The Anunnaki concept of a feast bore little resemblance to the countless buried forms of human tradition I had studied in secret. There was no warmth, no true community, and no joy in shared nourishment. Instead, the Hall of the Black Sun had been arranged into strict hierarchical seating that reflected each attendee's standing in Nibiruan society. The feast itself was a performance of power and superiority rather than pleasure and connection.

  I was seated, as expected, at the outermost periphery with other royal "anomalies"—bastard children, disgraced relatives, and the few half-bloods deemed important enough to attend but not important enough to be seen. Enrosha, despite her mixed heritage, sat near the high table as befitted the daughter of the soon-to-be Supreme Ruler. Qali occupied a middle position, her father's status balanced against her hybrid nature.

  The first course arrived—living delicacies that writhed on plates of precious metal, their bioluminescent fluids forming intricate patterns as they were consumed. I barely touched mine, watching instead as the full-blooded Anunnaki nobility tore into their meals with elegant savagery, their angular faces betraying nothing but calculated gluttony.

  "Not hungry, O-feel-ia?" asked the smirking nobleman to my left, a distant cousin of my mother's whose name I had deliberately forgotten. "Or perhaps our fare is too sophisticated for your simpler palate?"

  I offered a practiced smile. "I find anticipation enhances my appetite."

  He snorted, returning to his own plate. The nobleman to my right didn't acknowledge my existence at all, which was, frankly, a relief.

  As servers cleared the first course, I caught glimpses of various Anunnaki Council members seated at the high table. My mother, Ereshkigal, resplendent in crimson attire that seemed to absorb rather than reflect light. Nergal, his massive frame dominating even in this gathering of giants. And at the center, Enzu, his face a study in controlled triumph as he awaited his formal ascension.

  What the assembled nobility didn't see were the undercurrents. The subtle tells in my mother's posture that indicated rage rather than celebration. The slight distance Nergal maintained from his siblings, suggesting alliances had shifted. The carefully concealed fear behind Enzu's confidence.

  They were afraid. All of them. The death of their elders had shaken something fundamental in their worldview. If Anu and Antu could be killed by what they considered a lesser being, what else might be possible? What of the collective? What of their carefully crafted system meant to recycle souls for fuel?

  A commotion near the entrance drew my attention. Several Gibillu servants were escorting a human into the hall—a small, terrified man with graying hair at his temples. His eyes darted around the massive space, taking in the towering Anunnaki with poorly disguised horror.

  "Ah," my table companion remarked, "the entertainment has arrived."

  I kept my expression neutral even as my stomach churned. I knew what was coming. This wouldn't be the first time I had witnessed it, but I had foolishly hoped that such practices might be suspended during a coronation feast.

  The human was led to a circular platform in the center of the hall, visible to all attendees. A herald stepped forward, his voice amplified to fill the vast space.

  "Distinguished nobility of Nibiru, Lord Enzu presents tonight's specimen: a human mathematician from Earth leyline 42, captured during routine monitoring."

  The human was trembling now, his lips moving in what might have been prayer. He wore simple clothes, suggesting he had been taken directly from his ordinary life, likely from a university or research institute.

  Lord Enzu rose from his seat, towering even among the Anunnaki. "Before I accept the mantle of Supreme Ruler, I offer this demonstration of our continued and absolute dominion over Earth. Behold." Enzu announced.

  Two technicians approached the platform, carrying what looked like a simple obsidian rod. The human's eyes widened as they neared, his trembling increasing to shaking.

  "Please," he said, his voice barely audible even in the sudden silence of the hall. "I have a family. Children! I don't understand what's happening. I’ll do what you ask! Please! Do you even understand what I’m saying?!"

  The technicians ignored his pleas, positioning themselves on either side of him. One held him in place while the other pressed the rod to his forehead.

  What happened next was something I had only witnessed seven times before, and it never became easier to watch. The rod began to glow with a sickly purple light. The human's body went rigid, his mouth opened in a silent scream, and his pupils glazed over. Then, gradually, his body began to emit a soft golden illumination.

