Madness.
Not the wild, shrieking kind.
The quiet kind. The kind that burrows behind your eyes and wears your skin like it still belongs to you. The kind that settles in your chest, heavy and patient, waiting for silence so it can whisper. It doesn't scream—it convinces. Slowly. Softly. Until one day, you wake up and realize it's the only voice left that makes sense.
It starts the moment you understand how the world really works.
A boy's head split open like overripe fruit, his shard still glowing beside his skull as beetles crawled into his mouth. A girl in crimson robes crawling toward her mother's corpse—both halves of it twitching, steaming. Men laughing as they bled out, too far gone to notice they were holding their own guts like treasure.
This is war.
Not glory. Not legacy. Not triumph.
Just the raw, red machinery of death. Endless. Grinding. Impersonal.
War is a god. And it eats its children slowly.
And the worst part? It makes you thank it.
The battlefield before the castle had once been a forest. I think. It was hard to tell anymore—charred stumps clawed from the earth like broken hands reaching for help that never came. Trees now stood as blackened spears. The ground was mud and blood, churned into a thick stew that sucked at your boots like it wanted to keep you here.
I walked through it—what was left of me, anyway. My body ached. Every step felt like dragging iron through my veins. My hands trembled, not from fear, but from the sheer weight of it all. Blood—not all of it mine—crusted my fingers. My left arm had gone numb somewhere near the third line. I couldn't remember when. My shard floated beside my head, cold and flickering. Its light barely enough to cast a shadow. Still, it lingered. Watching me like I was the last piece of kindling in a dying fire.
All around me, the corpses of men and monsters sprawled together in grotesque intimacy. Some clutched each other. Some had been fused by fire. One soldier's face was half-melted into a demon's chest. I didn't know if they died killing each other or screaming for someone else.
Shards hovered over the dead. Some dim. Some cracked. Others still pulsing faintly, as if waiting. As if their bearers might rise again. They wouldn't.
Shards don't leave.
They don't grieve.
They wait.
I remember the first time mine found me. Not in a temple. Not in a trial. Not surrounded by chants and incense and priests.
But as I clawed through the ashes of my home, my sister's charred bones crumbling in my grip.
The sky was still burning. I was laughing. I don't know why.
Maybe because the alternative was screaming.
Maybe because some part of me thought, if I laughed hard enough, I could break reality before it broke me.
That's when the shard came. It slithered through the smoke and ash and settled beside me, its glow faint, cold, almost... shy. Like it wasn't sure I deserved it. Like it had waited a long time and was disappointed by what it found.
The priests called it a sign.
Madness, they whispered.
They weren't wrong.
The Empire sees shardbearers as sacred. Chosen. Vessels of divine will. But no one tells you how rare they are. No one tells you how little the shard cares who you were before it chose you. Farmer. Orphan. Coward. You don't earn a shard. It just... happens.
And once it does, they send you to war.
Because the Empire is always at war.
They say we fight demons. Heretics. The Corrupted. But the truth is messier. Not all our enemies come from below. Some are just people—forgotten provinces, fractured kingdoms, old allies who refused another conscription order.
And then there were the children.
Sometimes, a shard chooses one too young to lift a sword. I've seen them pulled from villages—barefoot, wide-eyed, clutching at their mothers as armored hands drag them away. The priests say it's prophecy. That the crystal whispered their names in the old tongue.
They say they're chosen. Blessed. Holy.
But they're not.
They're weapons.
No—worse.
They're offerings.
We all are.
The thought hadn't finished echoing in my skull when the world snapped back into motion.
A shriek tore through the smoke beside me.
From the carcass of a collapsed beast, something heaved itself upright—gray flesh streaked with black veins, its eyes glowing like molten coin. A priest, once. What was left of him now moved like a puppet without strings, jerking toward me with a twisted sermon bubbling from a rotted throat.
I didn't flinch.
I didn't feel.
I turned and swung my blade through his neck in a single, practiced arc. My shard pulsed—just once—like a dying heartbeat. Then silence. The priest's head hit the mud with a soft, sick thud.
I kept walking.
