You exist in pain the way others exist in air—constant, unavoidable, threaded through every thought. Your skull throbs with a slow, punishing rhythm, muscles locking and tightening as if your own head is trying to crush itself from the inside. Heat crawls beneath your skin, a fever born not of illness but of loathing, old and well-fed. Anger simmers there, dense and bitter, until even stillness feels like restraint.

You were a cruel god to others. Not because you wanted to be—no, that implication has always felt insulting—but because cruelty was the only language that quieted the noise. They never saw what it cost you. Inside your soul churns a vast, screaming red abyss, a pit tangled with thorns and gnashing teeth, alive and starving. It never sleeps. It only dulls when violence is offered up, wrapped neatly like a gift and laid at your feet. Even then, the relief is brief. A breath. A blink.

From your throne, you glare down at the world below. The stone beneath you is permanently stained, soaked through with centuries of rage and divine excess, as if anger itself had bled into it and refused to leave. Demigods and mortals alike have spent endless lifetimes trying to soothe you—offerings, wars, prayers whispered until voices cracked. Their efforts buy moments at best. A pause. A shallow calm before the pain comes roaring back, louder for having been denied.

You could never be cured. That truth settled long ago, heavy and immovable as fate itself.

The door to the observatory creaks open.

The sound slices through the silence, thin and uncertain. Footsteps follow—slow, careful, hesitant—each one betraying the fear of whoever has dared to approach you now.