Cradle of the Damned

Chapter One: The Body That Woke Me

Rating: R – Contains mature themes, violence, and emotional intensity.

The first thing I noticed was the absence of a tag.

No name. No date of death. No cause. Just a black body bag dumped on the edge of the cold table, zipped shut like a secret someone was too afraid to speak.

I stared at it.

Morgues don’t usually surprise me anymore. I’d been working in this grim little space since I was sixteen—after my parents’ car crash, after the money dried up, after life started tasting like the air in this room: sterile and metallic.

But this body?33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxUmcG5mpiY
It gave off heat.

Warm.

Dead bodies aren’t warm. They don’t twitch. They don’t hum like they’re barely containing something monstrous. But this one—it was humming.

Ira, stop being stupid, I told myself.

I slipped on gloves, grabbed the clipboard, and leaned closer. My breath clouded slightly, the room’s temperature dipping. The fluorescent light above flickered—once, then twice.

My hand brushed the zipper.

And the body moved.

Not much. Just the slightest jerk. Like a muscle spasm. Like a breath held too long finally being let go.

I froze.

Bodies don’t breathe.

But this one was doing something worse.

It whispered.

Right through the zipper. A low sound, rough and broken like gravel underfoot.

"Ira…?"

I yanked my hand back, the clipboard clattering to the floor. That voice—it wasn’t just inside the bag. It was inside my skull. Like it knew me. Like it had known me before.

“Please… open it.”

No.

I should’ve run. I should’ve called my boss. I should’ve screamed, quit, set the whole damn place on fire. But something inside me—some instinct buried in bone—moved my hands before my fear could.

I unzipped the bag.

The smell of blood hit first. Not the stale kind. Fresh. Metallic. Warm.

And then I saw him.

His skin was a sickly gray-blue, veins black like ink spreading through paper. Eyes shut. Chest barely rising. He looked human, almost.

Except… his ribs were glowing.

Not all of them. Just one—right over where his heart should be. A red mark burned there, pulsing like it had a heartbeat of its own.

He gasped, mouth parting, breath shallow. Like drowning air.

Then, those eyes snapped open.

Not brown. Not black. Not anything natural.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf2np81P72a
Gold.

Liquid gold, rimmed in red. Like an eclipse burning inside his skull.

I stumbled back, hit the wall, the tray of tools crashing to the floor. But he didn’t move. He only watched me—wide-eyed, broken, like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.

“You came,” he said, voice raw.

“I’m dying.”

I shook my head. “You’re not supposed to be alive.”

His lips twitched into something like a smile—pained, but real.

“I’m not alive. Not really.”

“But I remember your name.”

He reached toward me. His hand, trembling, stained with black blood, hovered in the air between us.

“Ira… cradle of the damned…”
Chapter Two: The Mark Beneath My Skin
I should have left.
Run.
Called someone.
Anything but what I did: stare into the golden eyes of the dying thing on my morgue table and breathe with him.
Because he was breathing with me.
Matching my rhythm, heartbeat to heartbeat, like something invisible had latched onto the space between us. Something ancient. Something that knew me deeper than memory.
"You're not supposed to be real," I whispered.
The man—the demon? the thing?—choked on something like laughter.
"Neither are you."
His voice was smoke and regret, low and tired. He tried to sit up but failed, groaning as his body folded back onto the table, trembling like it was falling apart cell by cell.
I took a hesitant step forward. My hand… it was shaking.
But the closer I got, the louder I heard it.
Not his voice.
His pain.
It was humming through the air. Thick. Dense. Like centuries of agony pressed into every inch of him. His veins pulsed black. The mark on his ribs flared again—this time in sync with something under my skin.
A sharp sting flared on my back.
I gasped, clutching my shoulder blade.
“What… did you do to me?!”
He opened his eyes again—gold still glowing but fading now, flickering like a dying candle.
“I didn’t choose you,” he said softly.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡis5U5dx6NE
“You were already marked… long before me.”
I ran to the mirror hanging near the corner sink. I pulled off my hoodie, twisted my neck. And there it was:
A red symbol.
Sprawled across my upper back like a blooming, burning sigil—curved lines, runes, not of any alphabet I’d ever seen.
It pulsed. With his breath.
“Why?” I asked the air, the silence, myself.
“Why me?”
“Because,” he rasped, “you are the last cradle… the only soul pure enough to hold what’s left of me.”
He coughed, blood spattering the metal. But it wasn’t red. It was pitch black. Ink. Tar. Something that didn’t belong in this world.
“You think I want this?” he said, voice rising, desperate.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCT8zaG1fiN
“You think I wanted to be cursed to need a mortal just to die properly?!”
His eyes locked onto mine. Fury. Sorrow. Something else flickering under it.
“This is not about saving me.”
“This is about containing me.”
“If I die without a vessel… the seal breaks. And I take this world with me.”
Silence.
The kind that settles right before the end of something.
I backed away slowly, heart racing.
“Then I’m your—what? Coffin?”
“No.”33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCKpIHLHAjg
His voice softened.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaFSvLvJKN7
“You’re my last prayer.”
I didn’t sleep that night.
I didn’t eat. I didn’t call anyone.
I just sat on the cold morgue floor with my hoodie wrapped around me, staring at the stranger with the demon heart who said my name like it was the only word that ever mattered.
And I didn’t know what was worse—
The fact that he might be telling the truth…
Or the fact that a part of me already believed him.

