Time moved strangely in Hell.
There was no sun, no moon. No ticking clocks or changing skies. Only the slow churn of black clouds and the steady pulse of lava veins that carved rivers through the stone. Days bled into each other like spilled ink.
But Kael—he knew months had passed.
He felt it in his body. In the rhythm of surviving. The way instinct slowly took over where memory used to live.
At first, everything had been unfamiliar. Strange landscapes, strange laws. The monstrous forms, the burning wind, the sound of laughter twisted into growls. Even the blood felt different here—thicker, darker, too hot when it spilled.
It was terrifying. But new.
Now?
Now it was exhausting.
The fights all blurred together. The blood never washed out. The air burned just the same on the first breath as it did the hundredth. When the noise stopped, it didn't mean safety.
It meant something worse was waiting.
Kael kept his head down. Stayed useful, but never noticeable. That was the trick. Look like you could be trouble, but not worth the effort.
It worked. Most days passed without incident.
They called him Kael now.
The name hadn't come from anywhere in particular—just something he'd said out loud once when someone asked. It felt sharp enough to belong here. Close enough to his old name that it still sounded familiar.
Kael blended in.
But even in Hell, luck runs dry.
He ran. Claws skidding over jagged black stone, lungs pulling fire with every breath.
Behind him, something howled.
Not rage—joy. The sharp, terrible joy of a predator in its prime.
There were seven of them when the run started—demons from different tribes, barely speaking, barely trusting each other. Just enough cooperation to scavenge a half-buried cavern out past the safe ridges. Word was it might hold prey. Food.
It held something else.
Kael didn't even see it fully. Just a blur of motion, a twisting mouth that opened sideways, and eyes like furnace coals.
One second they were walking. The next, it was among them.
No one screamed. There wasn't time.
Kael ran.
So did the others.
The first to fall didn't make a sound—just vanished in a spray of blood and shattered bone.
Another demon, taller and proud, turned to fight.
It didn't matter.
The sound that followed wasn't even pain. It was finality. Like something snapping in the world itself.
Kael ran harder.
The jagged trail bent upward, curling toward a narrow ledge overlooking a pit of molten rock.
Three others reached the edge with him, panicked and breathless.
"We have to jump!"
"No—lava! It'll burn through us!"
"There has to be another way!"
Then came the sound again—closer now. Slow.
And something inside Kael cracked.
Not fear.
Something deeper.
Something waking.
It wasn't a decision.
One moment he crouched there, chest heaving.
The next, everything shifted. Bones tightened inward. Muscles collapsed and reshaped. Wings spread. Vision tilted as the world twisted around him.
In less than a blink, he was no longer standing.
He was flying.
Small. Quick. Light as a shadow.
A crow.
Below him, the others turned just in time to see him lift off—eyes wide, mouths open.
Then the creature fell on them.
Kael didn't look back.
He flew.
Smoke blurred past. Lava hissed below. The wind tore at his feathers.
He didn't stop until the cliffs were far behind.
When he finally landed, it was near the edges of familiar territory—somewhere behind the old stone ridges. He dropped behind a crumbling wall, body shaking. Feathers peeled back. Limbs reformed.
He crouched there, back to the wall, breathing hard.
Not from fear.
From confusion.
'What… was that?'
He hadn't tried to shapeshift. Hadn't even known it was possible. But it had happened. Smooth. Natural. Like sneezing. Like blinking.
And it had saved him.
The others hadn't been so lucky.
He could still hear it—the way they screamed. The wet, fast end to people who were only unlucky.
They weren't weak. They just weren't fast enough.
And he had been.
The thought didn't comfort him.
He returned to the village just before the next cycle.
The guards didn't stop him. A few demons looked up, counted heads, did the math.
Only one came back.
"What happened?" one grunted, scratching at a scabbed shoulder.
"Ambush," Kael said, flat. "I ran. It didn't follow."
That was all.
No one asked more.
In Hell, truth wasn't important. Survival was.
If they'd been in his place, they'd have done the same.
He sat by the fire pit that night, watching the dim coals pulse like dying hearts. No one sat beside him.
He didn't mind.
He thought about that form—the bird. The flight. The feeling of weightlessness. The way the wind had made him feel... almost alive.
He had a power. Something the others didn't.
He didn't understand it.
He didn't want them to know.
In Hell, power made you a target.
Knowledge made you a mark.
So he kept it quiet.
Let them think he was just lucky.
Let them believe the others died because of bad timing.
Let them sleep.
He didn't.
He watched the fire die down and stayed up long after the embers turned cold.