Another figure stumbled into view—wrapped in bloodstained robes, skin peeled raw where magic had backfired. A scout. Her lips moved around a curse, a broken spell crackling in her hand.
I drove my knife into her throat before she could speak.
As she fell, her shard floated free—still intact, still glowing with that cursed, innocent light.
I caught it in my off-hand.
And with no hesitation, I jammed it into her skull.
The moment it pierced bone, the shard shattered—its light flaring one last time before erupting in a muffled blast, tearing through the remnants of her body. I didn't stop to watch. Didn't let myself look at her face.
I didn't want to know if she was younger than me. Didn't want to know if I looked like that now.
The field stretched on. Wounded Woken crawled through muck, begging for a hand, a miracle. Some still clung to broken blades. One sat beside his own severed arm, whispering lullabies to it. Another was cradling a corpse that wasn't even human.
And me?
I walked among them like a ghost still pretending to breathe. My shard followed like a silent star, a flickering candle held over a grave.
They say madness is losing yourself.
But I think it's the opposite.
Madness is finding yourself—realizing who you really are underneath all the lies, the training, the faith. It's looking in the mirror and seeing the war etched into your face, carved into the lines around your eyes, dried into the blood under your nails.
Madness is knowing the world is broken, and still putting one foot in front of the other.
Madness is being the last sane man on a battlefield of gods and monsters and knowing it doesn't matter.
Because sanity won't save you.
And madness is the only thing that lets you survive it.
"…You smell that?" someone muttered behind me.
"Yeah," another said. "Smells like burnt teeth."
No one corrected him. We all smelled it. And worse.
The path to the inner sanctum wasn't a hallway. It was a wound. Torn open by something old, something angry, and never stitched shut. The walls pulsed. The floor cracked underfoot like it hated being touched.
The dead were everywhere. Piled in grotesque shapes. Twisted together—human, demon, something else—locked in death like dancers who'd forgotten the steps. Shards floated above them, flickering, humming softly like they were mourning.
Or mocking.
"I thought they said this place was sealed," one of them whispered.
"How the hell did anyone get through?"
"They didn't," someone else muttered. "They just didn't come back out."
The silence that followed felt like a weight. Not an absence of sound—just a waiting kind. Like the castle itself was listening.
"Hope you all wrote your last words," said the tall one who never took off his scarf, even when it soaked through with blood. I think he used to be a baker. Maybe. I only remembered because he smelled like bread once, back in the southern trenches.
"My last words are gonna be 'fuck this,'" said the woman limping beside me, her shoulder wrapped in something that used to be a banner. She smiled like someone who'd been dead a while but hadn't had time to fall over yet.
"That's not even two words," someone grunted. He kept flipping a rusted coin in his palm, like it might decide his fate for him. Or give him a way out.
None of them were shardbearers. Just men and women holding blades dull from too many swings, wearing armor patched with bone and hope.
"You ever think we're the ones being led in?" someone whispered.
We didn't answer. We didn't need to.
Ahead, the Hero stopped. Turned to face us. His shard pulsed behind his head like a second sun, shedding no warmth.
"You don't have to follow," he said. His voice was tired. Not angry. Just… tired. "But if you do—know this isn't just another battle. You've seen what's behind us. What's dying out there. What's already dead. This is what's left."
He looked at us like we were already ghosts.
"I'm not asking for bravery. Just choice."
No one moved. Not because we were brave. Because we were already here. Already past the point of decision.
The woman with the banner-turned-bandage laughed softly. "What, and miss the ending?"
The coin-flipper snorted. "I came this far. Might as well see which god dies."
The scarfed one didn't speak. Just adjusted his grip on the axe he'd carved himself.
And me?
I didn't believe in gods. Not anymore. Not in demons either.
Only in the knife in my hand and the cold thing floating beside me.
The Hero turned back around. The doors opened like they were sighing.
We followed him inside.
The throne room was still. The air here wasn't air—it was pressure. Like standing inside a scream held just behind your eyes. It was cold, not from temperature, but from the absence of anything human. Like the world forgot warmth existed.
And there he was. The Demon Lord.
He didn't rise. He didn't snarl. He just looked.
And in that moment, I realized—
This isn't a battle.