The sun was bleeding through the morgue's tiny glass window when I finally stood up.

I hadn’t slept. My back throbbed from the mark, my mind reeled from everything he’d said, and the metallic taste of panic clung to the back of my throat like old blood.

Seth had gone quiet sometime before dawn. Not dead. Just... resting. If something like him could rest. He lay there, chest rising shallowly, the cursed sigil over his ribs dimming with each breath.

I hadn’t dared touch him again.

Not after I felt that pull—the way his agony tried to bury itself under my skin. Like he wasn’t just dying. He was breaking apart inside me.

And part of me was starting to wonder if that was the point.

I threw cold water on my face in the sink, trying to find myself again in the mirror.

But all I saw were cracks.

Chapter Three: Fire Doesn’t Weep

By noon, I was locking the door of the morgue from the inside, paranoid that someone would walk in and see him.

I covered him with a sheet.

I pulled on a new hoodie. One that didn’t have blood on it.

And then I opened my journal—a habit I’d inherited from my mother. She used to write about every patient she lost. Said it helped her carry them. Helped her let go.

I wasn’t letting go of anything.

Not yet.

He knew my name before I said it. He called me the cradle. He said I was marked before he ever found me.

If that’s true… then I was never normal to begin with.

Maybe that’s why everything I touch feels like it dies.

I paused, pen shaking. Then underlined the last sentence twice.

That was when the air shifted.

The hairs on my neck rose.

Seth’s body arched under the sheet. I scrambled back, hitting the filing cabinet. A low sound built in his throat—a snarl, guttural and feral.

He was dreaming.

His hands clenched into claws. His mouth moved without sound. I took a cautious step forward, unsure if I should wake him or run.

His eyes opened.

And they weren’t gold anymore.

They were burning red.

"Get down!"

I dropped as something shattered through the window.

A flash of steel.

The crash of glass.

A man in a dark coat landed inside the morgue like a shadow dropped from the sky.

I scrambled behind the gurney, breath ragged.

The stranger stood, long coat settling around him, face obscured by the broken sunlight. In one hand, he held a curved blade. In the other—a rosary wrapped in black thread, glowing faintly with holy fire.

He didn’t look at me. Not yet. His eyes were fixed on the sheet.

"I warned them," he said quietly, to no one. "Letting a dyemon corpse go unburned. That was a mistake."

"He’s not a corpse," I said before I could stop myself.

His eyes snapped to mine.

Sharp. Cold. Brown, but empty of kindness.

"You must be Ira Dela Cruz."

That chilled me more than Seth’s whispers.

"How do you—?"

"I saw your name in the Seal. I saw your face in the smoke."

"Who the hell are you?"

He raised his blade slightly.

"The one who’s here to end this before it spreads."

Seth growled from the table. The sheet slid off him as his body twisted upright, shoulders heaving, ribs glowing faintly again.

