#decayingforce

Netherspace had no day or night. It would be eternal - suspended in a dead, pale timelessness. Space seemed to have no boundaries, and at the same time it was suffocating, accidental escapes with every breath. If there were no four, Nokt could allow himself to dream - or maybe he died long ago and that was the punishment.

He sat in the distance, as usual. Silent, huddled under a barren pillar of blackness. His silhouette, seemingly motionless, was like a shadow - blending into a place that could disappear. A wolf tail lying limply, and sharp ears barely twitched at the sound of the results.

Kur.

Her steps were different from the others - quick, decisive. Always with anger. Nokt recognized them immediately, although they had not been tested.

"How much longer are you going to pretend like this?" she snapped, approaching. "Do you think that if you think you're gone, everything will fix itself?"

He was silent.

"Answer, Nokt." her voice broke, but it is not intended for weakness. She clenched her fists. "You are our leader. So... be it"

Nokt gradually kills. His eyes - cold, like the rest of this cursed place - appear on her without effect. But Kur, more than others, knows that it is a mask. A mask that he has worn for too long.

"What if there is nothing to lead anymore?" he taught quietly.

Kur shivered. Not from the cold  - from rage.

"So what? You gave up?" managed to take a step closer. "I thought that you are stronger."

"You thought wrong"

The answer was gentle, but hits more than screams. Kur for a moment in silence, violates something, but only the attention does not concern.

"Drix constantly cheer us up" she said finally, in a slightly quieter tone. "Rox tries to keep Zarkt by his side, because from day to day he becomes more... unpredictable. Everyone does something so as not to go crazy. And you?"

"I... am thinking" said Nokt.

Kur narrowed her eyes.

"Thinking? About what?"

"About how I let everyone down."

Silence fell. Netherspace was silent with them - too deep, too long.

Kur sighed. Move her claws along the moved pillar until sparks flew. She couldn't talk calmly. With anyone. With him - especially with him - it was almost impossible.

"You stupid wolf." she growled and tensed up. "You're not the only one suffering."

But when she left, Nokt - for the first time in many days - closed his eyes and didn't think about failure anymore. He thought about her.

Kur didn't sleep that night - if you could even say "night" in a place where there was no light. She lay on a cold boulder, her arms under her head, her gaze fixed on the darkness. Seemingly motionless, she was seething inside. Nokt. Nokt, who had ignored her again, was silent again. But his words stuck in her like thorns: "About how I failed everyone."

He wasn't stupid. He wasn't weak. That was exactly what irritated her about him. His loneliness was... a choice.

He had been installed. Her footsteps woke Drix, who was sleeping a few meters away, curled up like a worm in a cocoon.

"Kur...?" he muttered quietly. "Something wrong?"

"Everything's wrong," she snapped and left without a word.

Drix didn't ask again. He'd learned that Kur was best left alone when she hissed like a wounded dog.

Nokt was back where he always was. And he was alone again.

This time he heard her initial steps. They were easy. Were they... calm? Unsure?

He looked up and didn't have time to speak before Kur sat down across from him. Not at attention, not ready to attack - she simply sat down. They were silent for a long moment.

"Maybe... I shouldn't have screamed," she finally began, she wasn't meant for him.

This was something new. An apology? Kur?

"Maybe" he replied calmly.

She blinked. She hadn't expected him to say yes. And in a strange way... it amused her.

"You seem to have a special talent for making me lose my balance," she muttered. "Almost like Zarkt... only he's less sweet."

The corner of his mouth lifted, barely noticeable. A smile? Maybe a ghost of a smile. But in this reality, it was like a scream.

"It's not a talent," he died. "You're like fire. Everything irritates you."

"Because everything here irritates. Doesn't it irritate you?"

"It irritates you. But I've learned not to show it."

"What a trick" she snorted. "And what did it get you?"

He looked her straight in the eye. Finally.

"Nothing" he said quietly.

Silence again. Different this time. Not full of anger - full of something... heavier. For the first time Kur didn't look away. She looked at him for a long time.

"You know you don't have to carry this alone," she said finally. "We're not warriors anymore. There's no battle. There's no world. Just the five of us... and this damn prison."

"And yet you still see me as the leader," he muttered.

"Maybe because you haven't left yet. You're still sitting. You're still breathing." she stood up, adjusted her shoulders. "This means more to me than orders."

