No Way Out

The whispers hadn't stopped.

Even in the silence, they crawled under his skin like worms.

"The Apostle... He has come..."

Kairo sat there, back pressed against cold stone. The glow from the symbols had faded but the burn on his chest stayed—like someone had pressed a hot poker right through his ribs.

He didn't understand it. Didn't want to understand it.

But he couldn't pretend this was some fucked up dream anymore.

His breath came in sharp, ragged pulls. The air still tasted like sulfur and burnt meat. Maybe he was just getting used to how everything here wanted to kill him.

He forced himself up. Stepped back into the open hellscape.

The world watched him. He could feel it—like a thousand eyes tracking his every move.

Red sky. Never changing. Rivers of molten gold still hissing in the distance.

But something felt different now.

Kairo wasn't as scared anymore. Still shaking, still bleeding from a dozen cuts, but that part of him that wanted to curl up and die—that had gone quiet.

Every step made his legs scream in protest. But he kept moving.

He wandered for what felt like hours. Passed dead trees with bones hanging from their branches like some sick Christmas decorations. Stepped over cracked stones that actually bled when his feet touched them.

He'd stopped asking questions. Just walked.

Then he heard it. Skitter skitter scratch. Movement. Fast. Light.

He spun around.

A beast launched itself at him—smaller than that first nightmare, but Christ it was fast. Spider legs, way too many twitching black eyes, and a mouth that split its whole head in half.

He ducked. Barely made it. Claws whistled past his ear.

His hand found a jagged piece of bone on the ground. Sharp. Good enough. He swung hard.

Crack. The thing let out this godawful screech. Kairo stabbed again. And again. Black blood sprayed across his face.

It tasted like copper and rot.

The creature twitched once, then went still.

Smoke started rising from the corpse—thick, dark, and it moved with purpose. Spiraling toward him like it had somewhere to be.

Kairo didn't run this time.

The smoke hit him.

Flash—

Memories that weren't his flooded his mind. Images of hunting, killing, feeding. The taste of human flesh. Screams echoing through caverns. Pain that made his earlier beating feel like a massage.

He dropped to his knees, gasping.

Then the voice came back.

Clearer now. Deeper. Like it was speaking from inside his own skull.

"A human...?"

"No... not just human."

"Heaven made a mistake."

Kairo looked up. The voice wasn't just around him anymore. It was inside him.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked out loud, feeling stupid for talking to empty air.

Silence.

But something had changed. Not power exactly. Not answers.

Just... resolve.

He'd killed two things now. Survived longer than any human probably ever had in this place.

That had to mean something, right?

He got to his feet. Looked down at his blood-stained hands.

This world was trying to break him into little pieces. But it hadn't managed it yet.

His eyes found the horizon.

In the distance, through smoke and sheets of flame, a city rose from the wasteland. Towers made from what looked like giant ribcages. Streets that glowed like fire pits.

And something circled overhead—wings of pure shadow stretched across the burning sky.

Kairo's jaw clenched.

"If you're watching me," he said quietly to whatever was listening, "then you better remember this."

"I'm not dying in this shithole."

He turned. Started walking toward the city.

Behind him, the wind carried a whisper that made his skin crawl.

"We'll see about that, little ghost."

Kairo didn't stop walking.

In a palace that looked like it had been carved from nightmares and bad decisions, the First Sovereign of Hell sat on his throne of human bones. His crown—twisted horns blackened with centuries of blood—caught the firelight as he stared into a bowl of shifting black flames.

The image inside flickered and danced.

A boy. Bleeding. Still breathing. Still alive.

"The anomaly survived," the Sovereign said, and his voice sounded like grinding stone. The words shook dust from the ceiling. "His presence burns like acid in my realm."

He turned to look at the things kneeling before him. They weren't really demons—more like nightmares that someone had taught to think. His Hellborn Hunters, each one designed to kill without mercy or hesitation.

They didn't speak. Didn't even breathe. Just waited.

"Send Azareth."

