A fresh start. A new beginning. A reset.

  Call it what you will—it didn’t change the truth.

  I had lost everything.

  Every memory. Every thread of who I was before. Gone. Erased like dust blown from an ancient page. But strangely, it didn’t bother me. How could it? I didn’t even know what I had lost. There was no grief, no longing—only a soft, all-encompassing warmth that made me wish time would simply stop. It felt like being wrapped in a lullaby I didn’t know I remembered.

  The bed I lay on felt like a dream stitched from clouds—light, cradling, impossibly soft. A red blanket cocooned me, comforting and warm, holding me in a fragile, perfect moment. But what truly grounded me, what made me feel most real, was the subtle rise and fall beneath my cheek. The rhythmic, living movement told me something crucial:

  I wasn’t alone.

  I was resting against someone. Someone alive. Someone warm. Someone… familiar.

  I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want the moment to end. I wanted this stillness, this unknowing comfort, to stretch on forever.

  But it couldn’t.

  It never does.

  As consciousness crept in, my thoughts began to stir like reluctant machinery. The illusion of peace cracked at the edges. A faint, gnawing sense of wrongness slithered in. I was clinging to a body I didn’t recognize, in a place I didn’t know, with no idea who I even was.

  My memories were a void. Not a cloudy haze, not blurred—empty. A black ocean with no shore, no stars, no reflection.

  And somehow… I knew that wasn’t normal.

  Panic simmered beneath the surface. Just enough to unsettle the calm, not enough to override it. I opened my eyes with the hesitance of someone expecting pain and found myself staring at a wooden wall—simple, clean, and unfamiliar. I recognized it as wood, knew what it was made of, but had no idea how I knew. The knowledge was there without context. Automatic. Instinctual. Like a puzzle missing all but the corner pieces.

  That’s when I looked up.

  And saw him.

  The man—no, the being—I was clinging to was looking down at me with a soft, almost reverent smile. His eyes held a light that chased the fear from my heart. Not just kindness. Something deeper. Something that made my pulse steady and my breath catch all at once.

  “Who are… where am I… who am I?”

  The words tumbled from me like broken glass, sharp and uncertain. My hands clenched the fabric of his clothes instinctively. He was the only tether I had in a world that made no sense, and something inside me whispered that he mattered more than anything else.

  “You…” he began, hesitating as if searching for the right lie—or maybe the most merciful truth. Then his voice steadied. “You are my daughter. The person I love.”

  Daughter? The word echoed strangely in my mind, bouncing off walls that refused to let it settle.

  But his voice—so calm, so tender—sparked something inside me. A happiness so sudden and irrational it made me beam. Especially the second part. The person I love. My heart skipped. My cheeks warmed. That… that meant more than it should have. More than daughter ever could.

  I buried my face against his chest, caught somewhere between shame and longing. I didn’t understand this feeling—but I wanted it. I wanted him. His presence filled a void I hadn’t realized was there until he smiled at me.

  “And who are you?” I asked softly, not quite believing the answer he’d given.

  “I am Askatesh,” he said, as if the name itself were carved in divine stone. “The god of death.”

  A strange name, yes. But oddly elegant. And somehow, it fit him. Still, father didn’t. It didn’t sit right. I couldn’t imagine calling him that. I didn’t want to. Whatever I felt for him—it wasn’t filial. It was deeper, more tangled. More dangerous.

  “I don’t want to call you that,” I said. “Not father. Not dad.”

  A moment of quiet passed between us before I tried something different, something mine. “Askatesh… Askatesh… can I call you Aska?”

  He froze. Then, with a radiant smile, he pulled me into a gentle embrace. It was the first time he held me back. My heart soared in response. I didn’t know why, but it felt like the approval I had unknowingly craved.

  “Sure thing,” he whispered. “Can I give you a name in return?”

  I nodded eagerly, my smile blooming without restraint. A name from him. A gift. A bond.

  “Do you like Lucinda?”

  A thrill ran through me—shimmering, almost magical. The name filled the void inside me like light poured into a hollow vessel. I had no memories, no past, but that name felt like it had always been mine.

  “I love it,” I whispered, as if speaking too loudly might break the spell.

  “I knew you would,” he said with a smirk, brushing his fingers along my cheek. The touch made my skin tingle, warm and electric. He gently guided me upright, and only then did I notice more of him—the golden hair, like mine, the silk-like fabric that clung to his body, and the subtle strength beneath it. Not overwhelming, but precise. A god who did not need to flaunt his power to make it known.

  “Lucinda,” he said, savoring the word like it was the first line of a story, “are you as hungry as I am?”

  I wasn’t hungry—couldn’t be. His question struck me as odd, almost nonsensical. Hunger was a feeling I somehow knew, but not in the way mortals experienced it. I wasn’t bound by a physical body anymore. I was a soul—pure essence wrapped in thought, shaped by will. A concept like hunger shouldn't have applied to me, not really. In hindsight, after I’d come to understand more about souls, that fact became all the more obvious.