  The process took exactly three minutes and thirty-three seconds. I counted each second, as I always did, my face carefully arranged in the expected expression of clinical interest while inside, rage burned like acid in my veins.

  When the extraction was complete, the man's body collapsed. The technicians stepped back, one of them holding the rod, now pulsing with captured golden light.

  "The specimen's quantum signature will be analyzed and its anomalous frequencies isolated," Enzu announced. "Any emerging awareness patterns will be integrated into the Symphony's protective algorithms, ensuring continued containment and subjugation of our most precious resource: Earth."

  Applause rippled through the Hall of the Black Sun as servants discreetly removed the man's empty, lifeless flesh suit. To the assembled nobility, this had been nothing more than a routine demonstration—a reaffirmation of their technological dominion and rightful place as masters of lesser beings.

  I caught Qali's eye across the hall. Her face showed the perfect mask of appreciation, but I could see her fingers clenched so tightly around her utensil that her knuckles had turned white. Enrosha, seated near her father, maintained a calm and regal composure that revealed nothing of her true thoughts.

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  The feast continued with the serving of the second course. Conversation resumed around me and the demonstration was already forgotten by most attendees.

  "Quite impressive," commented the nobleman beside me. "Though I've seen more dramatic extractions. This one barely struggled. Should’ve been younger…"

  I took a sip of the luminescent liquid in my goblet, using the moment to compose myself. "Perhaps excess fear and insufficient hope dampened the quality of the human’s energy," I suggested.

  "Hm…” He took a moment to consider my comment. “Yeah, actually, that makes a lot of sense." He chuckled, spearing a writhing morsel from his plate. "Though I suppose that might discomfort someone of your..." he paused, eyes flicking dismissively over my smaller form, "...sensitivity."

  I smiled thinly. "On the contrary. I find it most educational."

  And it had been. Every atrocity I had witnessed over my lifetime had been carefully cataloged, each cruelty stored away like fuel for a fire I had been building since childhood. The human's death tonight was merely the latest entry in a ledger that had grown far too long.

  As the feast progressed toward Enzu's formal coronation, I maintained the expected pleasantries while my mind finalized our escape plan. The shock of the demonstration had actually provided an unexpected advantage. Security personnel were focused on monitoring the reactions of potential sympathizers among the assembled nobles, not on three half-blood daughters who had long been dismissed as inconsequential.

  During the third course, I excused myself with murmured apologies about feminine necessities—a subject that invariably caused male Anunnaki to lose interest immediately. Instead of heading to the private chambers designated for such purposes, I took a circuitous route through less monitored corridors toward our predetermined meeting point.

  The Lab would be too obvious a gathering place now. Instead, we had selected the decommissioned transport bay in the southern quadrant. It was an area officially awaiting renovation but actually left in bureaucratic limbo for decades.

  As I moved through the shadowed hallways, I reflected on the journey that had brought us to this moment. Years of quiet observation. Countless humiliation rituals endured in silence. The slow, methodical gathering of occulted knowledge.

  And all the while, Earth turned below us, its inhabitants living and dying in cycles designed to feed the Symphony.

  Until, a Vampire prince named Trisananda had done what was thought impossible. He had awakened. He had remembered. And in his rage over the death of his beloved, he had killed the unkillable.

  Now it was our turn to awaken. To remember. To act. We simply cannot waste this opportunity that was given to us.

  I reached the transport bay and slipped inside, finding it exactly as our intelligence had indicated—abandoned, dimly lit, but with functional equipment covered in protective sheeting. The dimensional transporter stood against the far wall, its obsidian surface absorbing what little light reached it.

  I began removing the sheeting, uncovering control panels that hadn't been used in decades. The transporter was old technology, considered inefficient compared to newer methods, but it had one critical advantage. It operated on antiquated principles that existed outside the Council's monitoring systems.

  Fifteen minutes later, the door slid open again. I tensed, ready to hide, but relaxed when I saw Qali enter, carrying a large case.

  "Any trouble?" I asked softly.

