking, banishing. Riven fell to one knee but took three with him. Kael collapsed, unconscious, but alive. Aerin dragged him back, her arms cracked from overuse of her cursed gauntlet.

The last stood before Elías, not attacking, not defending.

It spoke in a voice made of ash and children's screams.

"You cannot win. You carry a name. The Flame will make you kneel."

Elías stepped forward, breathing like the world was ending.

"I already died. I already bled. I already lost my name once," he said, raising the scythe.

The Flamebound didn't even scream — it simply vanished into cinders.

The street was a grave. Blood. Ash. Fire. The scythe hummed.

In the distance, the Flame itself still knelt — an altar of divine fire that watched without eyes.

Question for the reader:What would you sacrifice to keep your name from being stolen?

The Kneeling Flame