David awoke, the faint warmth of Luna's soft, rhythmic breaths brushing against his skin like a fleeting whisper of peace in a world he no longer recognized. The room was dim, shadows clawing at the edges of the candlelight, but his mind burned—ablaze with the Creator's words, a venomous promise that coiled around his heart like a serpent. His crimson eyes glinted, sharp and predatory, as a sinister smirk twisted his lips. "I'll conquer every timeline," he murmured, his voice a low growl that trembled with menace. The words spilled forth, and then—a laugh. It began as a quiet bubble, a ripple of madness, before erupting into a dark, unhinged cackle that reverberated through the chamber, casting an ominous shroud over the stillness. The air itself seemed to shudder, as if recoiling from the weight of his ambition.
The scene dissolved, a jagged tear in reality, and shifted—plunging into a different timeline, a world unraveling in slow, agonizing decay. Flames roared across a shattered landscape, a burning hellscape where the sky bled crimson and black smoke coiled like the tendrils of some ancient, wrathful god. Buildings crumbled into ash, their skeletal remains jutting from the earth like gravestones. The roads were rivers of carnage—bodies piled high, their lifeless forms twisted in grotesque tableau, blood running thick and scarlet, pooling in the cracks of the scorched ground. The fires danced, relentless and wild, consuming all they touched, their crackling song a dirge for a world lost to ruin.
In the heart of this apocalypse knelt an alternative David, his broad shoulders hunched, his hands trembling as they cradled the broken body of Ruby. Her once-vibrant form lay limp, her crimson hair matted with soot and blood, her crystalline red eyes dimming as life ebbed from her. "Master…" she rasped, her voice a fragile thread fraying against the chaos. "I'm sorry… I couldn't stop you…" Her words faded into a whisper, her gaze locking with his one final time before the light in her eyes extinguished, turning to hollow black. Her breath stilled, and she was gone.
David's silence was a storm unto itself. He rested a hand on her head, stroking her blood-streaked hair with a tenderness that clashed against the devastation around him. Tears welled in his eyes, spilling over, carving glistening trails down his ash-smeared face. "I'm sorry, my dear Ruby," he choked out, his voice cracking under the weight of grief and fury. "My dear little sister… I was selfish. So consumed by this damned revenge, I thought nothing else mattered. And now… I've killed you." His words were a confession, a plea to a universe that offered no absolution. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Above him, a crow shrieked, its mournful cry slicing through the crackle of flames itself. The bird took flight, its obsidian wings cutting through the smoke as it soared over the desolation—a bird's-eye view of a world undone. Broken towers loomed like the bones of giants, streets choked with the dead, their flesh torn and ravaged. The crow descended, landing on a corpse, its beak plunging into the soft decay, tearing at the meat with savage precision. Then, a ripple—a tremor through reality itself. The scene began to dissolve, the edges of the world fraying into dust, carried away on an unseen wind. The crow flapped its wings and rose, fleeing as the ground crumbled beneath it.
The focus snapped back to David, still clutching Ruby's fading form. "Now I have nothing to protect," he whispered, his voice hollow, a man staring into the abyss of his own making. "No reason to live. I shall meet my end." As the words left him, Ruby's body shimmered, disintegrating into a cascade of ash that slipped through his fingers, scattering into the void where she had once been. His hands closed around empty air, now coated in the dust of her memory. His eyes blackened, hollow sockets of despair, as tears streamed down his face unchecked. One droplet broke free, falling in slow, cinematic motion—a glistening orb catching the firelight as it plummeted to the cracked earth. It struck the ground with a soundless impact, rippling outward in a pool of sorrow, the earth drinking his pain as if it, too, mourned her loss.
From the silence came a voice—low, insidious, dripping with malice. "Oh, my poor David," it purred, slithering into his mind like a shadow given form. "You've met such an unfortunate end. But… you have a chance to repair everything." David's head snapped up, his blackened eyes flickering with a spark of desperate hope. "You can bring Ruby back," the voice continued, its tone a seductive lure. "Alive."
