Stormy

GOD OF THE GAPS [MASTERLIST] ↳ [Finished Series] Sleep Token x Fem!Reader ↳ Book I of The God Of The Gaps

You wake in a world of dead gods, with no name and no past, only four masked men. You are pulled into a family not bound by blood, but by devotion. They are vessels of Sleep and they see something in you that keeps you alive. As you are kept within their crumbling world of rituals and whispers, their strange affection begins to warp you. What starts as fear turns into obsession, each of them pulling at something different inside you. The lines between love, worship, and possession blur. Their hands become your home, their violence your doctrine. And as each bond frays the edges of your mind, you start to forget you were ever anything but theirs.

LOOK TO WINDWARD [MASTERLIST] ↳ [Ongoing Series] Sleep Token x Fem!Reader ↳ Book II of The God Of The Gaps

Free at last from Sleep’s curse, V wants only one thing, a long and peaceful life with the vessels she loves. But while she was gone, Arcadia changed. A false god, the Feathered Host, is rising, and the old balance of the realm is beginning to break, threatening to destroy everything left of the Seven Old Gods. Now returned to Arcadia as a goddess herself, V is forced into a new war. To save her lovers once again, she must learn to wield the dangerous magic within her, defy death, and stand against kings, armies, and fate itself. But as her power grows, so does the fear that divinity may consume her before she can save anyone at all.

SKIN OF THUNDER [MASTERLIST] ↳ [Ongoing Series] Simon 'Ghost' Riley x fem!Reader

Simon Riley lives like a storm on the edge of breaking. But then there is you. You pull at him like the soft drip of rain. And in the stillness between you, Ghost begins to realize that you are the calm he never knew he needed, an unexpected refuge in the tempest that has always defined him.

WHERE WE PART [MASTERLIST] ↳ [Finished Series] Simon 'Ghost' Riley x fem!Reader

You opened your eyes and the world that greeted you was wrong.

You were in a forest suspended in eerie stillness, draped in odd colours that didn’t belong in the waking world. Ashen greys, dull silvers and that unnatural magenta colours, thick like bruised petals left rotting beneath glass. Every leaf, every petal and every blade of grass was stained some shade between these colours. The trees rose tall and skeletal around you, their limbs twisted upward.

You sat up slowly, trembling fingers sinking into strange grass, which felt more like velvet than anything living. Fog thickened across the ground, swirling white and heavy, curdled in the lungs of the forest. You felt really cold. Not from the weather, but from the inside out.

Cold in your bones. Cold in your mind.

There was a road ahead, if it can be called that. Ivory stone tiles decorated the ground, clean and polished, laid into the dirt with surgical precision, forming a labyrinth of path that led away in every direction, nowhere and everywhere at once. Not a single patch of moss grew between the stones. They looked like silver veins carved from old porcelain.

You shivered.

You looked down at your hands, as if they might explain something. They were your hands, yes, you knew that. But whose? Who were you? Your fingers rose in frantic sequence, to your chest, your throat, your cheeks, as if you could touch your memories. As though familiarity might hide in the dip of your collarbone, in the shape of your jaw, in a mole or a scar you once claimed as home. But there was nothing. Only skin that felt borrowed and a body that no longer spoke your name.

Your name.

You didn’t know your name.

It left a void blooming in your chest, black and bottomless, still as death and just as certain. You didn’t remember your name. The panic arrived before memory did, with a theft of breath and a quiet slaughter of certainty. Your lungs stuttered and your throat narrowed.

“I don’t—” your voice cracked, barely a whisper.

You rose too fast, and the world reeled with you. The skeletal forest buckled sideways, tilting like a ship lost to a storm. Trees loomed above, their limbs twisted into shapes that shouldn’t exist, like ribs cracked open. The sky offered no anchor either. You didn’t see nor the sun, nor the moon. Just a pale expanse without pulse or warmth, as if the gods had forgotten to finish it. The branches creaked softly, whispering warnings you couldn’t quite understand.

“Hello?” you cried out into the quiet.

The fog held the word like breath held in a stranger’s mouth.

You tried again, voice cracking. “Anyone there?”

