Savior in Shadow Slave

The voice rolled through the chamber like a lullaby wrapped in twilight—ancient, soft, and soaked in the kind of maternal warmth that made even time itself pause. Murphy turned slowly, his heart stirred by an instinct older than memory.

His eyes fell on the runic circle that shimmered faintly with sealing glyphs, and at its heart, an altar carved of moonstone. Resting upon it was a woman who defied the limits of divinity and mortality. She radiated elegance—not the kind born from vanity, but the serenity of one who had witnessed both birth and extinction.

She wore a stunning black dress that flowed elegantly down to her knees, its fabric shimmering faintly like woven midnight. Her shoulders and neck were bare, pale as moonlight, drawing the eye to the soft rise of her collarbones—a throne of quiet power.

But it was her feet that stilled Murphy's breath.

Petite and delicate, they were drenched in blood—stained at the toes as if she were a forgotten ballerina, one who had danced alone on shattered glass for an eternity. Every step she had taken, every movement she had made, had written a story of grace and agony across the ages.

She was beauty carved from sorrow. Devotion wrapped in suffering.

Moonstone cradled her as though the rock had melted and reformed in worship. Her skin held the sheen of dawn-kissed pearls, her hair a river of liquid shadow.

But her eyes—Oh, her eyes.

One moment, they were a mother's hands, soothing fevered brows.

The next, a lover's teeth, pressed to the throat of the world.

Her smile unstitched him.

"Murphy," it said without words. "Little flame. You've been walking toward me since your first scream."

The air thickened with saffron and iron—birth-blood and battlefield.

She was the sigh at the beginning of time.

The gasp at its end.

And she had been waiting.

A being of love and lust. Of beginnings... and endings.

"What do you want, terror?"

Murphy's voice echoed through the dim chamber—measured, quiet, yet heavy with the weight of already knowing. He didn't ask out of ignorance, but out of defiance. A ritual question before a confrontation.

Seated atop the altar, the woman tilted her head, black hair cascading like ink over the side of her bare shoulder. A slow, wicked smile unfurled across her lips as her eyes gleamed with a strange, maternal mirth.

"Oh my," she cooed sweetly, "are you trying to be a curious child? Or a mischievous little boy? Naughty, naughty… Mommy should punish you for that. Bad child."

Her voice dripped with obscene affection, playful and deadly. It made Murphy's skin crawl.

"Don't dodge the question."

That wiped the smile from her lips, but only for a heartbeat. She leaned forward, resting her chin delicately on her bloodstained palm, and looked at him—deeply, hungrily—with eyes that seemed to contain galaxies long collapsed into madness.

"I want you," she whispered, like a prayer or a curse. "All of you. Your time. Your soul. Your strength. Your Spell. Your freedom. Every last fragment of your being."

A chill swept over him—not out of fear, but because he could sense it wasn't a lie. She meant every word. And worse, she had the patience to wait, to play, to bleed it out of him if she must.

"You want to escape," Murphy murmured, piecing it together. "Not just from this chamber... You want out of everything. Out of this cursed realm. Out of the Nightmare."

She leaned back, her grin widening with something between pride and gluttony. Her voice turned reverent.

"Correct. I want to be free, Murphy. I want to walk under the sun, drink the air of your world, feel wind that isn't filtered through layers of dream and death. I want out. Of this prison. Of this masquerade. Of this forsaken cycle."

The air trembled.

The runes pulsed, as if reacting to her hunger. A goddess trapped in flesh and madness, smiling like a lover, whispering like a god, and waiting like a storm.

"You must know," she said, her voice suddenly quieter—no less chilling, but touched now with the rawness of memory, "what kind of life I've lived. Don't you, Murphy?"

Her eyes shimmered with something ancient. Not tears—but the echo of them, long since wept and dried in agony.

"You must know how I was chained for centuries. What they did to me. Every day. What my own children—the ones I bore—did to me."

She leaned forward slightly, her gaze piercing through him. "You remember it, don't you? Because I left it behind... so you could see. So you would feel it."

Her words did not tremble. They were calm. Too calm. The kind of calm only born in someone who had long outlived their pain, who had buried it deep enough to weaponize it.

"That's why I kept you alive for five long years," she continued, her tone now carrying something between reverence and obsession. "So that you could ripen. So that you could earn the body the God of Carnal Desires once severed and set aside—just for you."

She stood now, bare feet pressing into the altar, the blood on her toes glistening in the dim light like rubies.

"Because your old body was too weak. Too feeble. So easily broken. If I had entered then—if even a breath of my true consciousness had touched you—you would have shattered."

Her gaze softened, but in that softness there was madness. A terrible, maternal hunger.

"So I waited. And now… you're ready, Murphy."

When he heard the words "five long years," something in Murphy froze. His breath caught in his throat, a sharp chill crawling up his spine like frost on bone.

He blinked—once, twice—his mind struggling to catch up, to process what he thought he'd just heard.

Five years?

