Chained, p.5
Chained, page 5
Either way, uncertainty would end.
With a sharp, decisive motion, Caelum adjusted his wings.
He changed direction.
The heavens receded behind him once more as he angled downward, toward the dark, forgotten place where Kreyn remained bound. The void ahead felt heavier now, charged with intent.
“I will have the truth,” Caelum said quietly, the words no longer a thought but a vow.
He did not care how deeply it was buried.
He did not care how long it took.
And he did not care what methods were required.
If answers would not come willingly…
Then he would take them.
Even if he had to use force.
Even if, in doing so, he crossed a line he had never crossed before.
Because whatever Kreyn truly was—destroyer, anomaly, mistake, or victim—Caelum would not allow doubt to rule him.
Not without a fight.
Kreyn turned and tried again.
He moved in the opposite direction this time, steps cautious, measured, chains dragging behind him with a low metallic scrape that echoed briefly before being swallowed by the darkness. He walked until the resistance came—inevitable, unforgiving.
The chain snapped tight.
His body lurched forward as the sudden pull yanked him short, the metal biting hard into his wrists and ankles. He hissed under his teeth and steadied himself, chest rising and falling as he adjusted to the pain.
“No matter which way…” he murmured.
He followed the chain with his hands, fingers sliding along the cold links, tracing its path through the dark. It did not disappear into the floor. It did not vanish into a wall.
It rose.
Upward.
Kreyn tilted his head back instinctively, though there was nothing to see. The chain vanished into pitch blackness above him, disappearing into a void that gave no hint of distance or destination.
“Higher up…” he whispered.
There was no ceiling he could sense. No echo to tell him how far it went. Just the pull—unyielding, absolute—coming from somewhere far beyond his reach.
A thought crept in.
What if that’s the way out?
His pulse quickened at the possibility. If the chain led upward, then maybe it led beyond this pit. Maybe it reached a ledge, an opening, something other than endless darkness.
But hope carried danger.
He tested the chain carefully, tugging at it, then wrapping his hands around it. It held firm. Slowly, he placed his weight against it, lifting one foot slightly from the ground.
His arms screamed immediately.
Weakness surged through him like a warning. His muscles trembled violently, protesting the strain. The effort sent a dull ache radiating through his shoulders and chest, his body still recovering from being crushed, restrained, and thrown to the ground.
He lowered himself back down, breathing hard.
“No,” he muttered. “Not like this.”
Even if he could climb, he didn’t know how far it went. A few meters? Dozens? Endless? And worse—he couldn’t see a single thing. If he climbed blindly and found nothing at the top—no ledge, no opening—he would be suspended in the dark, exhausted, with no way to tell where the ground was.
If his grip slipped—
He swallowed hard.
That would be the end of him.
He could fall. Break something. Or worse—never stop falling at all.
The risk was too great.
He lowered his hands from the chain, frustration tightening in his chest. Desperation clawed at him, urging him to try anyway, but reason—thin as it was—held him back. Blind hope in a place like this was a death sentence.
He shifted his focus downward instead.
The shackles.
He crouched and examined them by touch alone, fingers tracing the cold metal encircling his wrists and ankles. They were tight, fitted precisely, as if shaped for him alone. No obvious seam. No latch. No weakness he could feel.
He tried anyway.
He twisted his wrists, pulled, forced his hands against the cuffs until the metal scraped harshly against his skin. Pain flared as the shackles bit deeper, cutting into flesh already raw from the chains. Warmth spread where skin broke, but the restraints did not loosen—not even slightly.
“Damn it…” he hissed, releasing them and shaking his hands weakly.
Blood—or something warm—slicked his palms.
Nothing changed.
He leaned back against the unseen wall of darkness, chest heaving slightly, mind racing in useless circles. Every attempt ended the same way: resistance, pain, failure.
“I have to get out,” he whispered, the words trembling with urgency now. “I have to know the truth.”
Why was he here?
Why was he chained like this?
Why did an angel come to kill him—and then leave him alive?
And why did his mind feel like a locked door, something pressing against it from the other side?
He squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his fingers against his temples as a faint ache pulsed there, warning him again. Memory felt close—too close—but unreachable. Like a shape just beneath the surface of dark water, refusing to rise.
“I need to remember,” he said quietly.
But where did he even begin?
There were no clues. No light. No past to retrace. No voice to guide him. Just this abyss—this endless, pitch-black void designed not only to imprison his body, but to smother understanding itself.
Kreyn lowered his hands slowly, fists tightening at his sides.
“If this place exists to keep me from knowing,” he murmured into the darkness, resolve hardening despite the fear gnawing at him, “then knowing must be the very thing they’re afraid of.”
The abyss remained silent.
But Kreyn stood there, chained, wounded, breathing steadily—refusing to surrender to the dark.
