Duke Of Absolute Darkness

Heeding her dad's words,she sighed,then bent over the edge of the boat's hull to pull the empty net in,

In the process her derrière stuck up,the particular position she was in made it look particularly plump and inviting…

Staring intently at his daughter's ass,the middle aged man couldn't help but salivate,getting aroused at the thought of groping it…he quickly dismissed those thought as he felt embarrassed and ashamed for thinking about his daughter that way…

Atlara grabbed the hem of the nets,pulling them,she felt the weight of something pulling it downward,she quickly called out to her dad

"Dad there's fish,we caught fish!!!,quick help me",

Snapping out of his dilemma,he quickly went to help her,

"Pull with me,urghhhh,ehh",

They successfully pulled the net on land,feeling exited that they finally caught something after all hope was lost..

Looking closely at thier catch,the dad exclaimed,"it's a human,what the heck,—what a freaking joke",he was exasperated,he kicked at the figure,

"Stop dad!!!,he didn't mean to get in our net,for all we know he's most likely dead,we can't further disgrace his body,that's mean",atlara said with emotions in her soft voice…

Sensing her disappointment,he quickly replied,"I'm sorry my love,I was angry and almost took it out on an innocent soul,I'm truly sorry,….lets throw him back into the ocean,let him rest there,how about that",the dad said in a pleasing tone.

He was a perverted man,who married his current wife atlara's mother because he always had lecherous thoughts about her,since they were little.

Atlara's mom never really liked her husband,but she had to marry him since he was the one with a stable income amongst her many suitors,he was a fisherman,a lucrative career in a city bordered by the sea….

Now he's pervertedness had found its way towards atlara,his own daughter ever since she turned 18,unluckily for him he was never caught looking at her inappropriately,though atlara could sometimes feel his eyes on her,she never really took it in that light..

Atlara convinced her dad,to let them carry the body back to land and help bury it,it was the least they could for a young fellow who most likely drowned to death,they concluded so because,there was no fatal wound on his body,his wounds had been healed when he absorbed the abyss

In the Void

Far beyond the physical, in a realm untouched by time, Rael's spirit stirred.

He floated within a vast space, one side bathed in roiling, churning dark matter, the other lit by a soothing, warm light energy. The two forces seemed to coexist in delicate balance, forming a rift between creation and annihilation.

Rael blinked. Or at least, he thought he did.

"Is this… the afterlife?" he whispered.

No sound echoed back.

"Why is it so empty? No spirits??… no other souls??… Did I die alone?impossible!!!"

The last thing he remembered was the Trio—his jealous brothers and their underhanded ambush. Blood. Cold water. Darkness. He should have died that day.

And yet here he was, floating in a limbo that pulsed with power.

His body felt distant, like a memory half-forgotten. But his spirit—his soul—was intact. And something in this place was calling to it.

The dark matter pulsed.

A low, rhythmic beat throbbed through the void, syncing with the core of his being. His breath—though he no longer breathed—felt heavier.

Then, a musical note thrummed.

"I did not die??,that's strange."

He could vaguely remember a dark spot underneath the seabed where they threw him,but he was already loosing consciousness then…

Piecing two and three together,he deduced that the abyss he sighted must have saved him or atleast done something extraordinary to him..

He spun toward the source. No form. Just presence.

"I've stood at the edge of mortality and refused to let it consume you.my blood remembers.my soul remembers. Now,I'll pay this blood debt back in blood—the blood of the nightbane clan."

Rael's mind throbbed with fragments—his mother's screams, the pockmarked-elder's condemnation, the laughter of his tormentors as they cast him into the river. Then, a new memory: black tendrils wrapping around his wounds, sealing them. A pulse of energy from the deep.

He had not drowned. He had merged—With the abyss.

Back on Shore,

The boat scraped against sand as Atlara and her father dragged it ashore. The sky had darkened to a soft violet, and crickets began their nightly song. They carried the man carefully to a patch of dry grass just off the shore.

"Let's lay him here," Atlara whispered. "We'll dig in the morning."

As she bent over him again, brushing strands of hair from his face, a sudden chill ran down her spine.

"Dad," she said slowly. "His chest. It's… rising."

Her father leaned in. "What!!!?"

Then they both saw it—a shallow rise, then fall. Rael's breath.

And his fingers… they twitched.

"What the hell?" her father breathed.

Rael's eyes shot open, glowing faintly dark for just a moment before fading to its normal color,but it now bore a strange pattern unbeknownst to him.

He coughed, water splattering from his lungs.

Atlara gasped and reached for his hand.

"You're alive! Stay still, don't move—you were—"

Rael sat upright suddenly, his body stiff, like a puppet on strings.

His eyes scanned the sky, the land, and finally the two strangers before him. Something flickered in them—confusion, then recognition of the real world.

"Where… am I?" he rasped.

"You washed up in our net," Atlara said, offering him a water flask. "You were dead—or, we thought you were."

Rael took the flask, his hand trembling,clenching them, he looked down at his body, then at the sea behind them.

"The darkness," he murmured. "It brought me back."