  But in that moment, wrapped in uncertainty and still clinging to the warmth of his presence, I didn’t want to contradict him outright. There was something in the way he asked it—not demanding, not even expectant—but quietly probing. So I answered softly:

  “…No?”

  His expression didn’t shift much, just a slight lift of his brow, a mild note of resignation as he gently nudged me off his lap. Then, without a word, he stood and walked toward the door. I lingered on the bed for a second, arms still half-reached toward him. I wanted to cuddle again, to stay in that comforting place just a bit longer. But clearly, he had other plans.

  And when he turned at the doorway with that subtle, silent glance—the one that said “Well?”—I knew I had to follow.

  Barefoot, I stepped out after him, the smooth wooden floor cool against my feet. A softly glowing hallway unfolded before me, made entirely of warm, polished wood that radiated quiet serenity. Lamps embedded in the walls glowed with a pale, otherworldly blue light, casting gentle shadows that danced along the grain.

  He led me into what appeared to be a kitchen, though the layout was both familiar and strange—like a place conjured from the collective memory of what a kitchen should be, rather than one built with purpose.

  I drifted over to a window, curious despite myself. Outside, the scenery was… strange. Not night, not day. A sky of endless darkness hovered above an alien landscape. In the distance, shapes moved—vague, glowing silhouettes, walking slowly across fields of stones. I didn’t know what they were. I didn’t know if I wanted to know.

  I turned back. Aska had seated himself at a table, his arms casually resting on the surface, watching me with something between amusement and interest. I got the sense he had something planned—and whatever it was, he wasn’t going to do it himself.

  “…Uhm,” I mumbled, awkwardly glancing around the kitchen.

  Surely he didn’t expect me to cook? I had been reborn mere minutes ago, and I was still figuring out how my legs worked.

  Aska seemed to enjoy the silence for a few more seconds before breaking it, his voice light but firm.

  “How should I put this… I have no talent in cooking. None. I’m a disaster in the kitchen. And since you’ll need to learn these things eventually, why not start now?”

  I could’ve given him at least a hundred reasons why this was a terrible idea. I don’t know how. I just became sentient again. You’re a god—summon food. Please. But I held back. Maybe it was his tone. Maybe it was the absurdity of the situation. Or maybe… maybe I didn’t mind doing him a favour to cuddle again.

  “So?” he prodded, raising a brow again.

  Another stretch of painful silence.

  “…I don’t know how to cook,” I admitted, crossing my arms and looking away. He knew. Of course he did.

  Before I could finish the sentence, a thud interrupted me. A thick, leather-bound book appeared out of nowhere and slammed onto the table like an exclamation mark. He slapped the cover once and pushed it toward me.

  “This bad boy can fit so many recipes in it,” he said with a grin. “Just follow the steps. You'll make something edible. Hopefully.”

  My hand twitched. For just a moment, I imagined flinging the book right at his head. But the ridiculous grin on his face—mischievous and oddly hopeful—defused the impulse. I sighed through my nose, picked up the heavy tome, and opened it to the first page.

  “Noodles,” he suggested. “Can’t mess that up.”

  I growled faintly. He clearly didn’t know me well enough yet.

  With reluctance but also a strange flutter of purpose in my chest, I got to work. Aska remained seated, watching everything I did like I was the only show in the universe. His gaze made my fingers fumble more than once. I overfilled the pot, misjudged the heat, and stirred too hard, causing a splash of water to hiss against the stove. The noodles clumped at the bottom, sticking stubbornly despite my best efforts. I panicked quietly but pressed on.

  Eventually, I served two plates of noodles—dressed only in a generous swirl of ketchup, since the recipe book didn’t demand anything more complex—and placed them on the table with more pride than I probably should’ve had.

  Aska dug in immediately.

  And stopped just as fast after a single bite.

  He didn’t speak right away, which made it worse. I sat down across from him, staring, waiting, trying to read the verdict in his face.

  Then, slowly, he set down his fork, leaned back slightly in his chair, and blinked with exaggerated solemnity.

  “Well,” he said at last, “you’ve successfully cooked noodles… that taste like regret.”

  I stared at him, mouth open in disbelief.

  “I don’t like it. It’s too salty.” His voice was flat, devoid of kindness. A verdict, not a comment.

  I blinked. Had I heard him right? I picked up my own fork and tasted the noodles. They were bland, maybe, but not salty. Not in the slightest. My brow furrowed, not just from confusion, but from something deeper—an ache blooming in my chest.

  He had to be wrong.

  But he wasn’t the kind of person you corrected.

  I had tried so hard. My hands had trembled as I stirred, my thoughts tangled with hope. It was my first attempt—my first real act of service since waking into this strange, fragmented world. I expected… not celebration, but something. A smile. A word of kindness. A nod. Anything.

  Instead, he gave me nothing but disappointment.

  But the worst part? I blamed myself.

  “I… I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice barely more than air.

