infodatos Chapter 322: Deep under
Chapter 322: Deep under
(Back at the depths of the cavern which Autumn had escaped for the sake of her family... where she had left her children...)Darkness did not begin there.It had always existed.
Breathing. Patient.And deep within its womb-like vastness, three small bodies hung suspended.
They floated without falling, and were held.
Thin veins of blackened ether coiled around their limbs and torsos, pulsing faintly—like umbilical cords feeding from something unseen.
Little Jasper.
Wila.
Freya.
Their heads lolled forward, chins brushing their chests. Their arms drifted slightly outward, fingers twitching now and then as if reaching for something remembered.
They looked almost peaceful.Almost blissful.
A slow ripple moved through the void.
Jasper stirred first.As if he felt something move him physically, a shove disturbing his peaceful slumber, a break in his rhythm.
A faint crease formed between his brows. His fingers curled. His head tilted slightly towards Wila as if responding to a distant heartbeat only he could hear.
Wila’s lashes fluttered as if in answer.
Freya’s small chest hitched once.
They were not touching.
Yet it looked like they were bound.
A tremor passed through one, and the other two echoed it.
Like triplets sharing the same silent dream.
Or the same little nightmare.
The darkness tightened slightly around them, tendrils adjusting, burrowing deeper into their skin. Not piercing—yet leaving thin trails like bruised ink beneath pale flesh.
Their mouths parted faintly.
A whisper escaped.Not words.Breath.Shared breath.
Far beyond them—if distance even existed here—her persistent eyes watched.
Their Grandmother.The first usher of the dark realms... The one who loved calling herself the Goddess of the Dark.The very force Autumn was created against, the anti-thesis of their mother and aunt.
She did not stand upon any ground.She did not need any ground.
Her form seemed woven from layered shadow, shifting in texture—sometimes velvet, sometimes smoke, sometimes something disturbingly wet and organic.
Two hollow, gleaming fissures marked where eyes might have been.
And within those fissures—Stars.Dead ones.Entire dying constellations.
She tilted her head.Amused.
A low sound echoed through the void. Not quite laughter. Not quite breath.
"They remember each other,just like I expected.Perrrrrfect.So perfect my little ones," she murmured softly.
Her voice did not travel through the air.
It traveled through their marrow.Through their bones.Through the blackened ether feeding all the children.
At the sound of her attention, Freya’s head jerked slightly.
Her lips trembled.A faint, strained murmur slipped out.
"Jas..."
The name was barely a vibration.But Jasper’s body reacted instantly.His back arched.His fingers clawed at nothing, trying to reach for his sister. A sister he had barely know.
His mouth opened in a silent cry.The tendrils constricted. It did not do it violently but it did constrict his feelings, his urges somehow.
Just enough.
Thin rivulets of dark seeped from beneath his fingernails where the ether pressed too close to skin. Not blood.
Something thicker.Something very very unnatural flowed through it all.
Wila whimpered. But her sound was swallowed before it fully formed.
The Goddess of the dark drifted closer.
Each movement she made shifted the architecture of the void. Shapes formed and collapsed behind her—cathedral arches made of bone-like structures, spirals of thorned shadow, distant landscapes that looked like ribcages half-buried in ash.
She observed them like fragile curiosities.
"So small," she whispered almost affectionately.
The darkness responded to her tone, lowering the children slightly—like an offering.
Jasper’s head lifted weakly this time.
His eyes cracked open.They were not fully conscious.But they were not fully unaware either.Within the glassy blue of his irises flickered something defiant.Even in bondage,in captivity,in restraint,while being fed upon,he sensed her.
A tremor rippled through him.Wila’s body responded immediately, twitching toward him. Freya’s breath quickened.Their pulses aligned.
Their grandmother’s smile deepened—though her face barely shifted to show it.
"How exquisite," she murmured.
A thin tendril slithered forward and brushed against Freya’s cheek.The child flinched.Skin split slightly where it touched.A thin bead of red welled up.The darkness drank it before gravity could claim it.
Freya gasped weakly.Jasper’s eyes fought violently,trying to fly wide open.
For one flickering second, awareness as if pierced through."Don’t," he croaked.
The word scraped out of his throat like broken glass.The void trembled.Grandmother paused.
Not out of mercy.Out of interest.
He could speak.So early.Much earlier than the rest despite all the hindrance. Impressive! But the trigger was what interested her...
"So protective," she mused.
Her form leaned closer to him now.The temperature dropped—though temperature did not truly exist there. Frost-like patterns crept along his small arms where the ether wrapped around him.
"You will all serve a purpose," she whispered gently. "Pain is such an excellent sculptor.Isn’t it,babies! You will learn...with due time. You will, my little ones..."
Wila began to cry silently.No sound escaped though.
But her body convulsed in tiny, restrained jerks as if something inside her ribs pressed outward, seeking release.
A crack.A soft,subtle crack.
One of the bone-like cathedral arches in the distance shifted shape in response.
The Goddess turned her gaze towards it briefly.
Ah.The bond.
Even separated by unconsciousness, they were weaving something.
Threads of light—faint and nearly invisible—stretched between the three children. Not from skin. Not from hands.
From deeper.From whatever made them them.The darkness hissed softly at the intrusion.
It tightened.The tendrils pushed harder against flesh now.Thin lines of blood finally surfaced along Jasper’s shoulder too where shadow pressed too eagerly.
He did not scream.He bared his teeth.Even half-drugged in void.Even barely conscious.
The Goddess was amused, she shifted in amusement.
Her curiosity sharpened.
"You will be trouble for sure, little man," she observed calmly.
Her hand—if it could be called that—extended towards his forehead.Where her shadow brushed him, visions flickered violently around them... vague images that made no sense...Cities collapsing into black oceans.Skies splitting open.A grown Jasper standing against her with stormlight burning from his spine.
Her hollow eyes narrowed slightly.
For the first time—She did not look entirely pleased.
Freya’s body convulsed again.Wila’s head snapped upward.Their shared pulse intensified.
And in the center of the darkness—A single, thin crack of silver light appeared.
Very small.Fragile.But real.
The Goddess’s gaze fixed upon it.Her voice lowered.
"Ah," she breathed.The void recoiled.The children trembled in unison.And the horror shifted.
It was mere suffering now.Something was forming.Something the darkness had not fully calculated.Their Grandmother straightened slowly.The cathedral bones reshaped.The ether thickened.
And in a tone that was almost affectionate she mused—"We shall see," she whispered.
The crack of silver light pulsed once.And somewhere far above this abyss—another storm began to gather.