Chapter 92: The Rejected Shelf
The darkness remained unbroken.
Oizys drifted, her senses carved away one by one. There was no horizon, no ceiling, no whisper of direction. Her mind stretched thin, screaming silently for definition, until at last—something rippled through the void.
A silhouette coalesced before her, drawn not in form but in fractured intent. White chalk-like outlines twisted and scribbled across a vaguely humanoid figure, pulsing in and out of focus like an animated sketch caught mid-frame.
The figure stood still, faceless and trembling, as though the void itself recoiled from its presence.
Oizys didn’t hesitate. A scythe—vast, curved, and inked in madness—manifested from her aura.
She moved in a flash of thought, and the weapon’s edge hovered at the stranger’s throat. The act was seamless, her instincts taking over before thought returned.
The chalk-figure jerked back, arms raised in a plea. "Wait—wait! Don’t hurt me! Please!"
Her voice cracked through the stillness like a smear across glass. Frantic, feminine, and strangely familiar.
"Who are you?" Oizys asked, her tone flat and cold, the blade never wavering. "Where am I? What did you do to me!?"
The figure twitched, her outline stuttering. "I’m—listen—I’m what’s left behind. A Rejected Self. A shard. A shelf, thrown out when Kivas underwent her Apotheosis!"
Oizys narrowed her eyes. "A Shelf?"
"I am! Or what I’m supposed to be. Like, I don’t know, I just know myself as such because it is an undeniable fact that I have somehow been removed from Kivas, while having her memory and understanding of what is happening!" The figure nodded rapidly. Her words were equally as rapids as if she was on the edge of a cliff, trying to talk her way out of her death. "Kivas didn’t mean to cast me away. It just happened! The Apotheosis event was too sudden! A raw surge of Fateling Essence flooded her. Like, it is not divinity. Not belief...