  He didn’t respond immediately. Just tapped the table with his fingers—slow, deliberate, rhythmic. Each tap echoed louder than it should have, pounding into my mind like a judgment.

  I stared at the noodles. They blurred slightly as my tears built behind unblinking eyes. I didn’t dare look up. If I did, I feared everything I held back would spill out in a flood.

  “Try again.”

  His voice was low, emotionless. Not angry. Not encouraging. Just... commanding.

  Numb, I stood. Every motion felt heavy, as if the very air resisted me. I picked up both plates. I could’ve emptied them into the trash carefully—but I didn’t. I threw them in, ceramic and all, the clatter of breaking porcelain echoing through the quiet kitchen like a scream. He said nothing. Just watched.

  So I cooked again.

  I didn’t want to. I was already unraveling at the seams. But his gaze pinned me in place, his silence louder than any reprimand.

  When I finished, I set two new plates on the table. He tasted the food without ceremony, lips barely brushing the fork.

  “I don’t like this either,” he said at last. “Too little salt.”

  I didn’t respond. I didn’t even taste mine. I was too busy pressing trembling fingers to my face, trying to stem the flow of tears that had begun falling long before I’d set the pot to boil.

  I had thought I could hide it. I was wrong.

  He noticed, of course. How could he not? The tears that landed on the plate before him were more salt than seasoning.

  “Stop crying,” he said coldly. “And try again.”

  No sympathy. No softness. He didn’t ask if I was okay—because he didn’t care. Not about the food. Not about the tears. Not about me.

  But I obeyed.

  Tears continued streaming down my cheeks as I moved. They blurred the pages of the recipe book, hissed as they landed on the hot stovetop, fell into the boiling water. I didn’t even bother making a plate for myself. I set one down for him alone and waited, like a loyal servant hoping for the tiniest scrap of affection.

  He took one bite. Paused.

  “As expected,” he said. “Tears don’t do well with noodles. Try again.”

  That was it.

  Something inside me cracked—something vital and fragile and desperate that had held on for too long.

  I couldn’t take it anymore.

  Without a word, I turned and ran. Or tried to.

  I didn’t make it far.

  As I rushed past him, he reached out without even rising from his chair. His hand clamped down on my wrist with the ease of a puppeteer plucking a string, and I was yanked off-balance, stumbling straight into his grip.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, voice still calm—but no longer gentle. There was something in his tone that sent ice slithering down my spine.

  The warmth that had once wrapped around his presence was gone. In its place stood something colder, sharper. Cruel, even.

  I struggled, but he held me fast. His grip was iron beneath skin, immovable and unforgiving. I squirmed, twisting, gasping, but he only pulled me closer, until there was no space between us—until I could feel the low thrum of power beneath his stillness.

  “Calm down.”

  It wasn’t a request.

  It was an order.

  And I understood, in that moment, that this was the truth behind his love—the shape of affection in a world ruled by gods.

  Cold. Demanding. Conditional.

  And I was already breaking beneath it.

  “Please, Aska!” My voice cracked, thick with panic and grief. I thrashed beneath him, tears already streaking down my face, smearing the heat and shame of what was happening.

  His weight bore down on me like a boulder, unyielding and oppressive. The more I struggled, the tighter his grip became, as though resistance only fueled his determination to break me. I clawed at his arms, dug my nails into his flesh, tried to twist away—anything—but it was futile. After a full minute of writhing, kicking, and silent pleading, I realized the truth: I couldn't escape.

  And worst of all—he knew that too.

  “Lucinda, you need to learn this.” His voice had softened, adopting a calm, almost paternal cadence that confused me further. The steel was still there—coiled, waiting—but cloaked now in silk.

  The sudden change disoriented me. Maybe I had imagined the harshness. Maybe I was being too emotional. Too sensitive. Maybe he was right.

  “How about you try two more times,” he offered, gently brushing a lock of hair from my damp cheek, “and then we can go back to bed?”

  “Really?” My voice was small, disbelieving. It seemed too generous, too unexpected—but in my desperation, I clung to it like a lifeline. I nodded hastily, eager to please, and only then did he finally release me.

  I pulled myself up off the floor, shaky and sore, wiping at my tears with trembling fingers. He stood and watched with distant amusement, offering no hand to help. Just silence—and the cold expectation that I would obey.

  “Only if you give your best,” he added.

  And I did.

  I gave everything I had left, which wasn’t much. Twice I cooked again. Twice he sat, watched, judged. And twice, he found fault. One too salty. One too bland. But this time, he kept his promise. He didn’t force me to try a third time. I had tried—and that seemed to satisfy him.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  That was enough.

  So when I finally collapsed into the bed again, I melted into his arms like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t shoved me down. Like he hadn’t ignored my tears or reduced my efforts to failures.

  I hated every moment in that kitchen. Every second of feeling small and inadequate. But here, in his embrace, I told myself it didn’t matter. Surely, he had his reasons. Surely, there was wisdom in his cruelty. And with that lie nestled tight around my heart, I drifted toward sleep, clinging to the illusion of warmth.