"Too late for that, Reyes," he hissed.

The man—Reyes—stiffened.

"So you speak, dyemon. That’s unfortunate."

"You still speak like a priest. That’s pathetic."

Seth slid off the table, standing despite the tremble in his legs. He bled black again. His eyes now a flickering amber—caught between fury and fragility.

"You shouldn’t be awake," Reyes said, taking a step forward. "The seal’s incomplete."

"Because she hasn’t chosen yet."

His gaze darted to me.

"She still can."

My voice felt like ash.

"Chosen what?"

"To keep me. Or let me burn."

Reyes raised the blade.

"She doesn’t get to choose. You brought the mark to her. That makes her damned."

"No," Seth said, stepping in front of me. "That makes her mine."

The air cracked like thunder.

Reyes lunged.

I screamed.

Steel met skin—and hissed.

Seth caught the blade with his bare hand. The holy metal seared his palm, smoke rising from his skin.

He didn’t flinch.

"She’s not ready yet," he whispered. "But she will be."

Then he shoved Reyes across the room with a burst of black fire.

The exorcist crashed into the cabinet, blade clattering away.

Seth turned to me, panting, bleeding.

"Run."

I didn’t move.

"Ira, run."

But I didn’t.

Because somewhere deep in my gut, deeper than fear, something ancient was stirring.

And for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to run away.

I wanted to burn.

Chapter Four: The Blood That Remembers

Reyes was unconscious. Or dead. I couldn’t tell, and I didn’t care.

Seth collapsed against the far wall, his back sliding down until he was sitting in the glass shards, legs sprawled, chest heaving.

I knelt in front of him, hands trembling.

"You’re hurt."

"I’m always hurt."

He chuckled—barely.

"That’s the nature of carrying too many names and no body built to hold them."

"What does that even mean?"

"It means," he whispered, "that you’re the first soul in a thousand years who didn’t run from me."

His head tilted back against the wall. Sweat slicked his brow. His ribs glowed faintly beneath torn skin.

"Why me?" I asked again, softer this time. "Why do I feel like… I know you?"

His golden eyes blinked slowly. Pain dulled them, but didn’t dim them completely.

"Because you do."

"What?"

"Or a piece of you does. A splinter. A shadow. A prayer cast so long ago it forgot it was ever said."

I stared at him, chilled to the bone. "What are you saying?"

"You are not the first Ira. Not to me."

"That’s impossible."

"Nothing about this is possible. And yet here we are."

I sat back on my heels.

He leaned forward slightly. Blood dripped from his palm where the blade had seared it.

"That symbol on your back isn’t just a brand. It’s a memory. Etched in blood older than any of your gods."

"So what do I do with it?"

"You survive it."

He paused.

"Or you become it."

Silence stretched again.

"Reyes… he’s going to come back, isn’t he?"

"Yes. And next time, he won’t hesitate."

"Then we run."

He stared at me. That strange softness returned. The kind that made it hard to breathe.

"You’d run with me?"

"I don’t even know what you are."

"I’m the last piece of a forgotten war. A dying soul who was once worshiped, then hunted."

He held out his bleeding hand.

"But tonight… I’m yours. If you want me."

I didn’t take it.

But I didn’t back away.

"Get up," I said. "If we’re leaving, we better do it now."

The lights flickered.

Somewhere in the distance, I heard the sound of bells.

Not church bells.

War bells.

The hunt had begun.

Chapter Five: Saints and Sinners Burn Alike

The streets outside the morgue smelled like rust and sin.

We moved like fugitives beneath flickering streetlamps—Seth limping beside me, blood soaking through his makeshift bandage, and me with my backpack slung tight across my shoulders, pulse pounding like a war drum.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"Somewhere they won’t find us tonight."

"They will always find me, Ira. They built entire kingdoms to do it."

I ignored him. I had one place in mind.

We slipped through the broken gate of an old seminary-turned-shelter I used to volunteer at. It had been abandoned since the fire five years ago. No power. No working locks. Just cracked pews, rotting prayer books, and the echo of sermons no one believed anymore.

But it was ours for the night.

Seth collapsed into one of the back pews, head in his hands.

