A Luna for Alpha Kieran-Chapter 280: Belonged to us

[Raven’s Coven - Continued ]

Selene’s knees buckled first.

Her body collapsed, boneless, crashing to the cold stone floor. Her palms slapped uselessly against it, scraping her skin raw.

Her eyes stayed locked upward...on the woman... bathed in this new light... . In this impossible reality.

Her lips trembled. Her throat burned as the words clawed their way out.

"You..." her finger shook, stabbing the air as if it might cut reality into something that made sense. "...you are... Kieran’s mother?!"

Her voice cracked. A laugh tried to burst out, but it was broken, hysterical, strangled with disbelief.

Selene’s head whipped side to side, her hair lashing against her sweaty cheeks. "No... fuck, no... how... how is that even possible?" She choked on the next words, coughing, swallowing like the truth itself was poisoning her throat. "Why would you want to harm your own fucking son?!"

The Most High only stood there smirking.

Her silence pressed heavier than a scream.

And then suddenly the spotlight vanished.

Pitch blackness swallowed the chamber whole.

Selene gasped. The floor beneath her quivered... groaned... then gave way with a violent crack.

The ground collapsed... literally.

It shattered like glass breaking under the weight of a storm, plunging her downwards.

Like a lift gone rogue, plunging without any string.

Selene screamed.

The sound tore out of her throat raw, echoing, splintering, as she scrambled to hold onto something. Her nails clawed against jagged stone, breaking, splitting, peeling until blood smeared across her hands.

"NO...HELP!!STOP THIS..." Her shriek ricocheted off the walls as her body plummeted, hair whipping, limbs flailing.

Her stomach heaved like her insides were being ripped from her body. Every second of the descent stretched into eternity.

But the Most High...She didn’t fall.

No. She floated.

Her body glided down through the void, her robes billowing as though water cradled her. Serene. Cruel. Mocking without even speaking.

Ascertaining her authority.

Selene’s throat shredded with another scream as the air roared past her ears, burning. Her body jerked violently as the abyss swallowed them whole.

Then... as suddenly the fall stopped.

The ground slammed into her back with a thunderous jolt.

The impact punched the air from her lungs. She flew sideways, flung like a ragdoll, her body skidding across rough stone. Sparks of pain flared where her skin tore, leaving a streak of blood in her wake.

Her body finally crumpled against the cavern wall.

Silence.

Her chest heaved violently, wheezing. Every breath was a battle. Her hands shook as she pressed them to the floor, trying to push herself up.

Her eyes darted around...Darkness.

Endless, suffocating.

The cavern swallowed light itself, shadows curling in every corner like snakes waiting to strike. Way darker than Selene’s own sanctuaries.

The air smelled damp... ancient... laced with something oxidative that burned her nostrils.

Her voice shook as she rasped into the void. "Wh...what the fuck is this place?"

A soft hiss stirred the air.

The Most High’s silhouette drifted down, landing gracefully upon the cavern floor, her feet untouched by dust, by dirt, by anything mortal so as to speak.

Her voice rippled, sharp, slicing through the cavern.

"Why would I harm my son?Isn’t that what you asked? "

Selene’s breath stuttered.

The figure leaned closer, her eyes gleaming like twin orbs of silver and golden fire in the black.

" Follow me! "

Selene staggered upright, trembling, raw throat still burning from her screams.

Her eyes darted wildly to the figure before her.

The Most High stood immaculate..her feet kissed nothing...her robes unfurling in an endless dance as if unseen hands stroked every thread. Her gaze pierced through the black.

"Let me walk you through some answers!"

The words echoed unnaturally, as though the cavern itself repeated them, warped, stretching into infinity.

Selene’s lips parted, but she said nothing. Her voice had drowned somewhere in the pit of her chest.

The Most High tilted her head, a cruel sliver of a smile breaking her face. Then...her voice snapped like a whip.

"This way. Don’t stray away from me if you want to survive this place."

The command rattled Selene.

She swallowed hard, her throat a dry rasp, but her legs moved anyway. Shaking, stumbling,carrying her forward. Like a puppet tethered to strings she couldn’t see.

Step by step, the abyss shifted around them.

A faint pulse stirred beneath her feet, as though the very stone was breathing.

At first, it was blackness...nothing but blackness. Then came a glow.

Crimson mist began to coil up from cracks in the stone, seeping like blood from a wound. Slow tendrils curled around her ankles, licking her skin cold.

Selene hissed, flinching, stumbling back.

The Most High did not stop. She drifted forward as though the mist itself parted for her, bowing in reverence.

