Nitya.
A land whispered in dying breaths and scrawled in the margins of forbidden texts. It doesn't exist on any map because maps require borders, and Nitya has none. It stretches like a wound through reality, vast and formless, always just a step too far.
A place where time forgets itself.
To enter Nitya is to leave behind sun and moon, to forfeit the heartbeat of seasons. The moment one crosses its unseen threshold, the world behind begins to rot, and the body soon follows.
Kings, mages, and warriors, those who enter with power do not merely die; they break. Their realities twist, and their minds splinter. Some forget their names, while others become husks with hollow smiles, mere echoes of who they once were.
Some wither in an instant. Hair turns white, skin splits like dry paper, and their bodies fold under the weight of years they never lived. Eyes sink, cheeks collapse inward, and veins rise like cracked roots beneath the surface. Even their cries are cut short, dissolving into dust before the sound fully leaves their lips.
Some people age in reverse. Wrinkles fade, muscles shrink, and limbs twitch. Words turn to babble and eyes widen in confusion. Teeth recede and skin tightens, making them appear almost perfect. Eventually, they become frightened infants in adult clothes, leaving behind only a faint whimper in a withered shell.
The truly unfortunate walk in circles, reliving the same words, repeating old fights. They are locked in loops, never realizing they've been caught.
And some seem untouched. They wander endlessly, unchanged in form but forgotten by time itself. Ghosts, unaware that the world has moved on without them.
The stronger the soul, the tighter Nitya's grip becomes.
It feeds on conviction, memory, and willpower.
That's why mortals are sent here. Yet, they too meet their end.
Nitya doesn't kill. It unwrites.
Just beyond its border, where time still limps and sanity clings by its nails, stands a crooked structure known as the Dreampile.
It wears the shape of a house, but only just. The walls flicker like broken thoughts. Stairs twist in on themselves. The doors open into memories better left buried. The air smells of old lullabies, sweet at first, but sour beneath, thick with the scent of rot.
A slender demon hangs upside down from a splintered beam, hair dangling like thread from a broken doll. Her limbs are too long, and her eyes never blink.
"It's been three months," she murmurs, her voice thin and needle-sharp. "And still nothing."
Across the room, a hulking beast slouches in a hammock made of bedsheets and broken dreams. Mist escapes his nostrils, flickering with forgotten hopes.
"He should have crumbled by now," he grunts. "I don't get why we're still waiting."
By the wall, where shadow dances with candlelight, a fox-faced figure leans silently. Her porcelain mask gleams smooth and cold, but her nine tails lash with agitation.
"Yeah, I don't get why the Matriarch's wasting her time," she says. "He's not even that special. Just another mortal who thinks being stubborn means something."
"Yeah, I don't get why the Matriarch's wasting her time," she says. "He's not even that special. Just another mortal who thinks being stubborn means something."
The one hanging upside down let out a soft click of her tongue, slow and deliberate.
"Gegegege... You're new here, aren't you?" she said, a hint of curiosity in her voice. "You haven't seen it yet."
The fox-faced girl rolled her eyes in response. "Seen what?" she asked, genuinely perplexed.
There was a moment of silence as the hanging demon focused intently on her. In a quieter tone, she said, "If the Matriarch has a weakness for anything, it's Nitya."
The other two demons exchanged glances, their expressions turning serious as they absorbed the weight of her words, an unspoken tension hanging in the air.
"She had tried everything," the upside-down one continues. "Demons, humans, whole armies. She even walked in herself once."
The room falls still.
"She came back. Barely. But not with what she wanted."
Her voice trails off, the weight of memory coiling around her words.
"That's why, when that human offered himself, she didn't say no."
The big one in the hammock snorts. "Even though he was her favorite."
The fox-mask twitches. A fine crack creeps along her cheek.
"I heard he survived the Matriarch's torture. Is that true?" she asks, her voice sharp as ice.
"No," the hanging demon murmurs. Her smile curves in a way that feels unnatural. "She's still breaking him. Slowly. You know how she feeds? Despair sweetened with hope. It takes longer to ripen, but it tastes divine."
The larger demon lets out a low, rumbling chuckle. "Mmh. That flavor, the trembling, the belief... It's intoxicating."
His voice fades.
"But it's been three months. By now, he should be nothing but dust. It feels like such a waste of delicious food."
He shifts, creaking under his weight.
"And the worst part is, we're stuck here," he said, glancing around the dim space.
The demon hanging nearby shrugged, its face a mix of resignation and understanding. "Just two more months," it replied. "We wait and confirm that he didn't crawl out. It's our duty, anyway."