This isn't a fight.
This is a story finishing itself.
I watched the Hero walk forward into that impossible power. Into that void wearing skin. The two of them didn't speak right away. They just stared. Not like enemies.
Like old scars recognizing each other. This is madness. Not fear. Not chaos. Just the quiet, soul-deep understanding that this was never a war. It was a reunion. And a sacrifice.
And we were the offering.
The throne room wasn't quiet.
It was holding its breath.
Dust floated in the air like ash from a fire long burned out. The shattered stained glass overhead painted dying light across the corpses scattered near the columns. Their blood was dry. Old. Like they had died in another lifetime—but the fear on their faces hadn't faded.
I was there. Just a soldier. Not even supposed to be this close to the front.
But we were all too close now.
The Hero stepped forward, boots echoing against the stone. His voice rose, strong and clear—but beneath it, I could hear the strain.
"We've come through fire and ruin. Watched cities fall. Watched each other fall. But it ends now."
He drew his blade, light curling along the metal.
"No more delays. No more death. In the name of the gods, in the name of—"
A finger lifted.
Not mine. Not the Hero's.
His.
The Demon Lord.
He didn't sit on the throne.
He stood before it.
As if it didn't deserve him.
He wasn't armored. He wore no crown. His form flickered—too tall, too thin, like a stretched shadow that refused to stay still. His skin looked like something left out in the dark too long—cracked, scorched, leaking something black and slow.
His eyes weren't glowing.
They swallowed light.
"You're doing the monologue again," he said.
And then he snapped his fingers.
BOOM.
The world ruptured.
One moment, I was there. The next—there was fire. There was screaming. A pressure wave slammed into me so hard I didn't fall—I flew. My back hit stone. Or metal. Or someone else.
I couldn't hear.
My vision blurred—shaking, shaking—
When I blinked, half our squad was gone.
Just gone.
A crater carved through the earth like some god had dragged a blade across the room. Bits of armor, hair, blood. A hand—still twitching—landed near me.
My mouth opened, but no sound came out.
All I could do was shake.
The stench of cooked flesh and burnt iron punched through my skull.
And then… he spoke.
"…How's that feel?"
I looked up. My ears rang. My teeth were chattering.
The Demon Lord wasn't talking to the Hero.
He was looking at the sky.
"That should've made them happy, no? A little improv. Something unexpected. A twist to spice things up. Different than our last run."
He smiled—but his mouth was wrong. Too wide. Too many teeth, or not enough. My eyes couldn't make sense of it.
He tilted his head. A slow, lazy motion like a predator playing with its food.
"They cheer for surprises, you know," he murmured. "Not for you. Not for him. But for that."
He gestured lazily to the ruin, the blood.
"Don't you get it?"
I didn't.
I couldn't even stand. My legs wouldn't move. My hands were sticky—wet with someone's blood. Maybe mine. Maybe not.
The Hero stood there, frozen. His sword was still raised—but shaking.
"You…" he started, voice hoarse. "You interrupted the—"
The Demon Lord laughed.
Low. Deep. And wrong.
"I just took a few liberties," he said lightly. "A little rewrite. You understand. Pacing. Stakes. Catharsis."
He tasted the word.
"Catharsis." He rolled it across his tongue like meat between his teeth. "Such a lovely lie. Makes the slaughter feel... meaningful. Artistic. Forgivable."
His gaze shifted.
It landed on me.
And the distance between us ceased to matter.
He was still a dozen feet away. I knew that. But his face was suddenly right in front of mine—too close, too vivid. I saw every crevice in his skin, every fleck of darkness writhing just beneath it. I could smell him. Charcoal and rot and something sweet and sickly, like syrup poured over bones.
I couldn't move.
The shard pulsed against my chest like it was alive, frantic, as if it wanted to crawl out of me and flee. But it had no legs.
And I had no courage left.
The Demon Lord crouched.
Inches from me.
His limbs folded wrong. Not in the way a body should bend, but in the way a shadow might if it thought it was flesh.
His eyes—if that's what they were—gleamed with something ancient, like they remembered stars that died screaming. Like they fed on endings.