That couldn't be right. It hadn't felt like more than a few weeks. A month or two, at most. Not... not years.

His voice cracked slightly as he spoke, tone disbelieving—almost pleading, as if hoping she would correct herself.

"What do you mean by five long years, Terror?"

She tilted her head, an expression of amused confusion dancing across her face—an uncanny blend of maternal warmth and obscene delight.

Too soft. Too cold. Too wrong.

"Huh?" she said, eyes widening ever so slightly in mock surprise. "You don't know, Murphy?"

Her lips curved into a smile, too sweet to be innocent.

"I thought your loving Goddess would have told you."

Then, in a voice like a lullaby twisted into a curse, she whispered:

"Should I tell you?"

 A phantom of her stepped out of the circle. But Murphy heed it no mind.

"Just speak, goddamnit!" Murphy snapped, his patience thin.

She giggled—a soft, melodious sound that felt too close to the ear, too intimate. "Oh, Murphy… you really shouldn't raise your voice at your mother, you know. It's terribly rude."

He glared, unamused.

"Fine, fine," she pouted with a mock frown, tilting her head just slightly—like a doll stitched with forbidden memories. "You see, Murphy, this Nightmare was supposed to be nothing more than a simple replica of the third. So mundane, so predictable."

She stood slowly, her movements fluid, hips swaying with an unnatural grace, the hem of her black dress brushing her bloodied toes like a lover's kiss. "You'd come to the village, learn from dear old Alex, and after a month, a little monster wave would come to spice things up. You'd survive. I'd sleep. And all the pretty little souls would feed me slowly, gently… one dream at a time."

She dragged a finger across her bare shoulder as if tracing the memory. Then her eyes flashed with a glint—maternal and predatory. "But then… you arrived. And with you, something... stirred."

She leaned in closer, her breath warm and honeyed with rot. "I heard a voice in my head, Murphy. Cold. Monotone. Divine." Her smile deepened, crooked and full of teeth that weren't there a moment ago. "Shimmering runes appeared in front of me."

She raised her hand slowly, as though presenting a lullaby, a cradle, or a knife.

[You have obtained a memory.]

"I thought I had finally gone mad. Deliciously so. But I clicked it... like a good girl."

Her tone turned whisper-thin and mocking, rich with both reverence and perversion.

Name: Messenger

Memory Rank: Sacred

Memory Type: Charm

Memory Description: [In this dream, a curious and fatal being has appeared.]

Enchantment: [Possession] — You may possess anyone weaker than you if you defeat them.

Enchantment: [Lockpicker] — You may escape any seal… partially.

Murphy's breath caught in his throat. It all made too much sense now.

"But… how could Spell make a deal with a corrupted creature like you?" he asked, disbelief breaking through.

Her head tilted again—innocent. Almost childlike. Her smile now soft and devastating. "Oh, my dear sweet Murphy…" she purred, it felt like she was walking a slow circle around him. "Who ever said I was corrupted?"

She leaned in close, her lips brushing the shell of his ear like a sacrament, like a sin.

"I just fed you a bit of false memory," she whispered, the words sliding down his spine like warm oil laced with poison. "A little dream, a little illusion. Something to spice things up. You see, Murphy... I'm not corrupted. I'm simply... twisted."

She drew back with a smile that was half lullaby, half knife.

"Now… where was I? Ah, yes."

She stepped lightly across the dim-lit circle, her blood-slick toes leaving behind invisible stains on reality itself.

"After receiving that memory—Messenger—I was... curious. I wondered what being had stirred such a sacred reaction. I looked to the village. I watched. I waited. I sifted through minds and dreams, peeling away layers like petals on a rotting flower. And then…"

Her gaze locked onto him, slow and deliberate.

"I found you."

Her voice grew tender, but it trembled with hunger beneath the sweetness. "A boy who didn't belong. A soul wearing skin too thin, a fate too loud. You looked like hope, smelled like rebellion. And I knew—I knew—you were the one."

A soft giggle escaped her lips, like a mother fondly remembering her child's first steps—or perhaps first cries.

"So I used Lockpicker, slipped through the cracks of this prison like water through a coffin lid. I borrowed an Ascended body—something pretty, pliable—and walked among your little village of lambs. Oh, they welcomed me with open arms. Why wouldn't they? My Mind Dominion ability helped, of course."

She clapped her hands together like a child delighted by her own mischief.

"I introduced a festival. Colors, rituals, joy—oh, such joy. They danced for me, sang for me, bled for me. And while they played pretend, I turned my gaze to you."

She walked slowly toward him now, each step like a countdown.

"You, the boy who had given up. Just living, but not alive. So I whispered."

She raised a hand to his chest, hovering above his heart.

"I whispered that you were special. That you could do great things. That your pain meant something."

Then her tone turned quiet—almost reverent.

"I didn't lie, Murphy. You are special. But not for the reasons you thought. You were never chosen to be a hero. No... you were born to break things."

Her smile sharpened like glass.

"To break me out."

And her phantom disappeared. As she walked out.