His breath hitched, his chest heaving as the words sank in. "What?" he rasped, voice raw with disbelief.
The air before him shimmered, a portal tearing open with a guttural hum—a swirling vortex of violet and black, pulsing with forbidden power. "Before you," the voice intoned, "I offer a path. To bring back your Ruby, you must do one simple thing, David. Kill the David and Ruby of this world. That's all." The words hung in the air, heavy with promise and peril.
David's tears ceased, his jaw tightening as resolve hardened within him. He rose to his feet, dust cascading from his frame like a fallen king reclaiming his throne. "I just need to kill the David and Ruby of this world," he echoed, his voice steadying, "to bring my Ruby back?"
The voice giggled—a sound laced with cruel delight. "Yes," it hissed, relishing his surrender.
"Then I shall do it," David declared, stepping toward the portal. The vortex swallowed him whole, its edges snapping shut with a crackle of energy. The voice lingered, its laughter echoing into the void. "Stupid David," it sneered, the words dripping with contempt as the scene faded to black.
The narrative surged back to the original timeline, dawn breaking over a bustling village. Golden sunlight spilled across the rooftops, igniting the dew-kissed fields as farmers trudged to work, their voices a hum of life. The streets teemed with motion—merchants haggling, children darting through the crowd, the air thick with the scent of bread and earth. David sat beside Luna's sleeping form, her chest rising and falling in serene rhythm, her golden hair splayed across the pillow like a halo. He watched her for a moment, his crimson eyes softening, before rising to prepare their horse. They had a journey ahead—to Henward's kingdom, a distant promise of purpose.
As they departed, hooves clattering against the cobblestones, the village receded into the horizon. Time passed in a blur, the sun climbing higher, until a ripple fractured the peace. From the portal emerged the alternative David, his boots striking the earth with predatory intent. He paused, inhaling deeply, a smirk curling his lips. "Ahh, this village," he mused, his voice a low rumble of memory. "So familiar. I remember… that blonde girl I slept with. What was her name? Luna, I think." He chuckled, a dark, throaty sound. "Fuck it. I need to find this world's David and Ruby."
High above, an eagle perched on a gnarled branch, its piercing gaze tracking his every move. Miles away, in a black castle shrouded in mist, another Ruby watched through a magical orb, her crimson eyes narrowing as the eagle's vision fed into her own. She stood beside an alternative David, entombed in eternal sleep, his chest rising faintly beneath a shroud of dark enchantments. Her fingers tightened around the orb, her voice trembling with resolve. "I can't let him roam this world," she said, her tone a blade of determination. "Even if he looks like Master, I can't let this world fall. I'll kill him myself."
The alternative David's world lingered in the reader's mind—a tableau of destruction painted in visceral strokes. The air had been thick with the stench of burning flesh, the ground slick with blood that flowed like molten rivers. Corpses lay strewn across the landscape, their faces frozen in screams, their bodies mangled by an unseen wrath. The flames had roared with a hunger that devoured all—wood, stone, hope—leaving only ash and echoes. And David, kneeling in the wreckage, had been a figure of tragedy and rage, his hands stained with the dust of his sister's demise, his soul a battlefield of guilt and vengeance.
The unknown voice had slithered through that despair, its tone a velvet noose tightening around his will. It promised salvation, but its laughter—sharp, gleeful, and dripping with malice—betrayed its true intent. The portal's opening had been a spectacle of dread, its edges crackling with arcane energy, a maw of shadows beckoning him to his doom. Every tear that fell from David's eyes had been a cinematic lament, each droplet a prism of firelight and sorrow, striking the earth with the weight of a shattered man's dreams.
As the chapter closed, suspense hung heavy—a thread stretched taut, ready to snap. Two Davids, two Rubys, and a world teetering on the edge of annihilation. The eagle's cry faded into the distance, a harbinger of the chaos to come