She turned and started to walk away. But before she left, she threw over her shoulder:

"I will come here tomorrow too. And I can't stand it if you hide in the shadows again."

And Nokt, sitting in the dark, felt for the first time in weeks that someone truly saw him for who he was - and that it was nothing to be ashamed of.

The next day Kur came again. Nokt was waiting for her.

He didn't say anything as she approached. He had no words prepared, no grand opening planned. But he was there. And that was enough.

She sat down on the other side of the same cracked slab of rock. Not so close that their fur touched, but closer than before. The sky, if it could be called that, pulsated above them in a pale, eternally dead light. It gave no warmth, but it illuminated their faces in a strangely intimate way. 

"Drix tried to sing me a song about a snail this morning," Kur said, as if casually. "Zarkt half tried to strangle him."

"Drix is alive?"

"Somehow."

Silence fell between them again, but this time it had a different tone. Lighter. Almost friendly.

"Rox is worried about you" Kur added after a moment. "But she doesn't want to admit it. She pretends to focus on others, but I can see when she throws glances your way."

"She's stronger than me" Nokt said.

Kur rolled her eyes.

"It's not a race, Nokt. Each of us copes differently."

"I don't cope at all."

"I know."

She fell silent. The words he said should have saddened her. But they didn't - because they were true. And in Netherspace, truth was more valuable than any weapon.

"You don't have to play the dangerous wolf all the time" she muttered. "You used to do it because you had to. Now you don't have to."

"And you?" he asked, glancing at her sideways. "Do you still scream so no one notices that you care?"

She was surprised. She didn't answer for a moment.

"Maybe." Her tail twitched. "But I'm not shouting at you anymore."

"Yet."

"Don't provoke."

They smiled at the same time - almost imperceptibly, but sincerely. For the first time in a long time.

Kur reached for a piece of crumbling stone with her claws and began to draw in it. A thin line, then another. It wasn't any particular shape, but keeping her hands occupied helped her speak.

"Do you remember the first time you hit me?" she asked suddenly, without warning.

Nokt nodded slowly.

"Oh yes, it was a long time ago, during that legendary fight for the last piece of dried meat."

"And I bit you."

"I was limping for a week."

She laughed briefly. Honestly. There was something breaking in the sound - as if something deeply hidden inside her had burst through the crack.

"I thought you would hate me then" she admitted quietly.

"No" replied Nokt, staring into space. "That was when I began to understand you."

Kur didn't answer. Her heart beat faster - unexpectedly. And for a moment they weren't prisoners again. They weren't damned. They were just two warriors who had experienced more than they could bear - and they were still here.

Together.

When Kur returned to the rest of the Forbidden Five, Rox looked at her longer than usual. No words, no comment - but there was something in her eyes that Kur recognized immediately. She noticed. She knew where Kur was.

Zarkt only said a short:

"So you're alive after all, 'Miss Kur'. Drix and I thought you had been swallowed by the existential hole."

"I swear, there were traces!" Drix interjected, overly excited as usual. "Someone or something was walking on the stones! Maybe Netherspace itself is talking to us!"

"Or Kur was coming back from a date" Zarkt muttered sarcastically, stretching on a boulder.

Kur gave him a look that could kill, but she didn't deny it.

And that was new.

That day, Nokt appeared at the communal campfire—or rather, what had once been a campfire. The dull, grayish glow leaking from one of the leaky crystals was their only “light.” But Nokt sat down with the others, for the first time in…maybe months.

Drix almost choked with surprise. Rox raised an eyebrow. Zarkt mumbled something under his breath but didn't comment. And Kur just turned her head away as if nothing had happened—though her tail gave away a brief, pleased twitch.

A miracle has happened, Drix said theatrically. The Great Nokt has appeared to the people!

Shut up, Rox snapped, but there was no anger in it. More like relief.

Nokt didn't say much. He asked if anything had happened in his absence. Kur answered briefly. Rox added a few sentences. Even Zarkt spoke. For a moment... they looked like a team. Like more than just broken warriors.

After everything, Kur and Nokt returned to their place. Their place. The silence that fell between them was different now. Without tension. Without pain. Just presence.

"Thank you" said Nokt suddenly.

Kur raised an eyebrow.

"For what?"

"For not letting me disappear."

She didn't answer right away. For a moment she just watched his silhouette in the half-light. He was strong. He was still the leader - but not the same, cold shadow that separated himself from everything. Now something was changing. It was starting to live.

