Stone kisses flesh. Asher’s moan echoes against tomb walls as he drives his fist against unyielding rock. Pain blooms like fire through his hand, racing up his arm, setting every nerve alight. “Yes,” he breathes, voice thick with something between pleasure and desperation. His body arches into the hurt, seeking more.

Again. The impact sends sparks behind his eyes. Blood warms his skin, and for one blessed moment, the noise in his head quiets. His chest heaves with ragged breath. The night air feels too thick, too close, wrapping around him like a lover’s arms. He welcomes it, this dance of pain and relief.
His head finds the rock next, a lover’s caress turned violent. The world swims, edges softening, and Asher moans deep in his throat. This is what he needs – this dissolution, this coming apart. His body knows the rhythm now: strike, gasp, shudder, repeat. Each blow brings him closer to blessed numbness, closer to forgetting.
Rain kisses his upturned face as he falls to his knees. The ground spins beneath him, and he surrenders to the motion, letting his body roll onto his back. Blood pulses in his palms, hot and urgent. His head lolls against stone, the world inverted, his limbs heavy with dark pleasure. His fists still punch at shadows, legs kicking against invisible bonds, but the movements grow languid, almost sensual in their desperation.
Then – like a lover’s whisper in the dark – something new touches his consciousness. A presence, a voice, gentler than any touch he’s known. “Be still,” it breathes into his soul, and Asher’s body responds before his mind can resist. His limbs go slack, pleasure of a different kind flooding his system.

Silence enters him like light entering a long-sealed tomb. It fills all his hollow spaces, touches all his secret wounds. His back arches one final time – not in pain now, but in surrender. A sob catches in his throat, this time not of anguish but of release.
His body melts into the earth, tension draining like blood from his veins. And in this moment of complete surrender, hope dawns within him – as gentle and unstoppable as the rising sun on calm waters.