Because somewhere beyond this prison—somewhere beyond pain and forgotten memory—lay the truth.
And he would not stop searching for it.
Chapter 5. The Abyss
Kreyn sat with his back pressed against the unseen wall, knees drawn slightly toward his chest, chains pooled around him like discarded weight. The stone behind him was cold and unyielding, seeping into his spine, grounding him in the only certainty he had left—this place was real.
He closed his eyes, though it made no difference.
Darkness remained absolute.
He tried to think.
To plan.
To escape.
But every path his mind attempted to take collapsed almost immediately. How did one plan an escape from a place with no visible shape? No corners. No ceiling. No sense of distance. He could not measure space. He could not map exits. He could not even tell whether he was in a room, a pit, or something far worse.
How could he strategize when he could not see his own hands unless they brushed against something solid?
Frustration tightened his chest.
Every idea ended the same way—chains, darkness, uncertainty. Dead ends stacked upon dead ends. Thought itself felt pointless here, like trying to solve a puzzle without knowing the rules or even seeing the pieces.
His breathing slowed as another question surfaced, heavier than the rest.
How did I survive here?
The realization unsettled him.
He didn’t feel starved. Weak, yes—but not the way hunger hollowed a body. His stomach did not ache with emptiness. His throat was dry, but not parched beyond recovery. There was no desperate craving for water clawing at him.
How long have I been here?
Days? Months? Years?
Longer?
Did time even pass normally in this place?
He pressed his palm to his abdomen, fingers trembling slightly. If he were mortal—truly mortal—this should not be possible. No food. No water. No light. No movement. He should have wasted away long ago.
Unless…
Unless he didn’t need those things.
The thought sent a cold ripple through him.
Am I mortal?
The answer didn’t come easily.
If the angel—Caelum—had come here specifically to check whether he was awake… and if his awakening alone warranted execution… then this prison was not a mortal one.
The heavens were involved.
Which meant he was involved with the heavens.
“Does that mean…” he whispered hoarsely, the word echoing faintly before dying. “Am I an angel?”
He almost laughed at the absurdity.
No wings.
No light.
No power.
Nothing about him felt divine. He felt fragile. In pain. Afraid. Angels were not meant to feel like this.
Then Hell?
The idea rose unbidden.
Was he a demon?
He searched himself instinctively for something—anything—that would confirm it. Strength beyond reason. Heat beneath the skin. Rage. Hunger. Power.
There was nothing.
No unnatural force coiled inside him. No surge of dominance or wrath. Just exhaustion. Confusion. Fear.
“No…” he murmured. “That’s not it either.”
Then what was he?
The question pressed harder than the chains ever could.
He squeezed his eyes shut, mind racing, desperation building as fragments of thought began circling faster, tighter, as if something inside him were being stirred.
Remember.
The command came instinctively.
He tried.
The moment he reached inward—truly reached—pain detonated behind his eyes.
A sharp, blinding agony ripped through his skull, dropping him forward with a choked gasp. He clutched his head tightly, fingers digging into his hair as if he could physically hold his thoughts in place.
“No—no—!” he groaned.
The pain intensified, stabbing and relentless, as though his mind were rejecting the attempt entirely. His stomach lurched violently. He barely had time to turn his head before he retched, body convulsing as bile burned up his throat.
He collapsed.
His body hit the stone hard, chains clattering loudly as he rolled onto his side, curling in on himself instinctively. One arm wrapped around his head, the other pressed uselessly against his chest as he shook.
The pain did not stop.
It pulsed.
Throbbed.
Punished.
Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, though he couldn’t remember the last time he had cried before this moment. His breathing turned ragged, uneven, each inhale scraping painfully through his throat.
“Please…” he whispered, voice breaking completely now. “Stop.”
The word echoed faintly, swallowed by the darkness.
“Stop…” he begged again, clutching his head tighter as if that alone could shield him. “Isn’t this enough?”
He lay there shaking, curled against the cold stone, feeling smaller than he ever had. Chained. Blind. Forgotten. His body already suffering, his mind now turned into another instrument of torture.
“What did I do,” he sobbed softly, the question torn from somewhere deep inside. “What did I do to deserve this?”
There was no answer.
Only the darkness.
And as the pain slowly ebbed, leaving him hollow and trembling, one truth settled heavily in his chest:
This place was not just a prison for his body.
It was a prison for his memories.
And every time he tried to reach for the truth, the abyss punished him for it—ensuring that whatever he once was remained buried… even from himself.
Caelum arrived at the threshold of the prison once more.
The darkness ahead yawned open before him, familiar and suffocating, the same abyss that held the chained figure within. He hovered just outside it, wings held still, light bending softly around his form without crossing the boundary. He did not enter.
Not yet.
His mind was at war.