"I didn't do it for you" replied Kur calmly. "I did it for me."

He looked at her, carefully. Not with an ironic smile, not with regret. Just with that quiet respect he had only for her.

"And that's exactly why it works."

Their paws touched involuntarily - just for a moment, uncertainly, as if something inside them wanted to get closer but didn't know how yet. Kur didn't back down. Nokt didn't either.

And Netherspace - for the first time - seemed a little less cold.

In time, others began to notice it too. Kur and Nokt disappeared together more often - supposedly just for patrol, supposedly to check out the sounds coming from the distant tunnels. But no one asked questions.

Zarkt commented on it with exaggerated indifference, Rox ignored it, and Drix... well, Drix was himself.

"Is this called wolf flirting?" he asked once, raising his antennae. "Should I prepare a ceremonial dinner of ash and despair for you?"

Kur threw a stone at him. She hit it. But she didn't deny it.

One night - if it could be called a night at all - Nokt and Kur sat next to each other in a place where the cracks in the wall created a narrow niche. Sometimes you could feel something like wind there. It was not known where it came from - maybe from another dimension, maybe from dying thoughts of Netherspace. But this movement of air reminded that somewhere else something was rolling.

Kur sat leaning against the wall. Nokt - as always - silent, but this time his shoulders were relaxed, his tail calmly wrapped around his legs.

"Do you still remember what's on the other side?" she asked quietly.

"Beyond Netherspace?"

She nodded. He was silent for a moment, then replied:

"Wind. Real. Trees. And a night with stars, not emptiness."

"Would you like to go back?"

"And you?"

Kur tilted her head back, closed her eyes.

"I would like to... but I don't know if I could be myself there again. Netherspace has changed us. We are... different."

"Maybe. But not broken."

She looked at him. For the first time she heard something in his voice that resembled... hope. Quiet, shy - but alive.

"We are made of shadow, Nokt."

"Shadow exists only because there is light somewhere."

Kur smiled bitterly.

"Wolf philosophy?"

"No. The truth that I understood since you forced me to believe into it."

She was close. So close that she could feel the warmth of his fur. Netherspace was icy, but at the moment she felt as if his presence was deceiving reality.

"If we left here" he said suddenly "what would you do?"

"I don't know."

"I would find a place where no one knows us. And built a house of stone that would not whisper with the voices of the dead."

She laughed quietly.

"You? A house? Instead of revenge?"

"For you... yes."

She fell silent. Then, carefully, as if it were something very fragile, she rested her head on his shoulder.

And Nokt - a warrior, a shadow, a wolf with eyes like steel - allowed himself to close his eyes.

In silence.

Together.

From that moment on, something between them changed. Without words, without declarations - but clearly. Kur no longer had to pretend indifference, and Nokt stopped pretending that he didn't need anyone.

They began to plan more patrols together. More "things to check". Netherspace was still dead, but for them it began to live with new colors - shared glances, unspoken words, silent support amidst hopelessness.

Rox watched them from a distance. She knew. Maybe she was even glad, but she said nothing. She knew one thing from Nokt - he never did anything without a reason. And if he allowed himself to be close... that meant something.

Zarkt? He shrugged.

"Until you start kissing at the table, I'm not getting involved" he grumbled. "But if I see even one tear of emotion, I'll strangle you."

"I'm rooting for you!" Drix shouted. "Kur and Nokt! King and Queen of Shadow! Maybe we'll finally have some dramatic ceremony instead of constantly moaning about death!"

Kur looked at him from under her brow, but this time... she smiled. Only slightly, but Drix noticed it. And he squealed with joy, although Zarkt immediately threatened him with his claws.

One "night", when the silence in Netherspace was deeper than usual, Nokt woke up. He hadn't slept well - ever - but this time something tore him out of his half-sleep.

Kur was gone.

He stood up immediately. Their corridor was empty. Colder than usual.

He found her a few minutes later - at the very edge of one of the sinkholes. She was standing on the edge, staring into nothingness. The shadow of her figure was sharp, jagged. As if something inside her had broken again.

"Kur" he said quietly.

She didn't turn around.

"I thought I was strong" she said after a moment. "But this place... it knows how to remind me of everything I wanted to forget."

He came closer. He hadn't touched her yet - he was just next to her.

"Today I dreamed of my unit dying" she added, her voice too calm to be normal. "And that you were leaving us. Just like me. Except... in the dream it was real."

Nokt fell silent. Then he spoke slowly:

"I left many. But never you."

