thanh.nguyenhoang.1403@gmail.com
Stories
168
Chapters
1,512
Words
3.2 M
Comments
0
Reading
11 d, 4 h
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The surgical white light of the terminal screen bleaches the antechamber, casting harsh, unmoving shadows against the reinforced steel walls. The hum of the broadcast servers is a low, vibrating drone beneath my boots. I stare at the glowing digital signature at the bottom of the foundational document. PROJECT ORIGIN: THE MOURNING HOUSE. CONCEPT ARCHITECTURE AND LETHALITY ALGORITHMS SUBMITTED AND SOLD BY: R. NOCT. The air in my lungs turns to solid glass. My pulse, which had been a frantic, living…-
22.4 K • Completed
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"I have absolutely no limits on what I will do to keep you." The clone’s voice is a flawless replica of Rhys’s deep, resonant baritone, but it carries no breath. It is a mathematical output of sound, perfectly modulated, echoing off the freezing steel walls of the antechamber. The air in the room turns to solid ice. Rhys does not speak. The raw, guttural roar that tears from his throat is entirely animal. He lunges. He does not use his fists. The shadows pooling at his boots erupt,…
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22.4 K • Completed
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The shadow-scythe descends. It is mathematically perfect, a flawless arc of lethal, freezing magic aimed directly at my neck, driven by a monster that wears the face of the man I love. Ten seconds. I do not close my eyes. I refuse to look away from the horror my mother built. I push the absolute last, agonizing dregs of my soul into the shattered biometric scanner. My fresh, living blood acts as the wire, bypassing the heavy ambient dampeners of the control room. The necrotic frost hits my collarbone, a…
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22.4 K • Completed
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The First Bridal Bell Widowmere Abbey asks every bride to sign her name before it permits her to see the groom. I sign someone else’s. The quill scratches SERAPHINE VALE across the register in my own hand, but the ink belongs to my dead grandmother and the intention belongs to no one the abbey can easily consume. A small deceit, beautifully executed. The page drinks it anyway. Cold travels through my fingers. Across the reception chamber, nine women watch me from beneath veils of pearl, bone,…-
23.9 K • Completed
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The cold plaster of the darkroom wall bites into my spine, but the phantom heat spreading between my thighs is absolute, consuming, and entirely impossible. Ilyra stands three feet away from me. She has not crossed the physical distance between us. Her arms are crossed loosely over her chest, the sleeves of her threadbare linen shirt pushed up to the elbows. Her breathing is shallow. Her dark, severe eyes are locked onto mine, unblinking in the heavy gloom of the windowless studio. She does not touch me.…
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23.9 K • Completed
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The temperature in the Grand Hall drops so fast the moisture in my eyes begins to crystallize. The heavy iron bolts of the main doors have slid shut, trapping ten brides in the belly of Widowmere Abbey. On the raised dais, the veiled groom does not flinch as the freezing air bites into the room. He simply stands there, a mannequin draped in heavy black velvet, radiating an absolute, hollow wrongness. “Only the flawless may sign the marriage contract,” the house had whispered from the frost. “Strip…
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23.9 K • Completed
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The sound of a human body being pulled into a canvas is exactly like the sound of tearing wet silk. I stand rigidly in the center of the Second Room, my lungs burning as I suppress the urge to scream. The air in this gallery is suffocatingly hot, a stark, brutal contrast to the freezing Grand Hall we just survived. The walls are not stone; they are lined edge-to-edge with massive, gilded frames. Inside the frames, the oil paints are alive. They swirl and churn, depicting scenes of deep, suffocating…
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23.9 K • Completed
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The oil paint on the canvas settles into a sickening, flawless stillness. The face in the coffin is no longer mine. It is Ilyra’s. The heavy, bruised purples and bone-whites have perfectly rendered the sharp line of her jaw, the dark, severe braid, and the exact, exhausted hollows beneath her eyes. The Abbey has made its recalculation. It has tasted the violent, undeniable surrender I just yielded in the dark, and it has adjusted its target. It does not want the best bride. It wants the deepest…
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23.9 K • Completed
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Gravity abandons us. The floor beneath my boots simply ceases to exist, pulverized into dust by the violent, concussive force of the Abbey’s retaliation. I grab the heavy velvet of Seraphine’s gown and twist violently in mid-air, forcing my body beneath hers to take the brunt of the landing. We hit the stone. A blinding white flash of agony erupts behind my eyes. The impact drives the breath from my lungs and sends a sickening, audible crack through my already torn left shoulder. I bite through my…
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23.9 K • Completed
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The heavy vellum of the proxy contract lies on the freezing stone floor, glowing faintly under the sickly violet light of the Soul Gallery. I do not look at it again. I do not look at Ilyra. I turn my back on the woman bleeding on the ground, locking the iron doors of my mind shut. The Duchess of the High Court does not weep over a hired assassin. She does not mourn a transaction. I pull my velvet skirts out of the pooling shadows at Ilyra’s feet and step toward the blackened silver frame tucked into…
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23.9 K • Completed
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