Once, there was a girl who learned the name of an ancient god. It burned in her, the name, it shouted out to be spoken, but she dared not speak it. It was a holy thing, a precious jewel of worth in this worthless world, but it was not a name that should be spoken.
There were some who thought otherwise—princes, hierophants, dead men, sorcerer-kings. They employed their means of persuasion, but still the girl demurred. Even as they led her to the gallows, she did not speak—she did not speak—
She was going to die. She had a duty she’d never asked for, a sacred obligation, and it meant more than her life—but, she realized, she wasn’t willing to die for it.
She spoke five syllables, and the world fell away.
No one tried to persuade her, after that. It wouldn’t have done them much good, anyway. She’d have just given them a mischievous grin, and gleefully demonstrated the absence of her tongue.
She got older. The regret never faded, the blood on her hands never washed away, but at least she got to live an uneventful life, for a time.
It’s almost a joke, in the end. The princes and sorcerer-kings never got her, but some kid, all belligerent from drinking away a broken heart, waving a sword around like a jackass? That’s who does her in. He isn’t even trying to kill her, just stumbling in her direction sword-first.
She has no choice. Her tongue is gone, but the name had never needed a tongue to be spoken. It spills from her mouth like a star exploding:
A cutscene triggers. Non-diegetic music fills the air. A thing more beast than god romps and frolicks about. The blade moves no closer to her heart—that isn’t part of the cutscene. And time, real time, isn’t part of the cutscene either, even with the sword’s tip less than a second from her skin. But it can only last so long—
The cutscene begins again, but there’s just the slightest interval between one’s end and the other’s beginning. It’s enough. The sword pierces skin, nuzzles the soft meat of her heart. She is going to die, once the cutscene ends, and it is almost—
No interval this time—the cutscene plays inside the cutscene, like space and time folding in on themselves. She can’t feel the pain, not while she stands outside the world, but the interruption in her blood flow is starting to impair her cognition. All she has to do is keep saying it—
They say that if you go there, you can still see it—the wound in time, the hole in the world. The cutscene, unending. She will never die. You can see her, if you’re close enough, can hear the non-diegetic music and see for yourself the face of god.