  But he wouldn’t even let me have that.

  “I have a proposal,” he said, voice slicing through the comfort like a knife. “Let’s split the day in half. You decide what we do for one half, and I get the other.”

  I tensed immediately. There it was again—his endless mission to pull me from bed, to shape me, mold me, control me. Half a day of comfort was tempting, yes. But the cost? The other half. A half-day of whatever he pleased. And I already knew what that could entail.

  “Only if you stop being so mean,” I said quietly, barely above a whisper. I didn’t want much—just no more pushing. No more trapping me beneath him like a helpless doll. No more proving that I couldn’t resist if he really didn’t want me to. That humiliation was too sharp, too fresh.

  “If you don’t behave like a spoiled brat.”

  His words hit harder than they should’ve. A brat? I wasn’t even a day old. I didn’t even know what I was yet. Still, I nodded slowly, afraid of what saying no might mean. I was tired. I was confused. And worst of all—I trusted him.

  If only I had known.

  The last thing I remembered before sleep reclaimed me was his body shifting slightly beneath mine, the steady rise and fall of his breathing. I let the warmth wrap around me again, na?ve and hopeful that maybe this time, he’d let me rest.

  But he didn’t.

  I awoke to agony.

  Water. Everywhere. Rushing into my lungs in a torrent. My mouth opened in reflex to scream, and that only made it worse. I coughed, gagged—but it wasn’t air I inhaled. It was cold, black water that tore through my throat like glass.

  My eyes flew open.

  Pitch darkness.

  I was underwater. I could feel the strange pressure against my skin, the cold wrapping itself around me like chains. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. My limbs were stiff, paralyzed, either by some power or by the shock.

  I didn’t know how I got there.

  I didn’t know why.

  All I knew was that I was dying—again.

  Panic clawed at me. I thrashed, but it was sluggish, dreamlike. The surface—if it even existed—never came closer. I couldn't even scream. My mind shrieked in terror while my body succumbed, second by agonizing second.

  And still, I fought. Not because I believed I’d survive. But because I didn’t want to give him this. I wouldn’t die quietly.

  I fought until my body failed. Not from drowning—but from exhaustion. The energy just drained away. My vision flickered. My thoughts unraveled. And as the dark wrapped its arms around me once more, I wondered—

  Was this another lesson?

  Or was this just the beginning?

  My view on everything changed.

  Not gradually, but violently—in the crushing silence of the deep, where even screams are swallowed. In those minutes underwater, I learned what helplessness truly meant. Aska—harsh as he was—seemed tame in comparison. At least I could speak to him. Argue, beg, cry, even plead for affection, and sometimes I would receive scraps of warmth.

  But that thing—that water—there was no conversation, no reason, no face. Just suffocating void. That kind of terror redefined pain for me. The pressure, the cold, the silence—it stripped me of more than breath. It tore into my very soul.

  “Aska, I’m scared! I don’t want to go there again!” I sobbed the moment I jolted upright in bed, coughing instinctively. But there was no water in my lungs—just phantom memories. Still, the panic remained, fresh and bitter in my throat. I reached out for him like a child reaching for a parent after a nightmare.

  He didn’t reach back.

  He just looked at me—thoughtfully, distantly—and then said in that emotionless cadence of his:

  “Lucinda, this is the world you belong to.”

  What?

  I didn’t understand. Couldn’t understand. That nightmare world of drowning wasn’t mine—it couldn’t be. I was supposed to be with him. In this house. In this bed. Not in that abyss.

  I wiped my tears, hoping for reassurance, but when I met his eyes again, I saw nothing soft in them. Only disappointment.

  “You need to deal with it on your own,” he said. “I cannot help you.”

  He broke my heart, completely and irreparably. And this time, I felt it. It wasn’t a metaphor. It was a rupture—somewhere between trust and devotion. I had already started forgiving what he did before—his coldness, his pressure, the strange lessons wrapped in cruelty. But this?

  Abandonment.

  I was no longer sure where I stood in his life. Or even if I belonged.

  “Aska, I need help…” My voice cracked with desperation as I reached for him again, only for the world to tilt with a sudden sting—his hand across my cheek.

  The slap wasn’t just pain. It was rejection, sharp and absolute. The look on his face twisted into something I hadn’t seen before—something close to disgust. As if touching me repulsed him.

  I buried my face into the pillow. I didn’t want him to see me cry anymore. I couldn’t bear it. I didn’t understand any of it. I had only just been born—why was I already being punished like this?

  Why did the man I loved—my father, my anchor—treat me like something broken?

  “Stop crying and begging, you spoiled brat,” he snapped. “If you do that, you might have a chance to escape the fate of drowning again and again.”

  It was cruel. Inhuman. But strangely… hopeful.