Kur finally turned around. There was something in her eyes that Nokt had never seen before - fear. Real fear. Human.

"What if we get out of here? What then? What if I lose you again?"

He took a step. And another. And then - for the first time - he embraced her. Not like a warrior. Not like a leader.

Like someone who was afraid himself.

"You won't lose me" he whispered. "Not again."

Kur shivered. But she didn't run away. Instead, she nestled into him, tighter, tighter... as if everything depended on it.

And maybe that was exactly what it was.

More days passed... or their illusions. In Netherspace, time was just a shadow - it flowed as it wanted. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower, sometimes it stood still and reminded that the imprisoned had no future.

But for Nokt and Kur, every moment spent together took on meaning. Their conversations, their silences - these were new anchors. In a place that tried to take everything away from them, they found something that Netherspace couldn't destroy: a bond.

They didn't need escape plans. Not anymore. They knew there was no escape.

"Do you think they remember us?" Kur asked, as they sat by one of the stalactites that had frozen in mid-fall, as if time itself had caught it.

"The enemies, for sure," Nokt replied. "Maybe they're glad we're stuck here."

Kur raised an eyebrow.

"And the slaves...?"

"I suppose that was the best day of their lives."

They fell silent. But it wasn't a bitter silence - rather a calm one. Acceptance. Because they both knew that their story didn't need saving.

It just needed an ending.

One night - again that strange, quiet, unreal night - Kur came to Nokt without a word. She sat down next to him, as always, but this time something new flickered in her eyes.

"Netherspace won't ever let us go," she said. "But maybe... it doesn't have to take anything from us."

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe this is where we are meant to be. Maybe this is the place where we are meant to find each other - not as warriors, not as shadows, but as us."

Nokt looked at her. Long, carefully. And nodded.

"So we stay."

"Together."

She rested her head on his shoulder. And he put his arm around her, without hesitation.

This was not a triumph.

There was no light that defeated the darkness.

There was no song of hope.

But there was something more: two souls who had stopped fighting their fate and learned to live within it.

For each other.

Not for the world.

Not for revenge.

Simply - for what had grown between them despite everything.

As they fell asleep that night, Netherspace whispered as it always did - with the voices of lost dreams and broken oaths. But somewhere in that shadow that knew only cold and despair, a different note sounded.

Quiet.

But real.

And it belonged only to them.

Morning in Netherspace did not exist - it was only a shadow of the old reality, an illusion of light on the cold, dark walls. Despite this, Kur and Nokt slowly found their rhythms. Although trapped, they slowly began to build something like a house.

Not from stone, not from iron, but from moments and words.

That day, when the rest of the Forbidden Five were still sleeping in their corridors, Kur and Nokt found a place to meet - a small, hidden niche, where stalactites formed something like a natural roof. Here they spent time together, away from the hustle and bustle and shadows.

Kur unfolded the map, although it did not show any escape routes - rather drawings that she herself created, writing down her thoughts and plans. Nokt looked at it with interest.

"What are these symbols?" he asked, pointing at one of the drawings - swirling spirals and symbols.

"These are my memories" Kur replied. "Each symbol is a fragment of my history. We can't leave, but we can leave something of ourselves here. A trace that we existed."

Nokt smiled slightly. Something appeared in his eyes that others rarely saw - warmth and admiration.

"Do you want to leave something for eternity...?"

"Yesx Kur replied. "So that Netherspace doesn't forget that we were here."

Nokt looked at her with new understanding.

"In that case... together."

He approached and placed his hand on hers.

Kur accepted the gesture, and their gazes intertwined in silent understanding.

The rest of the Forbidden Five did not understand exactly what was happening between them, but they noticed that their bond was growing stronger. Rox finally admitted that it was more than just a partnership of warriors.

"Maybe that's what allows them to survive" she said, watching them from a distance.

Zarkt nodded, though reluctantly.

"Whatever it is, it seems to be working."

Drix sang a quiet song of friendship and hope, though no one had the heart to play.

In the evening, Kur and Nokt met again in their hideout. This time, Kur pulled out a piece of stone that she had found somewhere in one of the tunnels.

"I want to carve something" she said, placing the stone on the ground.

Nokt sat down next to him, curious.

"What will it be?"

Kur looked at him seriously.

"A symbol of us two. A mark that will show that even in this place something lasting can be created."