Your knees gave way, and you collapsed like breath leaving a prayer, burying your face into your hands. You were shaking now, as if your bones were rejecting the cage of your skin and your heart was pounding to be set free, desperate to escape the body it no longer recognised. You crouched there like something newly born, nails dug into the grey grass that didn’t bend like grass should. Tears stung your eyes, but before they could fall you heard it.

Footsteps. Measured. Unhurried.

And close.

Each one fell into the quiet like punctuation, as if they were always meant to be written there. Then, somewhere in the white, something moved. It arrived with precision, with weight, with the patience of something that had never been hunted. It stepped from the fog as if the world itself had been waiting for you to see it.

A silhouette began to form.

And when the fog thinned, you saw it.

You saw him.

A man. Or something like one. He seemed wrong in the details, too deliberate, too silent, too smooth. He wasn’t much taller than you but he didn’t need to be to make you feel cornered.

The silhouette wore black from neck to toe. Velvet shirt tucked into tailored trousers pressed too perfectly, patent leather shoes that gleamed like mirrors and carried no sound, and over it all, a black cloak with a wide hood that swallowed most of him in shadow. And where his face should have been there was a mask, sculpted from gold and black, decorated with weird symbols, like something ceremonial or holy, except it clearly wasn’t. The mask didn’t cover his entire face, his mouth was visible through the vertical slits. His blue eyes and dull jawline were visible too, but that made him look much more scary. Somehow, the mask looked fused to his skull, there were no visible straps or seams. Just polished metal where a face should be. Only the suggestion of death dressed up like a man.

And he was looking right at you.

You gasped, your body pulling backward on instinct, feeling like a specimen pinned open on a silver tray. The uncanny man stopped just a few steps from you, tilting his head curiously. However, something about the angle looked unmistakably predatory to you, reminding you of the way a cat turns its head before it pounces.

“Did you call, darling?”

His voice was soft, surprisingly warm, but that only made things worse. He spoke as though he were reciting something from memory, not really feeling it, mimicking a peculiar accent of the human kind. Like sound made through teeth not meant for language. You blinked, breath caught in your throat, unable to form a word.

He took another step forward.

And now he was looking down at you.

“Who—who are you?” you managed to gasp.

He stepped to the side and began to walk around you in a perfect, measured arc, circling you. His polished shoes whispered against the ivory stone. You turned to follow his movements, your limbs stuck between flight and collapse. 

“You may call me IV,” he said at last.

You stared. That name meant nothing.

“What is this place?” you whispered, barely audible. “Why can’t I remember anything?”

He stopped walking.

“You remember how to speak,” he said. “That’s a good start.” The words came gently, almost kind, but they made you shudder instead. Was he trying to make a joke?

“Don’t come closer, please—”

Your voice broke as he crouched.

The movement was seamless. It was perfectly graceful, in the same way a snake descending a tree is graceful, uninterrupted and fluid. Effortless. Boneless even. His knees bent too evenly. Like his body wasn’t governed by the same physics as yours, as if it remembered the shape of bones, but no longer needed them.

You looked up at him through your tears, and the gold of his mask caught the fractured light of this odd forest. His mask hovered above your face now, and through the thin slits near the mouth, you saw the faintest stretch of movement. A smile, maybe. Or was it a frown? Whatever it was, it never touched his eyes.

His gaze held something else. He watched you the same way a child might inspect a wingless butterfly in a jar, like he pitied you. You couldn’t tell, not with the mask hiding most of him, not with those blue eyes so terribly distant, like someone watching you from underwater.

But there was something undeniably melancholic in the way IV watched you, as if observing something that was already doomed to die before his very eyes.

“Please,” a pitiful sniff followed your plea. “Can you help me?”

He didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, IV studied you, his blue eyes guarded yet openly curious, as if weighing something important. You could almost hear your pulse, and the way the forest watched it throb behind your ears.

It was unbearable. 

Finally, IV spoke.

“Perhaps I can. Follow me.”

You blinked. “Where are you taking me?”

He didn’t respond. Instead, he tilted his head again, this time with a subtle shift of his posture that seemed amused. Still, his gaze remained fixed on you.

