Embers in the Mud
--- 30 April 2021 — 4:00 AM
Jungle Outskirts, near the Broken Shrine
The sun wasn't up yet. The mud was still cold and black from the rain.
Aadiv stood knee-deep in it, barefoot, veins lined with half-healed cuts.
His breath came out in small, gold-flecked clouds — the ember under his ribs pulsing steady, humming the Voice's riddle with every heartbeat:
"What you bind shall bite…"
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In front of him, five carcasses lay rotting in the half-flooded clearing — wild dogs, a snake coiled around a half-eaten bird, bones slick with rain.
He'd dragged them here by hand, one by one — the smell sharp as rust, sweet as decay.
Offerings for a flame that needed to know if it could devour real rot — not illusions.
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> Aadiv (voice low, whispering to the mud):
"No more eyes. No more shadows without teeth.
If you feed on ghosts, you'll die weak.
So feed on what the world wants to hide."
---
He smeared a line of mud across his brow. His right palm pressed flat against his chest — feeling the void coil behind the flame, restless, hungry.
The Eclipse Chamber beneath the shrine pulsed faintly — as if it too was waiting to see what the boy would offer tonight.
---
Aadiv stretched out his hand — fingers trembling over the closest carcass. The ember hissed under his skin, golden veins flickering up his wrist.
He whispered the riddle the Voice had carved into him:
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> Aadiv (ritual chant, through clenched teeth):
"What I bind shall bite…
What I devour shall dream…"
A faint gold flame sparked at his fingertips — burning slow, steady, a line of heat that made the flies around the carcass hiss and drop dead.
---
The first corpse caught — black fur turning to ash under the golden flame.
The smoke coiled around his ankles — warm, cleansing, right. Aadiv's pulse steadied — the chain inside him felt like it might hold.
But the second carcass — the snake twisted open — hissed as shadows slipped through the flame.
A small rift flickered in the snake's belly — a black slit with tiny fangs that weren't really there.
Aadiv flinched. The void saw his fear — and pounced.
---
> Inner Voice (deep, echoing, not gentle this time):
"Hold the chain! Or the chain holds you."
The void ripped up his arm — a cold spike lancing through the golden veins. The flame sputtered, spitting sparks into the mud.
For a heartbeat, Aadiv felt it — the terrifying truth: If the void eats the flame inside him, it eats him too.
He slammed his palm on the carcass — the flame roared, devouring the rift just as it widened.
---
Mud splashed his face. His vision blurred — illusions flickered: his mother's eyes behind the snake's fangs, his father's hand pushing him into the mud, "Sleep. Sleep. Let it devour you…"
---
> Aadiv (snarling, half-broken):
"No! Burn — everything — or die!"
He forced the ember down his veins — the golden lines flared so bright the shadows around him shrieked and peeled away.
One by one, the carcasses crumbled — flesh and bone turning to oily ash that sank into the mud.
---
When it was done, Aadiv collapsed forward — palms sinking deep into the wet dirt.
His chest heaved. The ember flickered — small, steady, but deeper now.
He pulled back his shirt — just above his heart, a faint pattern glowed under the skin: a chain rune burned into his flesh, gold and black interwoven like a wound that would never close.
---
> Inner Voice (humming, almost amused):
"The chain bites. But it holds you steady.
Keep feeding it — or it will feed on you."
Aadiv looked up — mud dripping from his chin, eyes ringed with faint gold.
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> Aadiv (hoarse, a crooked grin on his cracked lips):
"Good. Let it bite. One day I'll rip you out too."
The wind stirred the ashes into the jungle floor — a promise that the next thing his flame would burn wouldn't be so dead.
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In the Eclipse Chamber far below, the runes flickered once — the shrine's mouth waiting for the boy who would either chain it forever, or open it wide enough to devour the sun.
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