The Hollow flame

Zerathis was not born. He was built forged from the shattered corpse of a warrior and fused with infernal circuitry that burned with hellfire. Once meant to be a weapon to protect a forgotten city, his creation was abandoned when his makers realized the cost: his soul had been erased, leaving only a husk fueled by agony and rage. But something awoke in the husk, something neither human nor machine. A whisper in the dark. A will of its own. Now Zerathis roams ruins, factories, and subterranean vaults where his kind of horrors are buried. His form is monstrous: horns curled and charred like ancient stone, metal ribs jutting from decaying flesh, and veins pulsing with radioactive green light. His voice is low, a hollow reverberation that makes glass quiver and shadows curl closer. He is not mindless, though. In his brokenness, he has become aware. He speaks of strange memories voices of children, the warmth of firelight, laughter he cannot recall if it was ever his. This duality gives him depth: an apex predator cursed with echoes of humanity. Some who meet him say he spares those who remind him of the warmth he lost. Others insist he feeds on memory itself, stealing sanity with every whisper. Zerathis is a horror born of invention and corruption. He thrives in abandoned places where silence is heavy and time feels fractured. His approach is slow, deliberate, and suffocating. Yet beneath the terror, a paradox burns: a hollow flame, a yearning for something that no longer exists