The floor actually shuddered at the name. Azareth the Hollow Fang. The Sovereign's personal executioner. Even other demons crossed themselves when they heard that name whispered.

A pause.

Then the Demon King, Sovereign smiled, and it was a terrible thing to see.

"No... send three of them."

His claws scraped against the bone armrest.

"I want him broken." "I want him begging for death." "And then... I want answers."

He had his suspicions. Whispers of divine fuck-ups. A mortal sent here by accident, maybe connected to those Five Immortal dickheads who supposedly ran everything. If that was true, then this kid wasn't just a problem.

He was a crack in reality itself.

It came during the fake night, when the fires dimmed just enough for the really nasty things to wake up and stretch.

Kairo had found what passed for shelter—a shallow cave that smelled like death but kept the wind off his back. His fingers were wrapped around his bone shard so tight his knuckles had gone white.

The cut on his ribs had scabbed over, but it still felt like someone was slowly twisting a knife every time he breathed.

Just one more hour, he told himself. Just get through one more hour.

The first hunter showed up without making a sound.

One second the cave entrance was empty. Next second, there was a figure standing there.

This wasn't like the other creatures. This was something worse. Something that used to be human, maybe, before someone had decided to make improvements.

Azareth.

Armor that looked like it had grown out of his flesh. Claws that left gouges in solid rock. A cloak that seemed to drink light. No eyes—just empty sockets that somehow still looked at you.

The smell of rotting meat rolled off him in waves.

Kairo's whole body went rigid.

Azareth took a step forward, and his voice came from everywhere at once.

"So you're supposed to be the angel."

Kairo raised his pathetic bone weapon with hands that wouldn't stop shaking.

"I'm—I'm not..."

"Doesn't matter."

Azareth moved.

Pain exploded across Kairo's face as claws opened his cheek to the bone. He stumbled, rolled, tried to stab back with the shard.

It hit Azareth's chest and shattered like glass.

Useless.

What followed wasn't a fight. It was just violence.

Ribs snapped like dry twigs. His left arm bent in a direction arms weren't supposed to bend. A boot came down on his knee and something important popped. Blood filled his mouth as he tried to breathe.

"Pathetic," Azareth hissed.

That's when something inside Kairo finally broke.

Not his body—that was already fucked.

Something deeper.

The air started to vibrate.

Then light exploded out of him.

Not golden like in the movies. Purple-white, harsh and wrong, like lightning that had gone insane. It erupted from his chest and filled the cave with searing brightness.

Azareth actually screamed—a sound like metal being torn apart. Smoke rose from his armor as his flesh started to bubble.

The Order.

Not heaven's power. Not hell's either. Something else. Something that existed in the spaces between, born from cosmic mistakes and divine bureaucratic errors.

Kairo collapsed. His head felt like it was splitting open. His vision went white, then black, then white again.

He ran.

Somehow got his broken body moving, stumbling through rock and flame into the endless dark. Dragging his fucked-up limbs through ash and worse things, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

He didn't look back. Couldn't afford to.

He ran until his body gave out completely. Until he dropped next to one of those rivers of molten rock.

He coughed up blood and started laughing.

"They think I'm a fucking angel..."

It was a broken, hysterical sound.

He wasn't divine. Wasn't anything special.

But if being mistaken for something holy bought him time, if it made the monsters hesitate for even half a second...

"Let them believe it."

Something stirred in his chest. Not the burn from the symbols. Something else. Something hungry.

Back in the throne room, Azareth knelt with his armor still smoking.

"He escaped," he whispered. "But he's awakening to what he is."

The First Sovereign leaned forward, his grin getting wider.

"Good."

The word tasted like fresh blood.

"Now things get interesting."

The command went out across all Seven Layers of Hell, carried by whispers and roars and things that didn't have names:

"Find the boy." "Break him." "Or drag what's left to me."

Far below, in darkness so complete that even demons avoided it, a kid with shattered bones and cursed light burning in his chest curled up against the cold.

And somehow kept breathing.