He smiled again, and it felt like a door opened behind my eyes.
"Tell me, little soldier," he said, voice thick and quiet, "what do you think this is?"
I couldn't answer.
Didn't need to.
He answered himself.
"A story?" he mocked. "A noble war? A stage for heroism and sacrifice?"
He leaned closer, and the air shivered around him, like glass near a flame—but colder. So cold it burned.
His voice dropped into something lower than a whisper. A vibration in the marrow.
"It's theater."
Behind him, the Hero moved. Barely. A tremble. A breath. His shard burned brighter—too bright—desperate.
The Demon Lord didn't flinch.
"They've already written your parts," he said, waving toward the Hero like dismissing a stagehand. "He gets to be brave. You—" he turned to me with that same awful smile "—you get to survive. Just enough to witness."
He straightened slowly. Bone cracked. Flesh sloughed and reknit itself in wrong ways.
"And I get to die. Gloriously. Tragically. A monster in the shape of a man. Over and over. And over."
He looked past us, to the shattered stained glass. The sky beyond. Pale and still. Unwatching.
Then, he mimicked a voice that wasn't his own:
"'Today will be the end of your chaos!'"
The Hero let out a hoarse scream. Whether rage or terror, it didn't matter anymore. He charged.
"Ah. There it is," the Demon Lord sighed. "Act Three."
Steel met shadow.
It wasn't a sound. It was a collapse—of space, of meaning, of everything that came before. The shockwave fractured the floor, split columns, shattered air. Bodies were tossed like scraps. The scarfed man hit stone and didn't rise. The banner-woman's shard exploded mid-spell, slicing her scream in half.
And still—
I watched.
Because there was nothing else left in me. Not courage. Not fear. Just... inertia.
The Hero fought like a ghost that hadn't been told he was dead. His blade burned, each arc of light throwing impossible shadows. His shard pulsed like a dying heart, and every swing dragged what little was left of him closer to the edge.
The Demon Lord?
He didn't block.
He knew.
Every strike missed by inches. Not because he was faster. But because the Hero was predictable. Because he'd read this script before. Because this was the part where the villain gives the hero hope—just enough to make the ending sting.
And then—
He stopped resisting.
The Hero raised his sword.
And the Demon Lord knelt.
Cracked. Bleeding. No longer a god—just a broken shadow, pulsing with the last embers of his cursed power. Black ichor leaked from his wounds, sizzling against the stone. His body sagged, half-melted. Yet even like this... he smiled.
Not afraid.
Not pleading.
Just watching us.
Like even now, he knew something we didn't.
The Hero stood above him. Barely.
His blade trembled in both hands. The Light Shard behind him flickered, sputtering like a candle drowning in its own wax. His armor hung in tatters. His eyes were hollow. But his will—that still stood.
Every eye left in that ruined hall watched him. We needed this. We needed it to end. We needed it to mean something.
And I—
I should've stayed still.
Should've let it happen.
But something inside me shifted.
A breath. A heartbeat. A memory of something long dead waking up.
My legs moved before I realized.
I rose.
Pain tore through me like lightning down a dry tree. My body screamed in protest. My vision blurred. Blood streamed down my face. My left arm was useless, dangling by threads of flesh and will.
But I stood.
Because someone had to.
The Hero's blade hovered—just inches from the killing arc. His lips parted. A word—maybe a prayer, maybe a curse—clung to his tongue.
And in that second—
I saw it.
He couldn't do it.
Not because he didn't want to.
Because his body had nothing left to give.
His arms were shaking. His knees folding. His sword wavered like a dying flame in a freezing wind.
And the Demon Lord?
He saw it too.
His smile twitched wider. Not joy. Not victory. Something else.
A moment longer, and he'd rise again.
A moment longer, and it would all begin again.
The war. The ritual. The chaos wrapped up in a shape they called "balance."
The script… or whatever they called it.
The one they talked about.
He talked about.
No.
I didn't think.
I moved.
But I remembered his words as I did.
"You get to survive. Just enough to witness."
I wish I hadn't.
Because that's when the hate came.
I hated that line.
I hated that it fit.