  Because if I could escape the drowning—if there was something I could do to stop it—then maybe it was worth enduring him. Maybe all of this pain had purpose. I needed to believe that. I had to.

  And so, I swallowed my sobs, numbed myself, and stared blankly into the sheets. The moment my tears stopped, his mood improved like someone flipping a switch. It made me sick, but it also made me feel seen—for just a second.

  That day, I made a vow: I would do as he wished. No matter what. If obedience meant fewer nights of drowning, then so be it. I would suffer through anything to avoid that suffocating, silent hell again.

  And suffer I did.

  Each day started the same. He woke me. I cooked.

  When the dish was good, he let me do it again. When it wasn’t, he’d throw it—bowl, plate, food, everything—straight at me. The sound of porcelain shattering became normal. The sting of boiling broth on my skin? Familiar. And all of it was without a flicker of concern in his gaze.

  I cooked two, sometimes three meals at once. He tasted none of them. Just watched. Judged. Found fault.

  Over and over, I served him my pain disguised as meals.

  He never said thank you. He never smiled. He never hugged me after.

  And still, I kept cooking.

  Because somewhere, beneath all the punishment and silence, I believed: if I endured enough, he would change.

  But he never did.

  After twelve relentless hours of labor each day, something would shift—like a switch flipping in the dark. Everything would suddenly be fine again. Or, rather, a brittle illusion of “fine” would settle over the room like a quiet fog. The man who barked orders and shattered my will during daylight softened into someone almost unrecognizable.

  At night, Aska became gentle. Silent. He didn’t flinch when I clung to him in sleep, curled up like a wounded animal desperate for warmth. When I couldn’t fall asleep—too agitated, too sore, too bruised in places no one could see—he tolerated my restless movements without a single word of irritation. Sometimes, when the experience of drownig reached me again and left me trembling, he would murmur small reassurances or stroke my back in strange, distant patterns. But only if I didn’t cry.

  Crying was forbidden. Crying was weakness.

  If I broke down, if a single tear slipped past my lashes, he would react with cold efficiency—either silencing me with a terrifying calm or ignoring me altogether, letting my sobs dissolve into the thick silence until I stopped out of pure shame. He never struck me for crying, not like when I disobeyed—but the punishment was worse in its indifference.

  Eventually, I trained myself not to cry. Not in front of him. I buried tantrums like corpses in my chest. Complaints dried on my tongue before they could form. The bars of my prison weren’t made of iron—they were forged from his expectations, and my willingness to meet them.

  He was always watching me. Even when he didn’t speak, I felt his gaze—measured, clinical, sharp as a scalpel. In the beginning, I convinced myself it was concern. Perhaps he feared I would break entirely from all the drowning every night. But that hope faded quickly. This wasn’t protection. It was surveillance.

  Within days, the critiques began.

  "Don't walk like a gorilla."

  "Keep your back straight."

  "Don't slam the drawers—use your fingers like a civilized person."

  "Hold the ladle correctly. Are you a fine woman or a beast?"

  He dissected everything—how I moved, how I spoke, how I existed. My very presence was reshaped under his constant correction. And because I craved his approval—because I feared his silence—I obeyed.

  He didn’t teach me to grow. He pruned me like a vine, forcing me to bend into shapes that suited him.

  A month passed. The clumsy girl who had fumbled with a frying pan was gone. In her place stood a version of me that knew how to glide across the floor without sound, how to plate a meal like a servant at a royal court, how to anticipate the twist of his mouth that meant I had done something wrong.

  He began eating a fraction of what I prepared. Just a quarter, maybe less. But in his world, that was the closest thing to praise. So I dared to speak during dinner one evening, when we sat at the table together in eerie stillness, the only sound the soft tapping of utensils.

  “Aska,” I asked, voice low but clear, “why am I learning to cook?”

  I had earned that question. My meals were no longer failures. In my mind, I had proven myself.

  “You need to learn how to live as a human,” he said without looking up.

  Of course. The same vague mantra he always used. Survival. Adaptability. Skills. But I didn’t understand why excellence was necessary—why perfection was demanded.

  “Do humans always cook this much?” I asked. “Like… this obsessively?”

  It made no sense. Surely normal people didn’t do this day after day until their fingers ached. Didn’t they run out of ingredients? Or did they conjure supplies out of thin air like he did?

  “No.”

  The answer was short. Dismissive.

  I tilted my head, puzzled. His expression twitched—barely, but enough for me to notice. He didn't like that gesture. It made him uneasy, or perhaps it reminded him I still had small sparks of independence.

  Strangely, that only encouraged me. From that point forward, I tilted my head more often. Maybe it was my last act of resistance. Or maybe it was instinct—something buried deep, trying to breathe.

  “Then w—” I began.

  His eyes narrowed.

  I froze. That look always preceded punishment.

  “Because I want to eat good food,” he said sharply. “Stop asking stupid questions.”

  It wasn’t the answer I expected. It was personal. Petty. Utterly self-centered.

  And yet… it told me more about him than all his lectures combined.