"This place used to echo with hymns," he murmured. "Now it's quieter than Hell."

"You'd know, huh?"

He looked up slowly, lips twitching.

"Hell doesn't echo. It remembers."

I sat beside him, arms crossed, watching the flicker of citylight bounce off the stained glass. It painted his skin in strange colors—soft blues and violent reds.

"Who was the first Ira?"

He closed his eyes. For a moment, I thought he wouldn't answer.

"She was the one who offered herself at the altar. Not to save the world. To save me."

"Romantic."

"Tragic."

He opened his eyes again. "She bore the mark, too. But she didn't survive it."

My throat tightened.

"Then why did you let it happen again?"

"Because I didn't choose you. The mark did."

He turned to me. There was something hungry in his gaze, but not in the way men look at women. It was ancient. Worshipful. Afraid.

"And part of me believes you won't die."

I scoffed, looking away.

"Don't put your faith in me. I barely know who I am anymore."

He leaned closer.

"Then let me show you."

Before I could ask what he meant, he placed two fingers gently against the base of my neck—right where the sigil touched my spine.

The world cracked.

I saw fire.

A temple carved into the mountain. Red-robed priests dragging a girl with my face to a stone slab. Her screaming. A golden-eyed god bleeding from the eyes, chained between pillars, roaring her name—my name—while the blade came down.

Then nothing.

I fell back against the pew, gasping.

"What was that?!"

"A memory. Yours. Mine. Ours. Time doesn't care."

He was sweating. Pale. Wounded not just in body but soul.

"You're dying," I whispered.

"Yes."

"And you're dragging me with you."

"Only if you run."

"What if I fight?"

He smiled. It was small. Honest.

"Then maybe this time, the cradle will become a weapon."

We didn’t sleep. We just sat there—two broken things in a broken church.

And for the first time, I didn’t feel alone.

Chapter Six: Where Ashes Do Not Sleep

Morning came with no sun.

Thick gray clouds loomed above the seminary ruins, soaking the chapel in a dull, blue gloom. I rubbed the cold from my fingers, my body aching from sleep I never took.

Seth hadn’t moved.

He sat with his head bowed, hands clasped in front of him as if praying to a god that had long since abandoned us both. The sigil on his chest no longer glowed. But I knew that didn’t mean it was gone.

"You’re quiet today," I said.

"I remember what I was," he murmured. "And what I became. It’s a hard memory to silence."

"Then speak. Maybe I’ll understand this damn curse better."

He looked up, eyes duller than yesterday but no less sharp.

"You ever wonder what a god tastes when it falls?"

"No."

"It tastes like ash. Like promises burnt down to bone."

He stood slowly, wincing as pain shot through his ribs. I reached out instinctively, but he waved me off.

"We need to move," he said. "Before Reyes returns."

I nodded.

We left the shelter and walked through alleys where the streetlamps buzzed like dying wasps, where children stared too long and shadows whispered too much.

We passed the cathedral downtown—the only building left untouched by time. Its bells had stopped ringing years ago, but today, they tolled.

"That’s not a good sign, is it?" I asked.

Seth stiffened.

"It means the Watchers are stirring."

"And they are...?"

"Judges. Of sin. Of memory. Of prophecy."

We kept walking.

I had more questions than answers, but I knew the one thing that mattered: I was tethered to him. And whatever he was fighting, I had no choice but to face it too.

We reached the apartment of someone I swore I’d never speak to again: Lani.

Old friend. Ex-friend. Occult freak turned spiritual consultant. She opened the door with eyeliner smudged, cigarette hanging from her lips.

"Ira?"

"Yeah. I need you to look at something."

Her gaze flicked to Seth.

"That’s not a someone. That’s a ticking apocalypse."

"I know."

We sat inside her cramped room filled with jars of bones, herbs, and saints with no eyes.

Seth stood like a statue while Lani examined the mark on my back.

"It’s old," she whispered. "Older than the first Bible. Older than fire. This wasn’t drawn. It was summoned."

"Summoned?"

"You’re not wearing a symbol, Ira. You’re hosting it."

She backed away.

"You need to leave. Both of you. You’re a curse."

