Chapter 121: Eyes Like Abandoned Stars
The darkness was not simply an absence of light—it might as well be a living thing.
It stretched endlessly in every direction, a yawning abyss that swallowed time and space whole. There was no sky here, no ground, no horizon—only an infinite, suffocating black that pressed in from all sides like the weight of drowned dreams. The air (if it could be called air) hung thick and stagnant, undisturbed by wind or motion, as if the very concept of change had been erased from existence.
And yet - something stirred...
A lone figure, pale as a ghost, moving through the nothingness with slow, measured steps. Her bare feet made no sound against the void, leaving no trace of her passage. She might have been floating. She might have been falling. In this place, the difference meant nothing.
The girl was slight—sixteen, perhaps seventeen—but age had long since lost its meaning here. Her skin was the color of forgotten moonlight, so pale it seemed translucent, as if the darkness had leached the warmth from her veins over countless unseen years.
Shadows clung to her like cobwebs, curling around her wrists, her throat, the sharp angles of her collarbones, as though the abyss itself had tried to claim her and settled instead for marking her as its own.
Her hair also matched the abyss surrounding her.
They were black, but not the rich, glossy black of raven feathers or ink, but the absolute black of a starless night—a void within the void. It spilled down her back in a river of shadows, so long it pooled around her feet when she stood still, blending seamlessly into the darkness until it was impossible to tell where she ended and the abyss began.
Then—
Her eyelids lifted.
Silver-gray eyes, the color of tarnished mirrors, stared blankly ahead.
Once, they might have been beautiful. Once, they might have held laughter, or tears, or sadness.
Now, they were hollow.
Dull.
Like windows to a house long abandoned, their glass cracked and filmed with dust.
No light lived in those eyes. No hope. Just a flat, empty sheen, as if whatever soul had once burned behind them had guttered out, leaving only the cold embers of a girl who had forgotten how to feel.
Her gaze drifted, slow as a dying breath, and landed on the chair.
It hadn’t been there before.
Now, it simply was —a plain wooden chair, its legs suspended in the void, hovering as if placed there by some unseen hand. Beside it, half of a table emerged from the darkness, its surface smooth and polished, the edge sheared cleanly away as if the rest of it had been swallowed by the abyss.
The girl didn’t react.
She didn’t show any surprise or confusion.
Just a slow, mechanical tilt of her head, as if she had expected this. As if, in this place where nothing changed, the sudden appearance of furniture was as mundane as the passage of time.
She moved toward it.
Her steps were precise, unhurried—the movements of a doll whose strings had been cut long ago, but whose limbs still remembered how to bend. There was no hesitation in her, no curiosity. Just the quiet, resigned motion of something that had long since stopped questioning its existence.
When she reached the chair, she paused.
For a moment, she simply stood there, her fingers limp at her sides, her expression blank. Then, with the same lifeless precision, she sat.
Her hands settled in her lap, palms upturned, fingers slightly curled.
And then—
Nothing happened. She just sat there.
She didn’t fidget. Didn’t shift. Didn’t blink.
She simply existed , a statue carved from sorrow and silence.
The abyss pressed closer, as if savoring her stillness.
Minutes passed.
Or hours.
Or centuries.
Time had no meaning here.
Then—
A flicker.
Something shifted in the darkness—a ripple, a tremor, a breath against the back of her neck.
The girl’s eyes wandered, scanning the void with the same detached indifference. But her gaze was unfocused, her attention scattered, as if she were only going through the motions of looking. There was no expectation in her. No hope of finding anything.
It might have been just a routine.
Or just a habit.
Or...
Just the ghost of a girl who had once been alive, performing the echoes of what she used to be.
Her silver-gray eyes, dull as tarnished coins, reflected nothing.
And when the moment passed, they drifted back to the table.
Waiting.
For nothing.
For everything.
For an end that would never come.
"..."
The girl sat motionless, her silver-gray eyes fixed on nothing, her breath (if she still breathed at all) too shallow to disturb the stillness. The abyss wrapped around her like a shroud, undisturbed, unchanging—
Click.
A small and delicate sound echoed through the void, like the turning of a key in a long-locked door.
The girl’s gaze drifted downward, slow as snowfall, to where a single strand of moonlight had pierced the darkness. It lay beside her, a fragile silver thread against the endless black, glowing faintly as if struggling to survive in this place where light was not meant to be.
She stared at it.
But her eyes held no curiosity or wonder.
They were just observing.
Then—
The darkness around her moved.
It coiled around the light like a serpent, swallowing it whole in an instant. The strand flickered—once, twice—before vanishing, devoured without a trace. The abyss settled again, seamless and eternal, as if the intrusion had never happened.
The girl’s eyes didn’t linger.
But then—
A shadow.
Small. Dark.
Perched on the edge of the table where none had been before.
The girl blinked.
The shadow blinked back.
Violet eyes gleamed in the void, bright as amethysts in a world of ash.
Then—
"I am back, little lady."
The voice was soft, playful, yet edged with something older—something that didn’t belong in this place of silence.
The girl said nothing.
The shadow shifted, its form melting and reshaping like ink in water. Wings stretched, feathers formed, and in moments, a small black bird sat where the shadow had been, its head tilted curiously.
Then—
The bird started transforming.
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