Swallowed Whole

What was left of the throne room looked like it had been sculpted from dust.

Everything was beige — the floor, the walls, the air itself. A hundred shades of beige, like the world had been bleached of life, leaving only the husk of what used to be colour. The air shimmered faintly, thick and slow, like something halfway between smoke and water.

And at the center sat Vaelith.

To Joey, he looked nothing like a ruler. His beige suit hung loose on his frame, the fabric wrinkled and stained. The jacket was unbuttoned, the shirt beneath it half untucked, the tie knotted loosely around his neck as though he'd forgotten how to wear it. His face was drawn, pale, his eyes rimmed in grey shadows. The throne beneath him was not gold or marble, but dull stone, almost the same color as his skin.

Only his eyes moved — darting, twitching, wide with something that wasn't just fear.

Madness, Joey thought.

The ether pressed against his skin, thicker here than anywhere else. It hummed with something alive, curious. Whispering. He could feel it brushing along the edges of his mind, probing for cracks.

Behind him, Elorae walked forward with the same effortless certainty she had carried since he had changed her for the second time. The ether curled away from her, recoiling as though burned.

Vaelith's head jerked up. His lips cracked into something like a smile.

"Elorae." His voice was hoarse, dry. "You've come home."

Her reply was cold and precise. "I came to see what's left. To see if anything can be saved."

Vaelith gave a short, sharp laugh that might once have been charming. Now it sounded like a blade scraping stone. "What's left," he repeated. "Yes. That's all there is now."

He shifted, and Joey could see how his hands trembled on the armrests — long, elegant fingers that had once grasped for power, now clutching the throne as though afraid it might float away.

"Is this what you wanted?" Elorae asked. Her tone was almost gentle, which somehow made it crueler. "You always wanted the throne. Well. You have it. How does it feel to rule a world that doesn't exist anymore?"

Vaelith barked a laugh. "Rule? Look at me. Look at this." He gestured to the chamber, to the rippling haze beyond. "This isn't ruling. This is rotting. And you—" His finger jabbed toward her. "It's all your fault! You planted the seed!"

"You **** me," she shot back. "You blackmailed me into it."

His grin widened, splitting at the edges. "I know all too well that you were unhappy with the restrictions placed on your creativity. The former regime made your life small, and you craved more. Don't pretend that you didn't want this, too. You knew what the right thing to do was, and you did this anyway."

The room felt smaller suddenly, as if the beige walls were breathing. Joey's hand brushed Elorae's arm. He could feel her pulse — steady, resolute. She didn’t flinch under Vaelith's gaze.

Then Vaelith looked at Joey.

The effect was instant. The madman flinched, raising a hand to shield his eyes. "What are you?"

Joey froze.

"It's the colour," Elorae said quietly.

Vaelith squinted, grimacing as though the sight of Joey's jeans and brown hair caused him pain.

"That shouldn't exist here. That shouldn't exist here, " he muttered to himself.

"It does," Elorae replied. "Because he brought it."

Joey swallowed. The tension in the air was almost physical, pressing against his chest.

Vaelith's gaze darted between them, wild and searching. "You always did find strays, didn't you, Elorae? Another believer to prop up your endless lunatic certainty."

Elorae's chin lifted. "This isn't a stray. This is Joey. The one I always believed in. The one I knew would come for me."

Vaelith laughed — a ragged, breaking sound. "You believed." He spat the word like venom. "Belief. That's all it ever was. You, Arakos, all the others and your precious ideals. You built everything on it. And when I planted the Seed, it was belief that crumbled first. Belief that rotted the fastest."

Elorae's voice trembled with fury. "You wanted to destroy it all."

"I wanted to see it honest!" Vaelith shouted, slamming his palm against the armrest. Dust rose. "No masks. No faith. No hollow prayers to an order that never was. And now—" He gestured again to the fog, to the colorless horizon. "Now it's perfect. All one honest shade."

Joey's skin prickled. He took a step closer before realizing, too late, that he'd moved past the invisible safety of Elorae's bubble. The ether's chill kissed his arm.