"I’m not leaving until I know how to break it."

Lani stared at me, and for a second, I saw fear in someone who used to worship devils for fun.

"You can’t break it. You either contain it… or let it consume you."

I looked at Seth.

He already knew.

"We don’t run forever," I said.

"No," he agreed. "But when we stop—everything burns."

And somehow, deep down, I knew:

The fire had already begun.

Chapter Seven: The Watchers Wake

The sky split at midnight.

Not in the poetic sense. Not metaphor. I mean it tore open like skin, and something old and hungry began crawling through it.

We were still at Lani’s. The windows shook. Her crucifix fell from the wall. Every candle snuffed out without wind.

Seth went rigid beside me.

“They’ve come.”

“The Watchers?”

“They’ve seen you now.”

Lani backed away from us like we were radioactive. She crossed herself with shaking fingers and reached for the drawer beneath her altar.

“Ira, if you value your soul, leave him here.”

“No.”

“This isn’t just your burden anymore. They don’t come to warn. They come to judge.”

Seth grabbed my wrist—not rough, not soft. Just firm.

“We run. Now.”

The streets were screaming.

Dogs howled. Lights flickered. Car alarms blasted. And above us, the sky wept ash instead of rain.

I didn’t see them right away.

But I felt them.

When I looked up, they were standing on rooftops—three beings wrapped in robes that didn’t move with the wind. Faceless. Pale hands exposed. Eyes like hollow suns beneath their hoods.

“What the hell are they?”

“Sentences. Walking ones.”

One of the Watchers raised a hand.

And everything stopped.

My feet wouldn’t move. My heart slowed. Even the air thickened in my lungs. It was like reality was a string, and they were plucking it.

“IRA DELA CRUZ,” a voice boomed—not from the sky. From inside my bones.

“YOU BEAR THE MARK OF THE FALLEN. SPEAK: DO YOU DENY HIM?”

My voice caught.

Seth squeezed my hand.

“Don’t answer.”

“Why?”

“Because the answer will bind you. No matter what you say.”

“SPEAK.”

I lifted my chin. My voice trembled.

“I… don’t know what I am. But I won’t let you take him.”

The Watcher stepped forward—and the world broke.

Glass shattered. The pavement cracked. Time twisted.

Seth roared, his golden light bursting around us in a dome of fire. The Watcher’s hand touched the flame—and recoiled.

“She has not chosen,” another Watcher said.

“Then she must be tested.”

The dome shattered.

The street around us warped. One blink, and I was gone.

Alone.

No Seth. No city. Just white space.

And her.

She had my face. My eyes. My voice. But dressed in red robes, blood on her lips, hair matted from ash and tears.

“You let me die,” she whispered.

“Who are you?”

“The one who burned. The one who begged. The cradle before the fall.”

“I’m not you.”

“Then prove it.”

She lunged.

And I fought myself.

Clawing. Screaming. Two versions of me, one full of mercy, the other full of rage. Neither willing to let go. Blood on my fists. Fire in my mouth. Her voice in my head.

“You were never meant to survive. Only to contain.”

“I will not be a prison!”

The world flashed.

I woke on the street again.

Seth was above me, shaking me, wounded and crying out my name.

“You passed,” he breathed. “Ira… you passed the first trial.”

I couldn’t speak.

But somewhere inside me, something shifted.

The mark no longer burned.

It thrummed.

And for the first time… I didn’t feel cursed.

I felt chosen.

Chapter Eight: Dream of the First Flame

The moment I touched Seth’s hand again, I collapsed.

But I didn’t fall to the ground. I fell inward.

Darkness swallowed my senses, but not like sleep. This was a descent. A spiral staircase carved of memory and regret, winding deeper and deeper into something that was not mine—and yet somehow was.

I woke in a temple of gold and bone.

Massive braziers lit the room, but the flames were blue. They didn’t burn. They hummed.

At the altar stood a girl—me, but not me. Hair in intricate braids, a dress of crimson silk, eyes wild with grief.

"You came back too late."

"What is this place?"

"This is where gods are undone. This is where you first held the flame."

"You’re not real."

"No," she said softly. "I’m worse. I’m truth."