Selene rubbed her arms violently, teeth chattering. Her breath puffed out white...smoke in the air. Every exhale felt stolen from her lungs.

"What the fuck..." her whisper came hoarse, breaking the silence, "is this place?"

The cavern deepened, widened. Walls stretched upward, jagged and ancient, carved with symbols even she could not understand...too primitive...markings clawed into stone by hands older than mortal memory.

The crimson mist illuminated them, making them look alive, writhing like they wanted to crawl off the wall and into her skin.

Above, there was no ceiling. Only an endless void. Below, there was no ground...just endless cracks opening into pits of deeper shadow.

The mist grew thicker. Heavier. Each breath scorched her lungs with ice, as if she were inhaling death itself.

Selene hugged herself tighter, nails biting into her own arms.

The Most High’s voice slid through the mist once more.

"You feel it, don’t you? The breath of the abyss. The heart beat of something older than your goddess... older than your fears."

Her glowing eyes narrowed, burning into Selene.

"This... is where it was all conceived."

Selene’s knees buckled again.

Her breath stuttered, fogging in the frigid crimson glow.

Her voice cracked as she croaked. " What was conceived here?"

The Most High only smiled.

And drifted deeper into the mist.

" Yes... About that story..." Her voice splintered.It echoed. It crawled along the walls and into Selene’s bones as if the stone itself was repeating what she said.

"Since... the beginning... of the world..."

Selene froze, her breath shivering into the crimson air. The mist clung to her face,freezing, beading into droplets across her lashes.

"When there was nothing..."

A pause.

The sound vibrated in her ribcage, pressing against her heart.

"...there was this."

The Most High’s arm unfurled, pale but regal, her long fingers sweeping through the haze as though she were painting the air itself.

"There was darkness... and utter... darkness..."

Her voice stretched, silken and venomous, each syllable dragging like a blade across glass.

"...endless darkness."

Selene’s eyes darted side to side, her throat bobbing as she swallowed. The mist was thicker now, rising up to her knees, pulsing crimson like liquid blood exhaling from the earth.

And with it... came the pressure.

The weight.

Not just shadows....evil.Rising. Pushing. Crawling across her skin like thousands of unseen hands.

Her arms clutched tighter around herself. She wanted to scream, to fight, to speak...but she couldn’t. Her lips trembled, useless.

The Most High stood unaffected as she continued.

"And then..." her voice dropped into a sultry hiss, before swelling again, "came the light... slicing through this darkness..."

She laughed then. A low, throaty, sultry laugh that rolled into the cavern like smoke.

"...claiming to be salvation..."

Her head tilted back, teeth glinting in the crimson.

"...claiming... to be pure."

The word pure snapped like a whip, and

Selene flinched, head ducking, eyes burning at the force of it.

They kept moving forward, feet dragging deeper into the abyss.

Selene’s lungs felt tight. Each breath weighed like iron. She was no saint...never claimed to be...but this place? This place was wrong. It wasn’t shadows alone, it was hunger. It was malice. It was pressing down on her soul, squeezing it like a rotten fruit.

And yet...she followed. She had to.She had been tethered.

The Most High’s voice cracked, grew sharper, louder, every word carved into hysteria.

"And then..." she spat, "the universe had the audacity to play this pathetic little joke on us!"

Her eyes flared, molten silver and gold burning with madness.

"The Balance."

Selene flinched back, her heel slipping on wet stone, catching herself against the wall.

The Most High whirled, robes snapping like wings of shadow. Her voice swelled until it filled every crevice, dripping venom and seduction alike.

"The cause of this fucking balance... sucking all our energies in the name of justice!"

Selene gasped, her knees trembling. The words pressed harder, heavier, as though each one was another chain coiling around her chest.

"Bestowing it... on useless beings..."

The emphasis on useless hissed like venom.

"...stealing..." her voice shook now, quivering with rage, "...from us... what belonged... to us!"

Selene stumbled, hands raised as though to shield herself from the voice itself. For the first time, she cowered...not from the darkness, but from the sheer force of the being before her... the rising malice.

The Most High’s laughter broke...half hysteria, half hunger, half hell itself.

"So..." her voice dropped, slow, seductive, deadly.

"...we had to come up with a plan."

Her eyes glowed brighter, brighter, until Selene had to avert her gaze.

"To take it back."

Her hands rose, fingers curled, as though she was already clutching it.

"To take... everything back..."

Her words dragged, dripping and venomous in equal measure.

"...that once..."

The cavern trembled, the walls pulsing like veins.

"...belonged..."

Her eyes fixed on Selene.

"...to only us."