Every instinct screamed at you to run and to tear through the lifeless trees, to disappear into the endless fog and hope that somehow you would find something familiar, something safe. But your feet wouldn’t move because deep down, you already knew that there was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

So you stood, slowly and reluctantly. Your legs trembled beneath you, weak with fear that burrowed down to your bones, however, you forced yourself upright, swiping the back of your hand across your damp cheeks.

IV wasn’t much taller than you, but his presence loomed large in its intensity. Like a shadow cast by something monstrous and ancient, something that didn’t live in this world. His mouth still curved gently, as if he found your hesitation strangely endearing.

Without another word, he turned and began walking ahead.

His cloak trailed behind him, floating just slightly above the fog, kissing the tiles, leaving you to follow in awkward silence. You stumbled slightly at first, your limbs still numb with dread. Your breath hitched as your bare feet met the cold stone tiles beneath you, each step feeling like a judgment from the ground itself. You sniffed and quickened your steps, falling into a clumsy stride beside him, trying to match his pace.

As you walked, you glanced around desperately, trying to memorize your odd surroundings. But the forest remained stubbornly unfamiliar. There was nothing here, only fog, decay, and that haunting bloom of magenta that stained everything like a parasite. Ancient ruins lined the path, as well as dry fountains and broken remnants of statues. Their marble bodies leaned in uncanny angles, some frozen mid-prayer, others mid-scream.

“Where are we going?” you finally dared to ask, voice trembling.

IV hummed quietly. “Somewhere safe.”

He offered no further explanation.

You tried to ignore the creeping sensation that something watched you from the fog, eyes you couldn’t see yet felt acutely. Shadows flickered at the edge of your vision, shapes danced and dissolved in the mist, making you flinch more often than you would admit. It was impossible to shake the feeling that this forest observed you with hungry curiosity.

Eventually, the trees began to fall away and the forest opened into a clearing so large the fog couldn’t even hold it all. It spilled into it like milk into a bowl, veiling the edges of the world until distance itself became meaningless.

At its heart stood an massive cathedral, so immense and surreal that your breath caught sharply in your throat. Ancient stones rose high and stark, entwined with thick vines of grey and vivid magenta. It rose out of the earth like the skeleton of a god. Towering spires reached upward, sharp and ambitious, piercing the ashen sky as if attempting to breach the heavens themselves. Its glass windows were stained, shimmering faintly despite the oppressive gloom. On the walls, banners of deep green and faded beige, embroidered with intricate symbols in tarnished gold thread, hung still.

You halted, awe and terror mixing uncomfortably in your chest. You couldn’t even see the top of the building, they stretched so impossibly high that the spires got swallowed whole by the pale sky. It felt less like an actual building and more like a monument to something the world had chosen to forget, something ancient, sacred, and wrong.

IV had stopped walking.

“What is this place?” you whispered.

“This is where you’ll live. If my brothers agree, of course.”

You repeated the word under your breath, frowning faintly.

“Your… brothers?”

With those words, he resumed walking, leaving you with no choice but to follow, your heart aching with uncertainty, like slipping beneath water and not knowing how deep it goes.

Each step toward those towering doors felt like descending into an unknown abyss from which you feared you might never emerge. IV moved ahead like this place answered to him, as if the stones beneath his feet knew his weight, like he had walked these tiles a thousand times, and you were just another shadow behind him.

The entrance loomed higher the closer you came, massive slabs of carved black wood, etched with runes you couldn’t read.

They opened before IV could touch them.

It was worse inside. The cathedral was impossibly vast. Cold and hollow, as though built by something that had only ever imagined humanity, but had never loved it. The air inside was heavy and thick with the scent of wax, old wood, and something coppery beneath, a metallic tang, like blood held too long in a chalice. The walls were tall, constructed of dark stone and from them hung rows of banners in emerald greens, stitched with more of those strange symbols.

Candles burned in impossible quantities. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Pools of melted wax stained the floors in ribbons of ivory. Their flames danced in patterns that felt intentional, like they were reacting to your heartbeat. Enormous staircases curved in directions that defied logic, vanishing into alcoves and narrow corridors you hadn’t noticed a moment before. Marble columns lined the nave like the ribs of some old beast. Wilted petals littered the floor, exhausted silvers and dull lilacs, and their smell was overpowering.