Behind her, the sky cracked open.

A monstrous winged figure—wreathed in shadow and crowned in thorns—descended upon the temple. The priests chanted. Chains rattled. The girl turned, arms wide, as if welcoming death.

"You called him then. And he answered."

"Seth?"

"That was never his name. Not before the fall."

The scene melted.

I stood in a field of ashes. Corpses surrounded me. A city in ruins. My hands glowed with fire I couldn’t control.

The girl—me—whispered in my ear:

"You wanted to be the cradle. But you became the pyre."

I ran.

Through halls that weren’t halls, time bending around me like silk in water. Faces screamed from stone. My past life wept in the walls. And still I ran.

Until I reached the door.

A massive slab, etched with the same sigil burned into my back. My mark. My curse. My beginning.

It swung open.

And I saw him.

Not Seth.

But the god beneath the name.

Massive. Wounded. Glorious. Light leaking from his scars like dying stars.

"You chose me," he said. "Even when they begged you not to."

"Why? Why would I do that?"

"Because you saw me. Because you loved what you were told to fear."

"And now?"

He leaned close.

"Now you must choose again."

The flame ignited in my chest.

I screamed.

I woke in Seth’s arms.

He looked terrified.

"You were gone for hours."

"It felt like minutes. Or a lifetime."

My body ached. My skin steamed. The sigil on my back pulsed like a second heart.

"You remember?" he asked.

"Not everything. But enough."

"Enough to leave? Or enough to stay?"

I met his eyes.

"Enough to fight."

Outside, the ash turned to embers.

And somewhere, deep in the veil between worlds, something screamed.

Chapter Nine: Benediction of Ash

Ira hadn’t slept.

Not really.

The dream of the First Flame didn’t fade like other dreams. It lingered—like ink in water, like soot in her lungs. Every breath she took afterward felt borrowed. Every thought was laced with echoes from a life that wasn’t supposed to exist anymore.

And yet, here it was—living inside her. Burning quietly beneath her skin.

"You saw it all," Seth whispered. He hadn’t asked, hadn’t pushed. But he knew.

They were back in the abandoned church, their temporary sanctuary. The only place left that didn’t reject him.

"I saw enough," she said. Her voice was hoarse. Hollow. But something new hid beneath it—resolve.

Seth sat across from her, the weak light of dawn crawling up his face. He looked older today. Not in years, but in weariness. In knowing.

"Do you understand what you were? What you are now?"

"The cradle. The fire. The one who gave you your name."

"You didn’t just give it," he said. "You made it."

He leaned forward.

"There were no gods before you sang one into being. You summoned me. Not because you were a priestess. Not because you were holy. But because you were angry. Because they burned your people. Because you needed a god who answered."

Her fingers curled into fists.

"And you came."

"I came because your hatred was louder than their prayers."

Silence.

The wind outside howled against broken stained glass.

"But something went wrong, didn’t it?" Ira said. "I didn’t just summon you—I unleashed you."

"You didn’t bind me in time. You were too young. Too broken. So I fell. And the Watchers came."

"And they’ve been trying to erase us ever since."

Seth nodded. "They fear what we were. And what we might be again."

Lani arrived unannounced. As usual.

She stormed into the chapel like a curse wearing fishnets and eyeliner, eyes sharp with panic.

"They’re closing in."

"Who?" Ira asked.

"The holy ones. The real ones. Whatever Watchers you saw? They were just the beginning. Now they’ve sent down the Benediction."

Seth paled.

"No. Not yet."

"What is that?" Ira demanded.

Lani tossed an old, tattered book onto the floor. The pages opened to a symbol that made Ira’s spine ache. It looked like her mark—only inverted. Sealed.

"The Benediction is a ritual. A sentence wrapped in a body. They’re sending one of their own to offer you peace… or annihilation."

"So a murder dressed as mercy," Ira muttered.

"Exactly."

Seth stood slowly, grimacing from the effort.

"If they’re sending a Benediction, that means the war’s already decided. They’re just cleaning up."

"Then we fight," Ira said.

Lani blinked. "You can’t fight that. It’s a choir in flesh."