I hated how my suffering—every broken bone, every buried friend, every night I didn't sleep just in case something came back—was supposed to be part of some twisted design.
I hated him—for saying it. I hated them—for writing it. I hated the world—for letting it be true. I hated how the Hero got to break with honor. I hated how the Demon Lord got to die with meaning. I hated that even now, I was supposed to watch.
Not. This. Time.
Through blood.
Through silence thick enough to drown in.
Through that breathless void where even fate hesitated.
I struck.
One swing. No glory. No justice. Just hate.
Steel met flesh. The sound—sharp and wet, like tearing silk soaked in rain.
The Demon Lord's head snapped sideways—then severed.
He didn't scream. Didn't speak.
He just fell.
Like a tree cut at the root.
His body crumpled, twitching once. His head rolled across the cold floor, dragging a trail of darkness, until it stopped.
At my feet.
Still smiling.
And then—
Nothing.
No sound.
No cheer.
No light.
Just me.
Standing.
Shaking.
Alone.
I looked down. My sword—slick, red, still in my grip. My hand locked in place, trembling like it no longer knew how to let go.
Across from me, the Hero stared.
His sword—still raised.
Forgotten mid-swing.
Frozen in a victory that was no longer his.
His eyes—wide. Empty. Grateful. And something else.
Shock.
Because the blow that would end it all—his blow—never landed.
Mine did.
Not the chosen one.
Not the star of prophecy.
Not the name they'd carve into stone.
Just a soldier.
My armor was shattered. My body wrecked. My mind on the verge of breaking. I wasn't holy. Wasn't worthy.
But I was here.
And I was enough.
I stared at the Demon Lord's body—headless, still twitching.
And I felt… nothing at first.
No triumph. No victory. No tears.
Just a quiet, crushing release.
Like something inside me finally exhaled after holding its breath too long.
The war was over.
Not because a Hero delivered the killing blow.
But because I didn't wait.
Because when the gods looked away, when the world hesitated—I acted.
And maybe that's what a real ending is.
Not fate.
Not prophecy.
Just one broken soul too stubborn to die before it was done.
And in that stillness, as the dust began to settle, and the survivors dared to breathe again…
I let the sword fall.
The sound echoed like thunder in a tomb.
And with it—
I fell.
Not in defeat.
But because, for the first time in years…
I no longer had to stand.
Seconds later I stand up and turned slowly, unsure what I expected—cheers, maybe. Relief. Hope.
But instead, I met only silence. And eyes.
Staring.
Disbelieving.
And none more so than his.
The Hero stood there—our Hero—his sword falling from numb fingers, clanging against the stone. His chest heaved. His eyes—once so full of fire—were hollow. Cracked.
"You…"
His voice was barely a whisper.
"It should've been me."
Then came the rage.
Like a storm with nowhere to go, it surged through him all at once. His face twisted into something feral—his breath hitching, chest trembling, like he couldn't contain it.
And then—he couldn't.
He exploded.
His fist connected with my jaw in a blur, and I was on the ground before I realized he'd even moved. Pain flared across my face. My ears rang.
I tasted blood.
"The hell—?!" I gasped, staggering up, vision blurred.
But he was already there, grabbing me by the collar, slamming me against the stone pillar behind me. His eyes burned, wild with something more than fury.
Desperation.
"You RUINED IT!" he screamed. "DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE?!"
His fists slammed into me again—one, two—until I coughed blood, knees buckling.
"I was supposed to kill him! I was supposed to be the one to end it! That was the ending! That was the story!"
The surviving soldiers backed away, too stunned, too scared to intervene.
"Sir, stop—!"
"Let him go!"
But he didn't hear them. He didn't hear anything.
Because in that moment, the Hero wasn't fighting me.
He was fighting the cage he'd just realized he'd never escaped.
[Evaluating narrative integrity…]
The voice boomed through the hall, inhuman and omnipresent. The world shivered in its wake.
The Hero froze mid-blow, body trembling. His eyes widened, pupils shaking. He stumbled back like something had just ripped into his skull.
[Error Detected.]
"No…" he whispered.
He clutched his head, backing away, stumbling across the shattered stones. "Not again… NOT AGAIN—!"