Your head turned and turned and turned but nothing stuck. You couldn’t even recall where the entrance had been.

The halls branched endlessly, spiralling staircases and empty alcoves and yawning arches that led to nowhere. You saw statues, some with missing limbs, others with bleeding eyes. Most had no faces, as if their expressions had been worn away by time, leaving only smooth blank stone where their mouths and noses should have been. You passed a hallway where a black fountain stood still in the dark, its surface smooth as glass. 

You followed blindly, each step sounding like it didn’t belong here.

Finally, IV brought you to a chamber that made your breath catch. A great hall opened before you, its vaulted ceiling stretching into a haze of candle smoke and silence. At its center stood an enormous table carved from obsidian, long and glistening like the surface of a still lake. It was wide enough to seat thirty on either side, and every chair stood empty. Except one.

At the far end of the table, seated with his back turned, was a man. He wore a long emerald coat, embroidered with golden symbols you didn’t recognise. White and gold shoulder plates rose above the collar, resting on his slender body, and there were black feathers, not wings but maybe something once divine, catching the candlelight like water catches the moonlight. His elegant fingers rested on the arms of a chair carved from the same dark stone as the table.

IV stopped as if halted by some unseen line.

“Vessel,” he said. “Look what I found.”

The figure turned deliberately, the chair’s legs sliding against stone with the whisper of altar doors opening in a forgotten church.

When Vessel stood, your throat closed.

Your heart stuttered painfully behind your ribs, because he was beautiful. But not in any way you had words for. He was beautiful in the most terrifying sense of the word. He looked like something sculpted by gods who had never seen a human up close. Like something made in worship of a shape they had only dreamed of. The kind of beauty that made you ache just to witness, like a god pretending to be flesh.

His skin was painted entirely black, just like IV’s, a dark sheen that caught the candlelight and shimmered as he moved, like charred obsidian. His chest was bare beneath the overcoat. Gold chains and rings draped across him delicately, all over his collarbones and fingers, like ceremonial jewelry placed on the dead.

Vessel also wore a mask like IV did, but his was entirely different. It was white, with lines of green and gold that swirled in precise patterns, so pristine it looked unreal, like it had never been touched by dust.

And then you saw them. Those six vertical slits. Eyes. Six black eyes with no whites in them, not even irises, just glossy pools of darkness, watching you. Each one was darker than black, as if they opened into some endless depth where stars had gone to die. They moved in eerie unison, blinking once, slowly, then not again.

Tears stung your eyes again, hot and unwelcome. Your lips parted, your throat dry and tight. There was no air in the room. None that you could breathe. 

Vessel stepped forward.

“What a curious thing,” he muttered, and his voice—

Good gods.

His voice was the most alluring sound you had ever heard, making your knees weak. It was rich and warm, deep and smooth, like honey poured over something burning. His every word measured, placed exactly where it belonged. His accent curved each vowel like silk stretched too tight. You didn’t realise your heart was racing until it hurt.

IV stood beside you, ink kissed hands folded behind his back as Vessel abandoned the books he had been reading and moved into the centre of the room, his black eyes never once leaving you. His golden chains shifted slightly as he moved. There was something odd in the way he looked at you, the faint curl of his lips, the ghost of a smile that felt almost familiar.

Vessel turned then, addressing IV over his shoulder.

“Why did you bring her here?” he asked. The softness in his voice didn’t blunt the sharpness of his meaning, as if he was angry and sad in equal measure. “We agreed we were done with humans. Or what, you miss II’s lectures that bad?”

IV let out a small huff. “Oh yeah, can’t get enough of those.”

“You’re a glutton for punishment, then.”

“Maybe,” IV shrugged, “or maybe I just fancied a change of scenery. The lot of you’ve been brooding in circles for months. Thought perhaps it was time we tried it again.”