"I’m not afraid of choirs," Ira growled.

"You should be."

But she wasn’t.

Night fell hard.

They stood together beneath the broken rose window, watching the sky for signs.

And then they heard it.

Not bells. Not chanting.

Wings.

Vast. Heavy. Like thunder wrapped in feathers.

And then he descended.

The Benediction.

A being in armor made of prayer scrolls, face veiled in threads of starlight. No eyes. No mouth. Just presence. Just purity. Just doom.

He hovered inches above the cracked tiles, glowing faintly. And when he spoke, it wasn’t a voice. It was a chorus.

"Ira Dela Cruz. The Cradle. The Flame."

"Yeah?"

"Lay down your name. Lay down the dyemon. Lay down the fire. And you shall be saved."

She stepped forward.

"I am the fire."

"Then you are already damned."

She smiled—tired, angry, holy.

"Good. Then I have nothing to lose."

Seth moved beside her.

"Together?"

She nodded.

"Always."

And they struck first.

Chapter Ten: The Fire That Devours33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxzh39HhvzG

The moment Ira and Seth launched themselves forward, the Benediction moved.

Not with speed—speed implies movement. This was teleportation by reverence. One blink and he was behind them, hand raised, sigils glowing midair. Seth barely threw up a ward before holy fire blasted toward them, carving a trench in the chapel floor.

Ira rolled behind a column, heart hammering, eyes burning. She could feel the mark on her back glowing like a brand.

“He’s not bound to space,” Seth called out. “He answers choir logic. Thought. Doctrine.”

“Then let’s rewrite his gospel,” Ira muttered, rising.

She called the flame.

It answered—not in sparks, but in shrieking heat. It burst from her hands in a twisting arc of orange and violet, colliding with the Benediction mid-incantation. For a moment, his form staggered, veil flaring like a torn banner.

"Seth! Now!"

He launched a sigil like a blade—pure gold etched in language older than time. It embedded itself in the Benediction’s shoulder, drawing a choral scream. Light bled from the wound.

“You are not saved,” the Benediction intoned. “You are the heresy made flesh.”

“Then call me scripture,” Ira spat.

The Benediction struck back.

He moved again—faster now, rage building. A wall of light erupted from his body, slamming both of them back. Ira crashed into the pews. Seth landed in a twisted pile, groaning, blood trailing from his temple.

Ira rose, flames surrounding her body like wings.

“You want surrender?” she shouted. “Then you should’ve sent someone merciful.”

She charged.

This time, she didn’t hesitate. She moved with instinct carved from past lives. The fire roared in her veins, not just around her hands but in her breath. She exhaled it like a dragon of the old world, scouring the Benediction’s veil until it tore.

Beneath it—no face. Just an abyss of light.

She staggered.

"What—"

"He is belief," Seth gasped. "Made real. We have to unmake him."

“How?”

“Withdraw faith.”

Her hands trembled.

But she understood.

She stepped forward, gaze locked on the thing that once stood for judgment.

“I revoke you.”

The Benediction’s body pulsed.

“I revoke your law, your purity, your claim over my name. I am not your cradle. I am my own goddamn flame.”

The Benediction screamed. The sound shattered the remaining windows. Light bled from his seams. Cracks appeared in his armor.

And then Seth whispered behind her—

“You gave me my name. Now take it back.”

She turned.

He knelt, offering her his hand, palm open. The sigil on his chest glowed brilliantly. And in that moment, Ira understood.

The cradle was never meant to hold the flame forever.

It was meant to free it.

She placed her hand against his.

And the world burned.

The explosion wasn’t heat. It was memory.

Light, sound, divinity—all exploded outward in a pulse that tore through the Benediction like paper in a storm. He collapsed in a burst of feathers and scripture, light unraveling into threads of silence.

And then—

Stillness.

Smoke. Ash. Silence.

Ira knelt beside Seth.

“Are you with me?”

“Always.”

He smiled. Weary. Beautiful. Eternal.

She kissed his forehead.

