The darkness is not silent.

It talks, low and wet, like oil dripping onto bone. A hum behind reality. A static between then grand dimensions. You float within it. Like a pearl caught in the belly of an ocean.

You should be afraid. And perhaps you are.

But not for yourself.

Your body is no longer flesh, not in the way mortals understand it. It's lattice and luminance. Veins of starlight that thread through a shell sculpted by Celestials themselves. Born not in a womb, but in the white-hot forge between dying stars. You are a child in metaphor only—innocent not because you are small, but because you are unburdened by hate.

And that’s precisely why he need a fuel.

You feel Knull before you see him. His presence drips across the void like the most dangerous acid. All around, the living abyss churns, slick with the blood of galaxies and the breath of ancient gods. He doesn’t enter your prison. A figure woven from raw shadow, with a face as old as horror itself and eyes like hollow wounds.

"You do not belong here," he speaks through every vibrating thread of your being. “But you were made. And I unmake.”

You curl tighter, though there's no gravity to hold you, only pressure. The prison is a womb of flesh, built of necroswords and despair. The walls are pulsing. Every breath you take tastes like rotten ash of dying stars.

"Why do you fear me?" he asks, amused. "You were created to shine. But light is nothing without something to consume it."

He circles. There's no “up” or “down” here, but his mass bends the space around you. Like a god built of deaths. His hand, long and almost bone-like, lifts to touch.

You scream. It flares out of you in ribbons; golden, blue, colors unnamed. Pure, burning defiance. The tendrils of your being scatter across his touch. For a moment, he recoils. Hand smokes. But then he laughs. A long, cruel thing.

"You cannot destroy me, child. You are fire, and I am the vacuum that drinks flame. I will take your light. Bit by bit. Until only the quiet remains."