Vessel exhaled, a sound caught between amusement and disbelief. His arms folded across his chest, muscles flexing beneath black paint and gold chains. His six eyes blinked again, not together this time, but two at a time, diagonally. Gods, the motion made your stomach twist. He regarded IV in silence for a long moment, as though weighing whether to laugh at him or to scold him. Then, at last, he laughed, a rich, unsettling sound that rippled through the room and made the chandelier above tremble without moving at all.

“And you’ll be the one to convince the others, then?” Vessel asked, his tone almost mocking.

You blinked, your eyes stinging.

You had no idea what they were talking about, or even what or who they were, you also had no idea who the others were, or why the room suddenly felt smaller when Vessel mentioned them, but you knew they wouldn’t be happy you were here.

IV inclined his head. “If you agree.”

Vessel tilted his own in reply, considering. All six of his eyes turned to you then, his hum low and thoughtful. “I do,” he said finally. “But this time, you bear the consequences.”

“Understood,” IV replied, his voice light. “I’ll fetch the others.”

Then he turned away with the grace of something no longer tethered to human urgency, like a shadow returning to its source.

“Wait,” your voice cracked before you even knew you had spoken. “Please—”

But IV didn’t pause.

He vanished into the corridor you had entered through together. The flickering light behind him danced faintly, then went still. You watched him go until there was nothing but absence and a breath you didn’t know you were holding escaped you. 

Reluctantly, you turned back.

Vessel was still watching you.

That same small, knowing smile curved his lips, too precise to be human. It didn’t warm his face, it wore his face instead, covering it like a veil, a performance he had decided to put on, something donned rather than felt. For a seemingly endless moment, the two of you stared at one another in painful silence. The cold sweat at the nape of your neck bloomed with every ragged breath.

You took a step back and Vessel’s smile grew wider.

“Do you remember anything, love?”

The term made your skin crawl.

It felt theatrical, it was too soft, too intimate and too practiced. As if he had said it a thousand times before and never meant it once. You shook your head, trying to claw your way out of the haze, arms folding tightly around yourself as if your limbs could protect you from him.

“What—what are you?”

His eyes, all six, blinked slowly.

Vessel didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned back against the chair he had sat on before, crossing his ankles like this was nothing more than a conversation with a guest.

“Where am I? What is this place? Why—” Your lips trembled as you pressed further. “Why can’t I remember anything?”

You didn’t mean to sound as desperate as you did. But it was already too late to pretend.

“There may be another time to talk,” Vessel said, almost kindly. “But not now.”

You swallowed the lump in your throat. “Why?”

“My brothers are coming,” he exhaled through his nose. “And they’re not particularly fond of your kind. Especially III. He’s got a temper, you know. So do us both a favour and keep quiet, yeah? He tends to overreact.”

“Overreact? What does that even—”

Vessel raised one elegant hand, index finger pressing to his lips in a gesture of silence. Then he motioned toward one of the many empty chairs.

“Sit.”

You didn’t move. You couldn’t tell if he was teasing or warning you. Instead, you took a step back. Just one. But it made your heel clip the wall behind you and the weight of the cathedral pressed down against your shoulders. Every cell in your body told you not to trust them and not to lower your guard.

Then came the unmistakable sound of footsteps echoing down the corridor outside. Vessel’s head turned slightly toward the door.

“Ah,” he murmured. “Right on cue.”

That was when you saw them.

The others, walking beside IV.

One stood about your height, built with the cold precision of a statue. His mask was red and black, carved into the eternal frown of a weeping figure, a frozen grimace covering the weary eyes behind it. Through the narrow slits, his gaze burned icy blue, equal parts frost and fury. Unlike the others, his mask covered everything, even his lips, leaving only those glacial eyes exposed. And the rest of his stocky build was all black fabric. A dark sweatshirt was pulled halfway up beneath a vest and a strange silver necklace, while every movement he made was deliberate and efficient. He felt like judgment given form.

The second figure moved like something animated by string, too tall and too angular, his frame unnaturally thin, all sharp elbows and spiderlike knees as though his body had been stretched by cruel hands. The air shifted with him and turned heavier, as if his wrath had a gravity of its own. The scarecrow figure wore a long coat, deep blood red, which swayed behind him like a second spine. His white hair hung in wild tufts, falling over the edges of his mask. His mouth, visible through a jagged tear in the metal, curled in a feral snarl.