He screamed, voice cracking like broken glass, raw with something ancient and wounded.
[Plot: The Demon Lord and the Fake Hero.]
The words hit harder than any sword. The room gasped—soldiers recoiling, whispering in confusion.
"Fake…? Did it say fake?"
"What the hell does that mean?"
I looked at him—the Hero. The man I had followed. The one who had led us across burning fields and through the mouths of hell.
And now, he stood there—shaking, gasping, pale. The man who once stared down armies now looked like a boy lost in the dark.
"Not again," he choked. "Not another reset… not another rewrite. I can't—I CAN'T!"
[Reader engagement: 99.9% approval for plot twist.]
The Hero froze.
Slowly, his head turned. His eyes, bloodshot and twitching, rose to the void above us.
"…They're watching," he whispered. "They're watching us."
He looked around the room, but he wasn't seeing us.
"No no no no no—this wasn't how it was supposed to go! They loved me! They used me! I WAS THE HERO!"
[Author has rejected the narrative.]
The sentence echoed through the chamber like the tolling of a funeral bell.
He dropped to his knees, mouth agape. His breath caught in his throat.
"No… not this again… not again…"
He let out a low, guttural sound—a sob mixed with a scream—and slammed his fists against the floor hard enough to crack it.
"I DID EVERYTHING RIGHT!"
The soldiers around us staggered, stunned. One of them—young, wounded—stared in horror.
"What is this…? What's happening?!"
Another whispered, shaking: "We're… we're not real, are we?"
[The story fails to meet required parameters.]
The world shuddered.
The Hero clutched his head again, shaking violently.
"They're rewriting it," he said through gritted teeth. "They're going to do it all over again. Reset everything. Just like before…"
I staggered forward, blood dripping from my mouth. "What are you talking about?"
He turned toward me—and his eyes were madness incarnate.
"I've died a thousand times in this story. I've lived every ending. I've failed. I've succeeded. And every time… every time they just reset it."
He looked up again—past the shattered ceiling, past the sky—into something beyond.
"And now they're bored of me."
His voice dropped to a whisper. "I was never the hero. I was just the protagonist. A puppet. A mask they wore until they didn't need me anymore."
[Submitting report to the Department of Stories.]
[Awaiting final approval.]
His laugh broke something in me.
It was hollow. Wrong.
"You broke the script," he said, pointing at me with trembling hands. "You were never meant to kill the Demon Lord. You were just a background extra. A piece. But you did it. And now everything's wrong."
He grinned. A horrible, tear-stained grin.
"They loved it. They LOVED IT. Your little surprise ending? The readers adored it."
[Author has rejected the protagonist. Preparing rewrite.]
"No—NO!" he screamed, clawing at the air. "I'm still here! I can fix it—I can—"
His body jerked violently.
Cracks split across his skin like porcelain. Light poured from the seams.
The soldiers around us backed away, faces pale, terrified.
And in the silence that followed, he whispered:
"You did this…"
Then—
He shattered.
No body. No scream.
Just dust and silence.
And then… nothing.
I turned—and saw it.
The void.
And from within it, something watched.
Eyes. Ancient. Cold. Endless.
The Entity.
Its gaze pinned me like a needle through flesh, and I realized: I was the last one left. The Hero was gone. The world was breaking.
And somehow… I was still here.
[You who have broken the story. Tell us your wish.]
A wish?
After everything?
Freedom? Power? Escape?
No. Not this time.
They expected me to beg for survival. To ask for a happy ending. To play the game.
But I had seen the truth. I understood now.
I wasn't going to wish for a way out.
I was going to end the story.
Not just this one.
All of them.
I said nothing.
The wish burned in my chest—silent, defiant.
[Wish acknowledged.]
And then—
Pain. White-hot. Blinding. The void screamed. I screamed.
They tried to rewrite me. Twist me. Erase me.
But I held on.
To the wish.
To me.
To the truth.
They couldn't touch it.
Because this time… I was the one holding the pen.
And as the pain finally stopped, as silence fell again—
I was still standing.
Breathless. Broken.
But free.
[A new storyline has been created.]