  He didn’t teach me to survive. He taught me to serve.

  That day, I realized just how twisted his logic was. I could spend my life perfecting sauces and soufflés, but it wouldn’t save me from the water. It wouldn’t keep the darkness from swallowing me whole.

  “…And why do I need to live like a human?” I asked softly. “I am human, so shouldn’t—”

  The table flipped.

  Without warning, it crashed sideways. Plates shattered on the floor, food smeared across the walls, shards flying like glass teeth. And still, he sat—unmoving—save for the knife now pointed directly at me.

  He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t rise from his chair.

  But his eyes burned with such unspoken violence that I thought I would melt under them.

  “Finish that sentence,” he said, “and I’ll make sure you regret it.”

  There was no compassion in him then. No warmth. Only cold control and a bottomless expectation that I would fold, and yield, and thank him for the privilege.

  And I did.

  At least, on the outside.

  Inside, something began to stir. Something tired of being obedient.

  Despite the shattered crockery and his looming figure, I still held a knife and fork—ridiculously piercing a piece of pancake hovering in the air and was tempted to eat it. For a long second, I stared at him, bracing for his fury to explode again. I expected shouting, another strike, maybe even the blade in his hand to fly across the room and embed itself near my head. But none of that came.

  Instead, he exhaled. A long, low breath. Then, almost with disgust, he flung his knife to the floor. It clattered once and went still.

  “You aren’t human,” he said flatly. “You’re a vampire. Sort of. Not fully. Yet.”

  The words hung in the air like smoke, and I sat there frozen, fork halfway to my mouth. My first reaction wasn’t horror—it was confusion. What the hell was he talking about now? But his voice was serious, steady. For once, it wasn’t a performance.

  “You drink blood to survive. Human blood,” he continued, like it was the most ordinary thing in the world. “But you’re different. You can also eat food, drink water, mimic a normal life. There are… limitations, though.”

  His eyes narrowed as he said that last part, but he didn’t elaborate. Of course not. Why offer clarity when riddles could keep me docile?

  I shouldn’t have listened so closely. Somewhere between the shock and the murmured explanation, a piece of pancake slid off my fork and fell to the ground. A stupid detail, but I remember watching it fall like it was the last edible thing on Earth. A waste—just like the rest he had thrown earlier in his tantrum. I’d hoped to save that last piece for later, rationing joy like a prisoner hoards sugar cubes. Just like him, I was beginning to turn into a glutton. Or maybe I’d always been that way.

  Bored with his cryptic monologue, which he clearly had no intention of finishing, I got up and started gathering the shards of porcelain from the floor, brushing them into my palm with care. My silence was practical. I was tired. Tired of anger, tired of confusion, tired of waiting for sense in a place that punished it.

  But even my silence was an error.

  The next day, he assigned me a new task: clean the entire house. It was a pointless order—he could’ve done it all with a flick of his fingers. Yet that wasn’t the point. It never was. It was never about necessity, only obedience. Efficiency wasn’t the goal. Submission was.

  And so, it continued. Day and night split into two separate hells—one filled with the noise of broken dishes and veiled commands, and the other with the soft murmur of forced gentleness that felt more alien than any slap.

  The abuse didn’t disappear. It simply... refined itself. He struck less, but spoke sharper. The physical pain numbed, but the psychological ones twisted deeper, especially as I became more successful at molding myself into the image he had carved out for me. I cooked. I cleaned. I folded laundry and watered plants. With each new task, my identity chipped away and something grotesquely polished replaced it.

  He was training me—not to be a survivor, not even a servant. A housewife. A perfect, subservient, antiquated vision of femininity wrapped in lace and submission. And disturbingly, he succeeded.

  But everything shifted on my first birthday.

  It wasn’t a celebration. There were no candles, no songs. Just a single gift. A fish.

  A goldfish, to be exact. Orange and shimmering with eerie vitality. I was told I could name it, care for it, do whatever I pleased. It was mine. My responsibility. My freedom, confined to a glass bowl.

  I named him Cosmo. He looked at me with the wide, blank stare of a creature that forgot its thoughts three seconds after forming them. He did very little but swim and blink, but still, I loved him. Fiercely. Irrationally. He was change. A small, quiet rupture in the static nightmare I had come to accept.

  And I clung to that rupture like a drowning girl to driftwood.

  Then, something even more miraculous happened.

  Aska left.

  He told me it was for “a few days.” No explanation. No itinerary. I didn’t ask. I never asked. Questions were currency I no longer carried—each one threatened a slap or worse.

  But once he was gone, the silence felt different.

  It wasn’t oppressive. It was liberating.

  Of course, the house was still locked. Doors bolted. Windows sealed shut. There was no escape to the outside world. But inside? I was free.

  First, I walked to the front door, more out of ritual than hope. Still locked. Of course. Then I wandered—testing the edges of my cage.

  I opened the broom closet I had been forbidden to enter. It was just a closet, filled with dust and half-broken tools. But it felt like a conquest.