The conflict churned beneath his composed exterior, a silent clash between duty and something far more dangerous—thought. He could feel it pressing against him, demanding attention, demanding resolution. Every instinct screamed that this hesitation was a mistake, that lingering here only deepened the fracture already forming within him.
Why was he doing this?
Why was he torturing himself over a prisoner whose fate had already been decided long before Caelum ever set foot in this place?
He searched for an answer and found the simplest one immediately.
There was none.
There was nothing to gain.
No reward.
No recognition.
No absolution.
If anything, there was only risk.
Letting the being live—even temporarily—was already a transgression. Returning here unbidden, driven by doubt rather than command, only compounded it. If the heavens learned of this delay, of this deviation, punishment would follow. Rank did not grant immunity. It only made failure more visible.
Caelum clenched his jaw.
“This ends now,” he told himself silently.
It had to.
He should not be standing here questioning motives, unravelling commands, searching for truths that were not his to uncover. His role was not to understand—it was to execute. That was the order of things. That was how the heavens remained intact.
The prisoner was dangerous.
That was all that mattered.
A destroyer.
An anomaly.
A threat that could not be allowed to persist.
Whether the man remembered his crimes or not was irrelevant. Memory did not erase consequence. Ignorance did not absolve destruction. If this being had once possessed the power to unravel existence itself, then leaving him alive—awake—was a gamble the heavens could not afford.
And neither could Caelum.
Finish it now, he commanded himself. Do not think. Do not hesitate.
One clean strike.
One moment of mercy.
Then silence.
Afterward, he would leave. Report. Forget.
That was how it was supposed to be.
Nothing should change him.
He straightened instinctively, posture aligning into perfect symmetry once more. His wings drew back, controlled, immaculate. The faint turbulence of doubt receded under disciplined calm—or so he told himself.
He was Caelum.
One of the highest-ranking angels in existence. A bearer of judgment, not a seeker of justification. He was not meant to be swayed by confusion, nor burdened by the suffering of a single insignificant being.
This prisoner was nothing compared to the balance of realms.
A life weighed against eternity.
The equation was simple.
“Enough,” he murmured, more sharply now, as though the word itself could sever the lingering questions still clawing at his thoughts. “This ends.”
He stepped forward.
The darkness shifted in response, welcoming him back into its depths. His hand moved instinctively toward the blade at his side, fingers closing around the hilt with familiar certainty.
No more searching.
No more wondering.
No more hesitation.
He would end it here.
He would end him.
And yet—
Even as his resolve hardened, even as his body moved with practiced precision toward the inevitable, a single, treacherous thought refused to be silenced:
If nothing is meant to change you… why does it feel like something already has?
The question lingered like a fracture in crystal—small, nearly invisible, but capable of shattering everything if left unanswered.
Caelum crossed the threshold anyway.
Because whatever awaited him inside—truth or deception, monster or man—this time, he told himself, he would not falter.
This time… he would finish it.
Caelum descended into the abyss with his blade already drawn.
The weapon rested firmly in his hand, its weight familiar, reassuring—an extension of purpose sharpened into steel and will. His grip was tight, knuckles pale, fingers locked as though loosening them even slightly might invite hesitation again. He would not allow that. Not now.
He flew downward through the suffocating black, wings slicing through emptiness, his aura pressed inward, restrained—until his feet touched the unseen stone.
He landed without sound.
Then he walked.
With every step forward, his presence asserted itself. His aura unfurled just enough to push back the darkness, carving out a faint sphere of dim, celestial light. It did not banish the blackness—it disturbed it, revealing fragments of space: uneven stone beneath his feet, the faint glint of metal where chains lay coiled, shadows recoiling from his radiance.
“Kreyn,” he murmured internally, eyes scanning.
He turned slowly, methodically, blade angled downward but ready, senses sharpened. The light spread farther as he advanced—then stopped.
There.
At the edge of his illumination.
Kreyn lay on the ground.
Not standing.
Not struggling.
Collapsed.
He was curled tightly on his side, knees drawn toward his chest, chains slack and forgotten around him. His entire body trembled in violent, uneven spasms, as if seized by something invisible. One arm was wrapped around his head, fingers buried in his hair, the other pressed desperately against his temple.
His teeth were clenched so hard Caelum could hear it—an ugly, grinding sound—each breath forced through his jaw in broken, ragged groans.
“No… stop… please—” Kreyn rasped, voice shredded by pain.
Caelum froze.
His eyes widened.
This was not resistance.
This was not deception.
This was agony—raw, uncontrolled, consuming.
The blade slipped from his fingers.
It struck the stone with a sharp metallic clang, echoing loudly through the void. Caelum did not notice. His brow furrowed deeply as his gaze locked onto Kreyn, disbelief rippling through his normally impenetrable composure.