“Then we’re not done.”
Chapter Eleven: Cradle of the Damned33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9kBvGfXzob
The silence after a god dies is not peaceful.
It is waiting.
Smoke curled around the ruins of the chapel like dying breath. Ira sat with her back against the altar, Seth unconscious beside her. Her heartbeat was loud in her ears, and every inch of her body throbbed with the aftershock of divine energy.
But she wasn’t broken.
She was awake.
A ripple passed through the air, and suddenly she was no longer alone. The walls of the chapel stretched, cracked, and peeled into starlight. She blinked, and the world unfolded into the Sanctum of the Last Witness—a place that should not exist unless summoned by one who had crossed the threshold of mortality and memory.
The Watchers stood around her.
All seven.
Each cloaked in shadow and truth, each bearing an expression carved from sorrow and celestial judgment. Their halos burned in patterns her human eyes couldn’t understand.
"You have slain what was never meant to be touched," one intoned.
"You have named yourself flame," said another. "You carry no forgiveness."
Ira stood.
Her knees buckled. She didn’t let them.
"I didn’t ask for forgiveness. I asked for freedom."
The tallest Watcher stepped forward.
"You burned the Benediction. You broke the gospel. That makes you enemy, but also—"
"Cradle," said the final Watcher. "Again."
"What happens now?" Ira asked. Her voice echoed across eternity.
"You will be given a choice. As all who unmake gods are."
The space behind them parted.
Two paths unfolded.
One, a field of ash that led to silence. Final. Free.
The other, a staircase of flame winding upward, endlessly, into the stars.
"One leads to death," the Watchers said. "The other to rebirth—but not yours. You will become flame eternal. A weapon. A tether. A cradle to many."
Ira swallowed hard.
"And Seth?"
"His essence rests within you. He is not gone. But he cannot return unless you remain."
Her fists clenched. Her back straightened.
She thought of every moment that led her here. Of the rage. The visions. The hunger for justice, not peace.
She thought of Seth.
Not as a god. Not as a curse.
But as hers.
"Then light the stairs," she whispered. "Let me burn."
The Watchers bowed.
And she ascended.
Each step scorched her bones. But she didn’t scream. She didn’t falter.
As she reached the top, a voice echoed behind her—soft, warm, familiar.
"Ira."
She turned.
Seth stood in the stars, hand outstretched. Not golden. Not glowing.
Just him.
"You chose the flame. But it chose you, too."
"You’re not gone."
"I never will be."
They touched.
The world didn’t explode. It breathed.
And from that breath, a new one began.
Chapter Twelve: After the Fire33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkJEqP2VJSi
The stars did not vanish. They blinked—just for a moment—like the universe itself paused to take a breath.
And then, it exhaled.
Ira floated in warmth—not fire, not light, but memory. She had no body here. No hands, no voice. But she was. She remained.
She was not a girl now. She was the story, the spark, the mark on someone else’s spine in another world where fire still feared forgetting.
In the world below, the ash settled.
The Watchers were gone.
The Benediction’s remnants—if any—were lost to dust.
And in the quiet, in the place where a chapel once stood, a boy stirred.
Seth.
Human now.
No divinity burned behind his eyes. No sigils on his chest. Just breath. And grief. And something new.
"Ira..."
He touched the floor where her flame had last kissed the earth.
There, burned into stone, was her sigil. Not in pain. Not in wrath. But in purpose.
And around it, something began to grow—
Flowers of ember. Vines of memory. Things that had no place in a world this broken. And yet… they bloomed.
Elsewhere, a child was born with eyes like smoldering starlight.
In another land, a prophet dreamed of a woman on fire who wept gold.
And far beyond, in a temple no one could map, a flame flickered above an altar—never consuming, never fading.
Her name became a prayer.
But not one of submission. One of defiance. One of hope.
"You are not alone," whispered the wind through scorched trees.
"You are not forgotten," hummed the stars.
"You are the cradle. You are the flame. You are the choice."
And across the worlds, across lifetimes, when the time came for someone else to burn for what they believed in—
They would remember her.
THE END.
Thank you for walking through fire with Ira. If you carry even a spark of her, may it light a path you choose to walk—your own.

ns216.73.216.82da2

Reading Theme:

Font Size:

Line Spacing:

Paragraph Spacing:

Load the next issue automatically