And the moment he saw you he exploded.

“What the fuck is that?” he spat, finger stabbing the air toward you with such vehemence it felt like a blade aimed at your throat.

He didn’t move like a human.

He paced like a pendulum swung too wide.

“No!” he growled, hands slicing through the air as he turned to Vessel with an accusing glare. “No, no, no. I’m not doing this again. You piece of—no, I’m not —” he choked on his own fury. “I won’t do this shit! Not after last time.”

“Calm down, III,” Vessel said smoothly. “You’ll frighten her.”

“Calm down?” III bellowed. “It’s a human. I can smell it.”

His mask turned sharply to IV.

“Why is this fucking thing still breathing, brother?” III’s accent was harsh, rough around the edges, making you flinch. “We agreed, we fucking agreed that every single human that shows up has to die. That was the pact. And you agreed, IV!”

IV let out a long sigh through his nose, posture loose, unbothered. “Alright, first of all, stop calling her it. Second, maybe try listening before you start foaming at the mouth, yeah? She didn’t come here like the others.”

“Oh, piss off with that,” III snapped, circling the obsidian table like a mad dog on a leash. His limbs bent too far and his spine curled too deep. The coat behind him swept the air like a wing torn from something mythic. “Doesn’t fucking matter how it got here. It’s a human. End of discussion. You remember what happened last time you got sentimental, yeah? But you know what? It’s fine. Everything’s fucking fine. We can still fix this, yeah?” he murmured, eyes flashing behind the glint of his mask. “We can always eat it.”

You gasped, hands balling into fists so tightly your nails dug moons into your palms. Instinct pulled you back, back, back—

But the wall was there.

IV rolled his eyes. “You always say that. It’s getting boring.”

“Keep talking, smartarse. And one day I will,” III stopped in front of you, abruptly close. His height towered over you now. His head tilted, hair falling sideways, the wild strands sticking to the edge of his mask. You could almost feel his breath through the slits, smelling strangely of orange peels. “I should fucking tear you open, see what’s inside. Let’s find out what makes you worth breaking the rules. So go on, scream for me. You lot love to scream.”

Tears blurred your vision as you whimpered.

“She’s not yours to dismantle, III,” Vessel said evenly.

“Too fucking bad, Ves, I don’t take orders from you.”

“Enough.”

The voice cut through the rising tension like a blade forged in silence. It belonged to the third arrival, the one who had entered alongside III but not said a word until now.

You never heard II approach, he was just there, suddenly in front of you, and the air seemed to vanish. He looked at you like a mistake already halfway to being corrected, those glacial eyes sweeping over you with the detached calm of a healer studying a wound. His presence chilled you to the bone, and your knees threatened to give as you pressed back against the wall, trying to make yourself small, hopefully invisible.

“Hate to say it, but III’s right. Bringing another human here was foolish,” II sighed, turning to IV. “You should’ve left it where you found it.”

IV shot back. “Cheers. Maybe try sugarcoating next time.”

“Not my specialty,” II reminded him.

“Yeah, no shit,” IV muttered.

II didn’t speak with disdain or cruelty. He didn’t raise his voice like III or lace it with theater like Vessel. He simply named the truth it was, plain and clinical, and in doing so, reduced you to a thing. A misstep. A loose thread to be trimmed. And maybe that was your cue to step in, because this conversation was definitely not swinging in your favour.

“I—” your voice was a splinter in your throat. “I don’t understand, please, I don’t understand what’s happening, I just want to go home and—just don’t hurt me, please—”

You blinked through wet lashes, your gaze landing on the man closest to you. But II wasn’t a man, was he? None of them were. They moved differently, spoke differently, even existed differently, like something above you, like some superior beings discussing your fate the way people might argue over a pig, whether to slaughter it or keep it as a pet. II stood still beside you, his black clothes carrying the faint smell of salt, dust, and something disturbingly close to blood. The scent made your panic spike.

Your heart fluttered wildly in your chest, breath catching, ready to break under the weight of the situation unfolding around you. You didn’t understand what they were saying, who they were, or where you even were. The painful confusion pressed in on you like water, crushing your chest, as if you were suffocating, until you couldn’t hold it in any longer.