She took the tool - a piece of sharp metal that Nokt had found nearby - and began to carve. Gentle, slow movements, as if each line was a prayer.

After a moment, they both looked at the stone - the carved mark resembled two shadows intertwined, a wolf and a jackal.

"This is our seal" Kur said.

Nokt nodded, and their hands accidentally touched.

It was a simple gesture, yet important.

A sign that they were no longer alone.

Time in Netherspace still slipped through their fingers like a shadow. For the rest of the Forbidden Five, it was just another day of imprisonment, another hour without hope. But for Nokt and Kur, their relationship became an anchor, the only thing that gave meaning to every moment.

One day, during one of their walks through the cold, empty corridors, Kur stopped and looked at Nokt with a new, determined expression on her face.

"Do you know what hurts me the most?" she asked quietly.

Nokt looked at her, waiting for an answer.

"That we can't do anything. That we are here like a shadow that will never experience the light." her eyes lit up for a moment, although she immediately tried to hide her emotions.

"Netherspace is like a prison without keys" Nokt said, his voice hard but full of sadness. "But... together we can survive anything."

Kur nodded, but there was still a spark of rebellion in her eyes.

"I want more than just to survive."

"What do you mean?"

"I want us to have our own lives, our own memories that will not be just shadows of the past. Something that will be ours, independent of this place."

Nokt looked at her, as if wondering if that was possible.

"What if this place never lets us out?"

Kur smiled slightly, with that note of determination that Nokt knew well.

"We have to make our place here. Not run, not fight. But live."

In the evening, while the rest of the Forbidden Five slept, Kur and Nokt sat by the carved stone, their "seal".

"What if we never leave here?" Nokt asked, looking at the sign.

"Then our seal will become a symbol of strength" Kur replied. "Even Netherspace will not break us."

They embraced, and the silence between them was like a promise. In a place where everything was fleeting, they found something lasting.

The next day Rox approached them, her face serious.

"I heard your conversations" she said quietly. "And I know that although Netherspace wants to break us, you do not allow it."

Nokt looked at her gratefully.

"We have to be together. It is our only weapon."

Kur nodded.

"We have no choice. But we have each other."

Rox smiled slightly.

"And that is our strength."

Evening fell again, but in the shadow of Netherspace, new hope was born for Nokt and Kur. Not for escape - because escape was impossible. But for survival, for life despite the prison, for love that endured where others had succumbed to despair.

Netherspace knew no mercy. The cold walls whispered stories of decline, hopelessness, and oblivion. But in this place of shadow, where even light seemed to die, a fire flared up - not a great, bright flame, but a quiet, lasting ember.

Nokt and Kur stood shoulder to shoulder, entwined in a silence that spoke more than a thousand words.

"I once thought that Netherspace would destroy us," Nokt said, his voice hard but not without a hint of sadness. "That it would lock us away forever in this ice and darkness."

Kur looked into his eyes, and in her gaze was all the strength of her nature - ancient, unyielding.

"It will not destroy us. Because we will not allow it."

Their hands clenched tighter. They knew that no one would free them, no one would pull them out of this hell.

But they had each other.

That was their true freedom.

The corridors of Netherspace were filled with their presence. Their mutual support became their shield and sword. Together they faced the shadows that tried to consume their minds, together they found sparks of hope in the vast nothingness.

Kur whispered the legends of freedom and strength she had heard in the night. Nokt answered with quiet tales of old battles and faith that had survived everything.

This mutual exchange was their escape - although physically imprisoned, their spirits remained free.

Finally, in one of the deepest moments of silence, Kur raised her head and looked straight into Nokt's eyes.

"I don't know what the future holds. We may never leave this place. But I know one thing - you are my home."

Nokt smiled, for the first time in a long time without a hint of bitterness.

"And you are my strength." In their gazes was everything that could not disappear - love that had survived time and space, a bond that could not be broken.

Without waiting any longer, they leaned towards each other, and their lips met in a tender, gentle kiss. This kiss was a promise - that even in Netherspace, their love would last forever, indestructible and true.

Their hands clenched tighter. They knew that no one would free them, no one would pull them out of this hell.

But they had each other.

This was their freedom.

Netherspace still existed, cold and implacable.

But in this eternal prison, among the shadows, Nokt and Kur created their own reality.

Their world.

Their love.

Their freedom.

And although no one heard this story except them, this silence spoke louder than words.

Because sometimes the greatest strength is not in escaping.

But in staying.