  She shook her head. "They're all too busy gauging reactions to notice my absence." She set down the case and began unpacking equipment. "Enrosha will be more complicated. She's expected to stand with Enzu during the coronation itself."

  "She'll come," I said with certainty. "She's waited too long for this."

  Qali paused, her dark brown eyes meeting mine. "Are you sure about this, Ophelia? Once we go to Earth... there's no coming back."

  I thought of the human mathematician, his silent scream as his essence was ripped away. I thought of Sara, who had raised me with more kindness than my own mother ever showed. I thought of all the Gibillu servants who moved through Anunnaki society like shadows, including my Gibillu mother I never met, their lives considered worthless except for the service they provided.

  "There was never anything to come back to," I said quietly.

  Qali nodded, returning to her work. Her fingers moved with practiced precision over the ancient controls, bypassing security systems and initializing power sequences without triggering alerts.

  "Earth coordinates are locked," she reported after several minutes. "I've set the destination to a remote location near..." she hesitated, "...where Trisananda and Elizabeth died."

  The names hung in the air between us. Two beings from different bloodlines who had found each other despite everything the Anunnaki had done to keep them apart. Who had discovered truths that threatened the entire system. Who had paid the ultimate price for their awakening.

  "Perfect," I said. "How long until—"

  The door slid open again, revealing Enrosha's towering form. She was breathless, her formal attire slightly disheveled.

  "It's happening," she said without preamble. "They've moved up the coronation. Father sensed something was wrong. He's ordered a full security sweep of the complex!"

  Qali's hands moved faster over the controls. She clicked her tongue. "How much time do we have!?"

  "Minutes at most. I created a diversion in the eastern quadrant, but it won't hold them long." Enrosha moved to help Qali, her larger hands stabilizing components as they hummed to life. "The dimensional matrix is still recharging. We need at least three more minutes."

  I moved to the door, placing my palm against the control panel. "I'll lock it and initiate a secondary security protocol. That should buy us some time."

  As the door sealed, alarm signals began pulsing through the complex. They had discovered our absence.

  "Work faster," I urged, joining them at the transporter controls.

  The ancient machine was vibrating now, its obsidian surface beginning to ripple like liquid as it prepared to tear a hole in the dimensional fabric of space. A soft blue glow emanated from its depths.

  "Sixty seconds," Qali reported, her voice tight with tension.

  The sealed door shuddered as something impacted it from outside. Then again, harder.

  "They're here," Enrosha said, positioning herself between us and the door, her massive frame braced for confrontation.

  "Thirty seconds," Qali continued, fingers flying over controls.

  The door panel began to spark as override commands were initiated from outside. Qali’s security protocols failed one by one.

  "Ten seconds."

  The door slid open. Standing in the corridor was my mother, Ereshkigal, her face contorted with cold fury. Behind her, Nergal's massive form blocked the hallway, and beyond him, I caught a glimpse of Enzu himself, still wearing his ceremonial regalia.

  "Ophelia, you rotten ogreish monstrosity of a child," my mother said, her voice like shards of ice. "What do you think you are doing!?"

  For the first time in my life, I looked directly into her eyes without lowering my gaze. "Flying."

  The transporter surged to full power, the blue glow expanding to envelop the three of us. My mother lunged forward, hand outstretched to grab me, and for a moment, I saw something in her eyes I'd never witnessed before. Fear. Not anger, not disappointment, but genuine fear.

  "You don't understand what you're doing," she hissed. "The consequences—"

  "I understand perfectly," I replied as the dimensional field began to dissolve our physical forms. "I’m your greatest failure, Mother. And I’m okay with that."

  The last thing I saw before Nibiru faded from view was the expression of shock on the three Anunnaki rulers' faces. The realization that the unthinkable had happened again. Their carefully controlled system had produced another unpredicted outcome.

  Then there was only the disorienting sensation of dimensional travel, the feeling of being everywhere and nowhere simultaneously, and the knowledge that when we rematerialized, it would be on Earth—a world I had observed all my life but never touched.

  A world where, somewhere, the survivors of what Trisananda had begun were waiting. Whether they knew it or not.