The tears came, hot and ugly.

And you began to cry.

III groaned. “Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

Your sobs earned nothing more than a slight tilt of II’s head, like your breakdown had just proven a point he had already made in his head.

“She’s clearly not ready,” he stated, voice flat, stripped of emotion. “Maybe take her back to the forest. Would be better for all of us, really.”

Vessel, still draped over the chair as if carved there, hummed. He stepped forward slowly, not with urgency, but with the deliberate grace of something that had already seen this play out.

“None of us were ready back then,” he murmured. 

III scoffed violently, as if the words offended the very marrow of his bones.

“Oh no, fuck no, don’t start with that chosen bollocks again,” he threw up a hand in disgust, whirling in a circle like the force of his anger couldn’t be contained. “Let me fucking remind you all that we agreed. We’re done with humans. This thing’s a mistake. That’s all it is. IV’s sentimental arse. I’ll sort it. Permanently. Let me snap its neck and poof, we’re done.”

II didn’t even look at III, like his temper tantrum weren’t worth the energy. Instead, his gaze shifted to Vessel. “So what do we do?”

“Keep her,” Vessel said flatly, like the decision had already been made hours ago.

II’s head shook. “That’s stupid, Ves.”

Vessel’s eyes narrowed, but his voice stayed calm. “We’ve ignored Sleep’s will to grow the family long enough. And now she came through the forest on purpose. You really think that’s coincidence? It’s a message. A warning, maybe. Something’s shifted. I can feel it.”

II scoffed. “Oh, don’t start getting poetic on me.”

“Then stop being a coward,” Vessel shot back. “Some gods inherit children but Sleep creates them. Have you forgotten that, brother? To be chosen is to be consumed. Maybe it’s time to get consumed by Him again and let Sleep reveal our path to forgiveness.”

II’s jaw clenched.

III groaned, hands rising to tangle in his hair as he turned to face the wall, slamming a palm against the cold stone. “Sleep below, no, Ves, this isn’t some fucking omen, it only means IV is a stubborn bastard.”

IV, leaning nonchalantly by the table, gave a dry grin. “Better than being a psycho.”

III’s laugh was savage. “Oh, you wound me.”

The voices swelled like a violent tide, crashing and clashing around you. You shrank further into the space behind you, your head snapping from one creature to the other, trying to keep up with the conversation.

Your tears carved rivers down your cheeks, salt on raw skin, and in your horror you realised you were sobbing like a child, hiccuping uncontrollably, curling in on yourself, your body betraying you in every possible way. The tension in the room was a living thing, a monster stalking its own tail, and every time one of them opened their mouth, it sank another claw into your ribs.

III turned on you again, eyes flaring behind his mask.

“Fuck this. I’ll snap it’s neck. Put it out of its misery.”

Your body seized.

You saw it in your mind. His long fingers, fast and precise. The pop of vertebrae. Your eyes wide, unblinking. Death in a cathedral of gods. But before he could move Vessel stepped into III’s path and said, almost lazily, like he was asking someone not to knock over a glass.

“I’d prefer if you didn’t do that.”

III paused.

“Of course you would,” he growled, shoving past him and pacing furiously down the length of the hall. “You’d rather talk. You’d rather hope. You’d rather pretend this ends differently this time. That she’ll be different. She won’t. None of them are.”

And then they all turned. All four of them.

Their eyes on you.

You sobbed again. The weight of their attention was unbearable. Something primal cracked inside you, and you opened your mouth, voice shaking like a thread caught in wind.

“I just want to go home,” you begged. “Please. I don’t remember anything. I don’t—I don’t even know my name—”

II exhaled sharply as if he was already tired of you.

“That’s because you weren’t given a name.”

You blinked. Your vision swam.

“What—” your voice trembled. “What does that mean?”

It was Vessel who answered, not II. His voice was soft again, too soft. “It means,” he stated, stepping toward you, “that you’re in the right place, love. Don’t worry about it, yeah?”

You shook your head violently, trying to claw your way back into your own body, burying your face in your hands like you could shut the world out by sheer force of will. But there was no god to hear you here.