  I tried the second forbidden door. Locked.

  No matter. There was still rebellion to be had.

  I jumped on the bed relentlessly, laughing under my breath. I ran down the hallway barefoot, flailing my arms like a lunatic. I cleaned the rooms at lightning speed for no reason other than to see if I could beat his unspoken standards.

  It was stupid. Pointless. Childish.

  And it was glorious.

  For a handful of hours, I was alive in a way I hadn’t been in months. Not Aska’s porcelain doll. Not his apprentice. Not his experiment.

  Just a girl. With a fish. In a locked house. Breaking rules for no reason but the sheer joy of remembering what not being afraid felt like.

  It wouldn’t last, I knew that.

  But in those brief days of solitude, with Cosmo staring at me like I was the most fascinating being in the universe, I began to imagine a life that didn’t revolve around obeying a man who thought himself god.

  And maybe—just maybe—that was the start of something dangerous.

  Something Aska could no longer control.

  There truly wasn’t much to do in that house—no real distractions, no outside noise, no variety. Just the same walls, the same chores, the same silence. But for a while, Cosmo helped fill the void. The little goldfish, with his orange shimmer and endlessly forgetful eyes, gave me something to watch. Something alive.

  The way he opened and closed his mouth in mechanical rhythm, as if miming some ancient, forgotten prayer—it was... captivating in its stupidity. I used to sit for hours, peering into his bowl, taunting him softly. Whispering nonsense. Mocking him. He never reacted. He never learned. He just blinked and bobbed and opened that ridiculous little mouth over and over again. How could a creature be that dumb? So dumb that it didn’t even understand it was being ridiculed?

  I played with him for three days straight, watching his every movement like a bored god hovering over a pointless world. But soon, I grew weary. I’d seen every possible thing he could do: swimming in loops, tapping against the glass, puffing slightly when startled. His little repertoire was pitiful and far too limited to entertain me for long.

  I didn’t understand why Aska had given him to me. A test? A gift? A joke? Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. I understood something far clearer: Cosmo had no value. Not as a companion. Not as entertainment. He was simply... useless. Just a shimmering ornament that could do nothing but exist in the most unimpressive way possible.

  I crouched beside his bowl, tapping the glass.

  “What to do with you…?”

  There was no malice in my voice. Only curiosity. Cold and clean.

  A new idea bloomed in my mind—simple, elegant. If Cosmo was boring in this environment, then maybe a change of scenery would help.

  “Oh no, Cosmo,” I cooed mockingly. “You need fresh air, don’t you? I’ll save you from drowning…”

  Without hesitation, I lifted the bowl and tipped it over, letting its contents splash violently across the floor. Cosmo flopped into his new world, gasping silently, flailing in panic on the tiles.

  I knelt beside him, hands on my knees, fascinated.

  He moved differently now—more frantically, with desperation, with purpose. He fought. Not very effectively, but still. For the first time, Cosmo was showing me something new. His suffering brought a clarity I hadn’t known I’d missed.

  Aska had taught me about fish before. How they needed water to breathe. How quickly they would die without it. I knew exactly what was happening. And I watched, enthralled, as Cosmo’s spasms slowed… and slowed… until he barely twitched at all.

  His mouth kept opening and closing for a while—slower now. More like a death rattle than a breath. Then even that stopped.

  I smiled. Wide. Honest.

  I’d never seen that side of him before.

  With my finger, I gave his limp little body a gentle poke. He didn’t react. Another poke. Nothing. Finally, something interesting. Something final. A moment of transformation—not for Cosmo, but for me.

  “Haa… That felt strangely good…” I murmured to no one.

  Of course, the mess had to be cleaned up. Life was full of rules, after all. And so Cosmo disappeared into the trash can, and I fetched Mr. Mopp to soak up the puddle of water like it had never been there. It felt good, too—removing the evidence. Restoring order. Like nothing had happened.

  Three days later, Aska returned.

  He barely stepped through the door before his sharp eyes scanned the room. “Where’s Cosmo?”

  I had prepared. Of course I had. I’d replayed the conversation in my head at least fifty times, each version more dramatic than the last.

  “Cosmo… he… he died.” I forced my voice to waver slightly. Just enough. Not too much. The trick was not to overdo it. I wrung the hem of my black dress in my hands and even mustered a blink too slow, like someone suppressing a tear. In truth, I didn’t feel the slightest sadness. Not for Cosmo. Not for lying.

  Aska tilted his head, watching me like a scientist would a specimen. I couldn’t tell what he saw.

  “That’s terrible,” he said after a beat. “How did he die?”

  I swallowed, trying to sound like a grieving child and not a murderer. “He… had a heart attack.”

  Even as I said it, I could hear how absurd it sounded. A heart attack? For a goldfish? But I stayed perfectly still and let the silence hang.

  His eyes narrowed slightly. I held my breath. But then—

  “I’m so sorry, Lucinda,” he said softly. “I can gift you a new one, if you want.”