The Dreampile groans. Walls shift. A candle flame bends and dies.
"Yeah," the big one mutters. "Two more months."
The silence returns.
Beyond the Dreampile, in the fog where light forgets how to fall, the stillness tears open with a sound too soft to echo.
Something steps through.
A figure that looked like it had risen from the ashes, dressed in tattered clothes faded to a ghostly gray. The hood hung low, obscuring most of its features, while weary eyes glimmered faintly from beneath layers of dirt and ash. With each slow step, ash fell away, revealing skin too pale and weathered, as if sculpted from ancient stone. Despite its stained, soot-covered cloak, the faint glow of its eyes resembled smoldering coals battling against the encroaching darkness.
Its foot press into the blackened ground, each step soft, yet impossibly loud in the silence, like time itself has started counting again. A wind that shouldn't exist coils around it, tugging at the hem of its cloak, carrying with it the scent of time and forgotten prayers.
Suddenly, the Dreampile quakes, as if sensing its presence.
The demons inside freeze.
The fox-demon recoils, her tails flaring wide. Her porcelain mask is cracked down the center, a jagged line slicing through her painted expression."No…" Her voice came out raw, like something scraped up from deep inside. "This can't be real."
The hulking one in the hammock pushes himself up with a grunt, the frame groaning beneath him. His broad shoulders were tense. "He... he made it out?" His voice sounds broken, caught between disbelief and dread. "That's.... he wasn't supposed to..."
The slender demon, still dangling from the splintered beam, narrows her eyes toward the mist beyond. The smile that once held quiet amusement vanishes. "Impossible," she says, her tone low and sharp. "He should have dust by now." Without another word, she drops from the beam and vanishes into the fog.
The air outside hangs like wet cloth, thick and unmoving. Light does not reach here. It tries, but something swallows it whole. All that remains is ash, drifting like dead snow, and a silence so deep it presses against the skin.
A figure stands where none should. Cloaked in soot-stained rags, he barely moves. Ash slides from his shoulders with each breath, revealing pale skin worn like weathered stone. His hood hangs low, but the faint gleam of his eyes glows beneath it, quiet, unreadable, steady.
The slender demon streaks from the Dreampile like a spear of shadow. In a blink, she reaches him and catches his throat with one hand, lifting him off the ground. He doesn't fight. His feet dangle above the ashen soil.
"Who are you?" she hisses.
He does not answer.
His eyes remain on her, unmoving. Not pleading. Not resisting. Just watching her, as if he had already seen this moment before.
Behind her, the other two demons arrive. The fox-demon steps carefully, her cracked mask catching the light. Her voice is hushed, uncertain. "You caught him?"
The hulking one stands beside her. His breathing is louder now, slower. "That's him," he says. "The one who walked in."
The slender demon's hand flexes at the throat of the stranger. Her wings flare slightly, as if she is preparing to crush him. She leans in. "You're not supposed to survive," she says, each word tighter than the last. "How did you survive? No. No... That makes no sense. That's impossible-"
"I found it," the figure rasped, his voice cracked and quiet, like wind scraping through stone. "The thing she wanted."
A hush spreads, slow and suffocating.
The demon holding him doesn't move. Her grip doesn't tighten or loosen. She just stares at him.
The fox-demon takes a step forward, her tails lowering slightly. "What... what do you mean?" she asks, her voice smaller now. "What did you find?"
But he doesn't answer her. His gaze is locked on the one holding him. And something in that gaze makes her pause. There is no madness. No threat. Just something deep. A quiet that doesn't feel empty.
Longing.
As if everything he has endured, every scream, every cut of that place, has sharpened into a single purpose.
She gently lowers him to the ground, her hands releasing their grip on his throat. He stands there, swaying slightly, as ash drifts around him like soft, cold snow settling on his worn-out boots.
The fox-demon's voice cuts through the quiet. "We can't afford to wait. If he has what the Matriarch wants, we need to act fast."
"I know," replies the slender demon, her voice tight with anxiety.
The larger demon shifts his weight, his gaze fixed intently on Zen. "He shouldn't even be standing. And yet, here he is. If he brought something back from Nitya, we can't ignore it."
The one hanging back nods slowly, his eyes unblinking. "Alright. We take him to the majesty."
Zen doesn't flinch at their words. He simply nods back, a sign that he understands the gravity of the situation.
For the first time, the three demons regard him differently, not as prey to be hunted, but as something enigmatic. Something that piques their curiosity and stirs their uncertainty.