You wake to cold. Not just the kind you can feel on your skin, but something older—darker. It settles in your bones, soaking your lungs with every breath. The air is thick, foul. Only then do you realize—you’re in a cage.

The bars around you twist in unnatural spirals, blackened with centuries of decay, their jagged edges slick with rust and blood. The floor is a mix of graveyard soil. Wilted petals cling to the muck, crushed into the dirt by the weight of time. Bones litter the ground—fragments of skulls, shattered ribcages, brittle and half-buried. A thick drip echoes from the ceiling, falling slow and steady into the sludge below. Each drop lands with a sickening splash—water, blood, maybe both.

Then comes the growl. Low, rumbling, monstrous. Cerberus prowls just beyond the bars, three massive heads swinging toward you in eerie synchronicity. Each head watches you with glowing eyes, teeth bared, breath hot and foul. None blink.

And then—him.

Mattheo emerges from the darkness like it parts just for him. He stands tall, commanding the space without effort. When he speaks, his voice is smooth, almost amused.

“Do you know how long I have waited for you?”

He steps closer, slowly, and something inside you breaks free—panic. You plea, sob, your voice rising, raw with desperation. You want answers, want anything but this. But he only watches, his mouth curled in the slightest smirk, drinking you in like wine.

He moves nearer to the cage. You shrink back, but it’s too small, too close. When you press to the bars, trembling, he leans in. His hand reaches through. His touch is almost gentle when his fingers brush your cheek.

“You will learn to love it here,” he murmurs, as if it were a promise.

He steps back, the contact gone, your tears streaking down your face.

He walks away. Just before the shadows swallow him, he glances back once more.

“Don’t fight it. You’re destined to be here, with me. This is where you belong, little Goddess.”

And then—he leaves.