  Victory. He believed me. Or at least, he pretended to.

  Did I want a new fish? No. One was enough. I’d seen what that species had to offer. “Can I have another pet?” I asked instead.

  And he said yes.

  The next day, while I was stirring a pot of soup, a new creature was introduced into the house: a guinea pig. Small. Round. Fuzzy. It blinked up at me with wide, trusting eyes and nibbled at the straw in its cage.

  I didn′t name him at all as I knew I wouldn′t keep it for too long.

  He was cute—initially. He squeaked when I passed by, and his nose twitched as he begged for food. I fed him. Sometimes too much, just to see how much he could take. He grew fat fast. Rolled around like a little bread loaf with legs.

  But within a few weeks, I was bored again.

  This one was harder to kill, and Aska was almost always nearby now. Watching. Judging. Silently assessing my every move.

  So I took a different approach.

  I stopped feeding him.

  Slowly. Strategically.

  A diet of thin air and cruel patience.

  He squeaked more now. Louder. Fainter. Each time he saw me, he lit up with hope. And each time, I walked by with empty hands. It was fascinating—how long it took him to understand that no help was coming.

  Eventually, he grew weak. His steps slowed. His eyes dulled. And then, one evening, as we were sitting at the table and Aska was chewing absently on the bread I had baked that morning, the guinea pig collapsed.

  Right in front of us.

  It looked at me—one final, pleading glance—and then it simply stopped.

  I smiled.

  Not wildly. Not with triumph. Just a soft curve of the lips. Grateful, perhaps, that the little creature had given me something to feel again, even if it was only fleeting satisfaction.

  Aska didn’t react. He didn’t even glance at the dead thing. He tore off another piece of bread and kept chewing, his face blank.

  I reached down, poked the guinea pig, and lifted him gently. He was light. Limp. Still warm.

  “He’s dead.”

  Aska’s eyes flicked toward the lifeless body, but his expression betrayed nothing. He merely shrugged, a faint motion devoid of sympathy or surprise—as if death itself were just another trivial occurrence in this twisted existence. There was no condolence, no tender words. Only cold detachment.

  It wasn’t until after I had disposed of the animal’s carcass in the trash can that he finally spoke again.

  “Cause of death?”

  His voice was calm, almost clinical, but carried an unspoken accusation. He didn’t bother masking the truth anymore—I was the culprit. Yet, I still didn’t grasp the full extent of his understanding. I was too naive, still caught in the fog of my own innocence, blinded by his careful fa?ade.

  “Uhm… cancer?” I stammered, the lie tasting sour on my tongue but necessary. “Can I have another animal next?”

  Aska nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing for a fraction of a second before they softened again, as if granting permission for the next cycle to begin. We fell back into the routine, seamlessly slipping into the cold rhythm we had developed.

  And so it continued.

  Drowning—that was Mobby, a small lizard. Limp and gasping in its final moments underwater.

  A broken neck from a fall that was too high—Dumbo, the bird, flailed once and was done.

  Lack of oxygen—Neil, the hamster, curled into a helpless ball.

  High blood loss—Dracula, the dog, a noble name for such a tragic end.

  The list stretched endlessly, a grim ledger of innocent lives extinguished under my hands. Over a year passed, and still, I killed them all, one after another. I didn’t care anymore that Aska must have pieced it together; the truth hovered between us like a dark cloud. When I murdered the last pet, a snake nearly a meter long, I did it with an eerie smile, right in front of him and continued to put some of the remains in a frying pan.

  The moment was strangely triumphant.

  I finally understood why no pet lasted long in my care. It wasn’t simply because they bored me—though that was part of it. No, the deeper reason was far more twisted: I craved the sight of suffering. I wanted to watch pain unfold, to feel its sting, because suffering was what I knew best. It was the dark thread woven into every day of my existence.

  Aska’s voice broke the silence then, low and close.

  “Have you finally realised?”

  His hands settled firmly on my shoulders, grounding me in that moment. He leaned in, whispering so close to my ear that I could feel the heat of his breath. My chest tightened—not with fear, but with a strange, tangled affection. Love. Twisted, fragile, and unsteady, but love nonetheless. Yet beneath it, a flicker of worry stirred.

  “Will I ever get boring?”

  His question was both a challenge and a promise. With every pet’s demise, he was forcing me to confront two brutal truths. First, that I was a sadist in the making—a person who found a grim satisfaction in the death of others. And second, that I was his possession, his creature to shape, at least for now.

  “Never.”

  He kissed my cheek lightly, then released me. I sank down, cheeks burning with a rush of conflicted emotion, heart fluttering unevenly as I stared at the bloody remains of the snake sprawled before me. Aska settled back onto the sofa, watching, overseeing me like a master surveying his handiwork.

  I was so lost in my own swirling feelings that I almost didn’t hear him speak again.

  “I think you’re ready to learn something else. Tomorrow… we change up your day.”