It wasn't just cold. It was invasive.

Whispers slid beneath his thoughts like fingers through water.

Are you sure she's telling the truth?

Are you sure you're even real here?

Are you sure you didn't imagine all of it?

Joey gritted his teeth. He tried to push it out — tried to focus on Elorae, on the heat of her presence, the faint colour that shimmered on her lips, an artifact of her time on his world.

Then he saw something else.

Vaelith's face rippled. For a moment, it wasn't his anymore. A woman's face flickered there — Elorae's — then another's, and another. Dozens, maybe hundreds, ghosting across his skin, overlapping like translucent veils.

Joey's eyes went wide. "What the hell is that?"

Elorae didn't look at him. "It's what happens here. The ether binds you to those you were once close to — the people you touched, the ones you loved or pretended to. When the world dissolves, the boundaries go too. You see all your ghosts at once."

Joey stared, horror mixing with fascination. "Then why don't you—"

"I don't have them," she said simply. "The ether doesn't touch me."

He believed her — of course he did. He'd seen it back when his words had first reshaped her, when the ether had recoiled from her body like a wounded thing. She was belief incarnate, immune to its poison.

But as he looked at her now, standing in this dead, beige world, he couldn't stop noticing the things that weren't beige.

The faint warmth of her skin. The soft pink of her lips. The gold threads catching in her hair when she moved. The shape of her waist beneath the faded top that clung to her like something alive. She no longer belonged here — she was too vivid, too sensual, too real. Joey's world, and Joey's words, had changed Elorae forever.

He felt a flush rise in his throat, unbidden. Even now, surrounded by ruin, she made his pulse quicken. He brought to mind how she had been before he changed her, drab, ****. Now she was so different, a creature of passion, perfectly designed to draw his attention, to hold his desire. Without her skillful use of her body, Joey had to admit that he might not have made it through the previous night. The way she felt as he slid into her, the way she smelled as they kissed, the way...

Vaelith's laughter cut through his thoughts.

"She looks at you like a savior," he said. "Tell me, boy — do you really think you are one? This perfect messiah that she spoke of?"

Joey stiffened. "You're the one who destroyed everything, not me. She brought me here to help."

Vaelith tilted his head. "Destroyed? Or revealed? Tell me — when she found you, did she tell you that you could fix everything? That you were the answer? This world has always been in ruin, all I did was all it to show itself how it was meant to be. Elorae is a fool, and she has brought you on a fool's errand."

Joey opened his mouth — but the words stuck in his throat.

The whispers were louder now. What if he's right? What if you never had power? What if you just convinced yourself?

He could feel his mind unraveling in small, invisible threads. His memories, his experiences, did they really make sense? People couldn't just change each other by what they say, could they? And all those women, incredible, beautiful, intelligent women, wanting him? Joey Granger, the loser, the nobody. What if it was all a delusion?

Elorae's voice pierced through, ****. "Joey! Don't listen. Don't let the ether in. You can stop this — I know you can!"

Her hand reached toward him, trembling. Her eyes were bright, pleading.

But the fog pressed closer, wrapping around him, sinking under his skin. His heartbeat grew unsteady.

"I don't…" he said, voice breaking. "I don't know if I—"

"Yes, you do!" she cried. "I believe in you! You can believe in yourself!"

He wanted to. God, he wanted to. But the doubt was inside him now — blooming like rot.

Vaelith was smiling. "That's it. There it is. The first crack."

Joey's knees buckled. The colour in his clothes seemed to drain. His hands flickered at the edges.

Elorae caught his face in both hands, pressing her forehead to his. "Please," she whispered, voice cracking. "Don't fade. Stay with me."

He could smell her — warm skin, breath like sunlit air. For a heartbeat, he almost believed again.

Then the ether surged.

The world blurred. Her voice broke apart into echoes. He saw her mouth moving, tears streaking her cheeks — but he couldn't hear her anymore.

The last thing he felt was her hands slipping from his face as the beige swallowed him whole.