The room seemed to sway around you. You were suffocating. Drowning even. The air was molasses. The light too sharp.

Everything wrong.

Everything wrong.

Everything wrong.

And somewhere above you, high in the vaulted dark where no candle dared shine, something began to whisper your name. A name you hadn’t yet learned. But the cathedral knew it. And in that moment, a new kind of fear took root.

Not the fear of death.

But the fear of being kept alive.

“There are some who burn down the temple not to punish the gods, but to feel the warmth of something holy just once.”

Did you enjoy the chapter? You can check out the God Of The Gaps masterlist and read the full story on AO3.

I genuinely think GOTG would work so well as a movie, not just because it’s my baby, but because gothic psychological horror on screen can be insane when it’s done right. The dream world alone has such a heavy, immersive atmosphere, it would translate beautifully visually. There are so many scenes that would hit ridiculously hard on a big screen. And don’t even get me started on the Infinite Baths… I would genuinely cry seeing that brought to life, it’s my favourite place in the whole GOTG universe.

For V, I don’t think I’d go for someone conventionally beautiful, more someone with a slightly unusual, almost haunting beauty. Someone who fits that dreamy, gothic, slightly unsettling vibe. Like a Tim Burton kind of presence. But let’s be real, every actress is gorgeous anyway. My top picks would probably be Mia Goth, Lily-Rose Depp, or Ella Purnell. They all have that ability to portray vulnerability, intensity, and that kind of earned female rage that I absolutely adore. I think they could really bring out V’s emotional depth and complexity in a way that feels raw and human.

For Vessel, I genuinely can’t picture anyone other than Bill Skarsgård. There’s something about his presence that feels off in the best way, and I think he could portray Vessel’s inner conflict, that self-hatred, that haunting intensity so well. And let’s be honest… he would look absolutely handsome with six eyes, hehe.

II is such a tricky one. He needs that composed, controlled, slightly distant vibe. Someone who feels grounded but also a bit unreachable. I could maybe see Max Irons, but I’m leaning more toward Aneurin Barnard. I loved him in Netflix’s 1899 (still not over that cancellation, honestly), and I think he could really capture II’s rigidity, intelligence, and quiet intensity. Plus, his eyes would fit that character so well.

III though… oh god. He’s probably the hardest to cast. He has such a chaotic, feral, unpredictable energy that’s really hard to replicate. Jamie Campbell Bower could be an interesting choice, he already has that slightly unhinged vibe thanks to Stranger Things, and knowing he likes Sleep Token just makes it even better, hehe. But I’m still not fully convinced, because III in my head is just… something else entirely. Part of me is like, maybe Bill Skarsgård would actually fit III even better? And then someone like Harris Dickinson could take on Vessel? That’s a combo I could definitely see working.

And for IV… I’m actually pretty set on George MacKay. There’s something about his eyes and overall presence that feels very IV to me, attentive, gentle, but still layered. And yes, he would look so, so incredible in a suit, let’s be honest. I’ve fully convinced myself at this point, hehe.

Bonus chapter of God Of The Gaps Blood Sport

“I hate the way you look at me,” III continued, voice low and dangerous. “I hate the way you speak. I hate the way you breathe near me. I hate hearing you laugh with them. I hate hearing you cry over and over and over again. I hate everything about you. Fuck, I really do hate you. I hate you so much it makes me feel sick, V. Do you even get that? Like there’s something off in me every time I’m near you. And I hate that too.”

His fingers twitched against your jaw.

“And still,” he said, softer now, as if dragged into the confession against his will, “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

The garden seemed to fall still around you. III stared at you as though he had only just heard himself too. As if the words had simply slipped out of him by mistake and now hung there between the two of you, foul and living and impossible to take back. Something changed in III. A crack in the wrong place. A jagged thing turning over under the skin.

Then he stepped closer. There was no space left between your bodies and yet he came closer still, pressing against you completely, until your thighs hugged his narrow hips, until the cold shape of his mask hovered near your throat. His head lowered and to your absolute horror, he pressed the face of his mask to your collarbone and breathed in.

Your whole body locked.