The Alpha's Omega Mate-Chapter 46: The awakening.

It was in the middle of the night when the girl arose from her bed, battered body, weak soul, fragile heart and body drenched in sweat.

Her matted hair clung to her skin like vines to a tree and her body, the one that had been so viciously marred not so long ago, appeared pristine— not that it mattered. Not that she noticed.

She didn’t notice when she draped a robe around her burning flesh and didn’t even realize when she left her room or when she literally waltzed out of the house altogether.

She was lost, mindless... hopeless—maybe not.

But then, somehow, she found herself resonating with the night. She found her body leading her far far away from the house, from the pack and to the thick luscious forest beyond— one she would have never ventured to go into if her mind was right; But it wasn’t.

Somewhere deep in the middle of the forest— the place where her limbs had taken her to on their own accord— she heard it for the first time.

A sound she never thought she would ever hear, be it from others or from herself. It was the sound of bones... cracking... reforming... shifting. It was the sound of flesh ripping and the furry sound associated with furs sprouting at an alarming speed.

It was the sound of a person shifting. And oh, she loved it.

In her mindless state, she couldn’t ascertain where the sound was coming from or if she should run from it, but she didn’t run. She didn’t even need to run because it was coming from herself.

She just doesn’t know it yet.

Maybe she would never know it. Because this is a haze... a dreamlike phase. A place stuck between mindlessness and reality.

A sound, one of rustling leaves startled her suddenly and in one desperate move, she spun around to see who it was or what it was that was coming towards her.

She had half expected it to be an animal. A deer, seeing as she had gone too deep into the forest. However, what met her instead was a scream. A blood curdling scream that would’ve snapped her out of her haze if the power surging through her veins was something minor. Something minute. But it wasn’t.

It was outer worldly.

To her astonishment, a middle aged woman whose hands were wrapped around a large stick dropped to the ground.

Her eyes were white, unseeing, and her lips seemed stuck in a silent scream. Even her pulse seemed gone too.

She was dead.

The girl realized with a sudden conviction that the woman had died from something— perhaps the something was her, we wouldn’t know.

She wouldn’t have believed it if someone had told her too, but she believed because when she looked in the lake just beneath her feet, her eyes caught on a reflection of herself in the still water.

And she wasn’t her— that was the best way to describe it.

She gasped, stumbling backwards in fear and in something else. Something else that was... hope? Craze?... an adrenaline rush?

She wouldn’t know. And neither would we.

Her hands instinctively flew to her hair and she gasped when she felt the warmth between her fingers.

The strands felt warm, sharp. Hard. They felt like weapons. Maybe they were weapons.

With a breath of courage, she pushed herself back to the edge of the lake and now, when she fully saw her reflection, her heart felt full. She felt whole but there was something else... something dark. Something maniacal that seemed to claw at the edge of her very existence.

The water lit up but the light wasn’t from the water, it was from her because now her shiny usually hair glowed in a fiery light. And her eyes glowed an ethereal shade of blue that was both beautiful and strange..

This was nothing like anyone’s ever seen before.

She was nothing anyone’s ever seen before

She was the Nyx’Zariel.

—

Forged from the void between stars, Nyx’Zariel is a being older than time itself.

In the beginning, when the cosmos was young and the gods were still shaping worlds, there was a breach—a silent tear in the fabric of the night. From this rift spilled stardust so ancient and cold it held no light, only awareness. Nyx’Zariel coalesced from that raw void, not born but awakened, a presence of total stillness. No heart beats within her; she is the pulse between stars, the breath that galaxies dare not exhale.

While the Moon Goddess bathes the world in soft, silvery light, Nyx’Zariel drifts where no light dares touch. Her presence bends time and perception, and wherever her gaze falls, even memory withers— just like the woman whose corpse still embraced the first floor.

The Moon Goddess whispers her name only in dread, for Nyx’Zariel sees the truths that lie beneath illusions—even divine ones.

Her eyes, twin voids rimmed in stardust, unravel the soul of any mortal—or deity—who meets them.

She drifts through the Veil Beyond— an unreachable plane folded between reality and the dreamscapes of forgotten gods.

Time behaves strangely in her presence: stars flicker like candle flames, echoes arrive before sounds, and shadows move before their makers.

The Moon Goddess, radiant and adored, rules over reflection and ritual—but Nyx’Zariel embodies absence: a force unshaped by prayer or praise.

—

All of these were supposedly mirths. All of these were stories the girl had heard time and time again in her classes while growing up— They were stories she never believed to be true. Ones she felt had been whispered to fill her with a sense of dread.

Stories she could believe now.

She smiled at her reflection glaring back at her from the water, and when she blinked, a small wave formed. She did it again and it repeated itself, disrupting the perfect reflection on the lake, and leaving her with nothing but a dancing surface.

—

The Nyx’Zariel rebirths once in every 5 thousand years, and whenever she does, she causes a sensation.

—

As the words played in her head, she couldn’t help but lift her arms to inspect herself. Sure she was exactly it.

But how?

This wasn’t a gift from the moon goddess, that was certain. And she knew.

She knew because there’s no way in hell the moon goddess would bless one with the very same powers that she feared.

She knew because the thing coursing through her veins wasn’t pristine like the moon goddess. It was deep and it was dark.

And for some reason, she liked it.