Wake up to reality

In the void, Hades fell. A plunge into darkness deeper than mere shadow, where gravity itself was forgotten.

It was not quite falling, but more like drifting into a realm where time bent, warped, and frayed, a place where Kronos' will held him, devouring him into an endless abyss.

The sensation of descent lingered without end, pulling him through currents of blackness that grew colder and denser with each breath he took, if breaths could even exist here.

It was an emptiness that gnawed at him, not for sustenance but for the pure joy of erasure.

In the silence, he clutched his only fragment of awareness: the sight of his father.

The image was seared into his mind. Kronos, Titan King, a figure who, with each step, warped the air around him as though reality bent out of his way.

Hades had felt his essence teeter on the edge of oblivion just from that presence, that cold, unyielding gaze. And even in his grasp, as Hades' form had dangled like some inconsequential insect, Kronos had seemed to carry a mountain's worth of indifference.

It was a moment that Hades knew he would never, could never, forget.

So this was the King of the Titans, he thought, something akin to dread clawing at him as he spiralled further into darkness. No wonder he has ruled for ages. I felt my existence shrink to almost nothing just by being near him.

But there was no time for fear. No time to muse on the power he had been born from or the terror of seeing himself swallowed whole by his own father.

Hades gritted his mind against the well of unease, focusing instead on something concrete, something he could control: the spark of knowledge that unfurled in the pit of his mind, a strange awareness spreading, not of his surroundings, but of himself.

It was the knowledge of his Divinity, a vast network of concepts and powers that pulsed within his soul, like memories drawn from the roots of his own bloodline.

Yet they were not memories of a life; they were more like echoes, lingering fragments of potential that hummed as though eager to be drawn from the ether and wielded. Each fragment came with a name, a title of command:

Death, Magic, Wealth, Darkness. These were the titles that anchored his consciousness, each pulling him back from the edge of dissolution, reminding him that even here, he had power. He could still, perhaps, be.

But they were scattered, nebulous, like trying to touch smoke. For each concept—Magic, Death, Darkness—he crafted a small mental space, a room in his mind to contain the knowledge, to gather and make sense of it, like islands in the endless sea of his own consciousness.

And as he created these mental rooms, a new sense emerged, delicate and dim but strengthening, a kind of self-awareness.

The first thing he managed to summon was a simple spell, a spell that scraped the edges of his newfound power, weaving a semblance of his father's foresight into his own perception. With this spell, he could focus, appraise.

He called it Analytical Appraisal. It was a tiny spark, but he knew it would allow him to see and understand the vastness of his knowledge.

And with it, he realized that he had been descending, endlessly, through what must have been Kronos's stomach for weeks, months…perhaps even years.

If there even is time in this place, he thought, his frustration mounting. To keep his form intact, he relied on the remnants of food his father had devoured, bits of nectar that somehow appeared like fallen leaves in a deep well.

He caught and devoured them with instinct, feeding on their warmth and vitality to keep himself alive.

"It's been long enough," he whispered into the dark, his own voice a stranger to him, shattering the silence in a way that felt both lonely and liberating.

He flexed his spirit, felt the edges of his power twinge with a pulse of warmth. "I don't know where this descent ends, but I will find my way out. I will be free."

Then, at last, the pit opened, spilling him into a new place. A strange, liminal pocket of existence—a dimension within a dimension.

The sky above was crimson, dusted with sickly clouds of grey. It was not an open world; it was contained, an island held between walls of twisting reality that loomed like cliffs into nothingness.

It was as though the place was designed for abandonment, as though Kronos himself had crafted it as a holding cell, a space where his power could trap and forget.

And directly below him lay a sea—a vast, colorless stretch of churning waves.

As he plummeted, Hades' attention snapped to movement beneath the water's surface: the head of a monstrous, black-scaled crocodile rose, its eyes empty pits of gluttonous hunger, its maw widening as though to accept him as an offering.

Hades' pulse quickened with the sheer, unfiltered instinct to survive. I don't want to die, he thought, feeling the certainty settle into his bones.

He reached into himself, calling upon the power his Divinity had whispered to him—air manipulation.

But as he tried to cast the spell, he felt a strange barrier within him, as though his own energy were colliding with the walls of a locked door.

In a panic, he drew deeper from within himself, pulling on every fragment of power he could reach.

"Work! Please, just…work!" he shouted, the force of his plea reverberating in the air.

Desperation sharpened his focus, pressing his will until, at last, the barrier within him cracked.

A wave of power surged through him, breaking past the boundaries, filling his body with a warmth that glowed like embers against the void.

With a final pull, Hades summoned the winds, casting them around himself to push his descent upward.

He felt his body yank against the downward pull, redirecting him toward a floating island on the horizon as the crocodile's jaws snapped shut below him, its teeth gleaming with the water that now splashed harmlessly beneath him.

Hades soared, carried by the wind, until his momentum slowed and his form collided with the beach, leaving him sprawled across the sand in breathless silence.

Darkness overtook him, and he slipped into unconsciousness.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

When he awoke, it was to a world painted in red. The skies above were the same as before, sickly grey clouds sprawling across the crimson expanse.

He lay still, feeling the grit of the sand beneath him, his mind hovering between the edge of a dream and the pulse of an ancient memory.

With effort, he pushed himself up, feeling every ache, every bruise as though his body were protesting its own existence. The air here was thick, tainted, burning his lungs with each inhale, as though this place itself resented his presence.

Slowly, Hades rose, looking across the wasteland of the island he had landed upon. His form, small and wiry, glowed with an inner light that illuminated his path, his amber eyes blazing in defiance of this desolation. The truth was beginning to settle, sinking into his spirit like stones dropped into a dark pond.

He had always known, in fragments, that this was no ordinary life. That his was a world of gods, of power beyond reckoning, of prophecy and blood. Yet to know and to witness were different things. This world is no story, he realized. It is no game.

Lifting his hand to the crimson sky, he whispered a vow, one spoken not out of hope but of sheer, unbroken will.

"I will survive," he murmured, his voice carrying across the desolate island, his amber eyes sharp with purpose. "In this world where only the strong endure, I will become stronger than any. Strong enough to break free of this prison. Strong enough to rule my own fate."

The winds stirred around him, carrying his words across the barren land, a whisper that seemed to reverberate with the pulse of his own determination.

And in that moment, as he stood on the shores of the unknown, the very ground seemed to tremble, as though the world itself had heard his vow and shuddered in anticipation.

For Hades was no ordinary child, no common soul, and in the heart of this crimson sky, a force of destiny was born—a flame that would grow, that would consume, that would one day turn the tables of power on gods and titans alike.

And with each step he took, a storm brewed in his heart, a storm that promised a reckoning beyond the confines of any prison, any prophecy, or any father's rule