Chapter 8 — The Void Project
The library was a living monument. Its walls and grand pillars pulsed with Kucholel, the sacred energy that had breathed life into the empire's discoveries. For centuries, it stood as an impenetrable vault of knowledge, a place where gods once whispered and battles long forgotten still echoed through its flowing tapestries.
The apprentice had grown here, learning under the Ajtaseeb, tracing the glyphs by shifting light, memorising the pulse of the weave until it felt like his own heartbeat.
Tonight, that pulse faltered.
A shiver ran his spine as the hum dulled. The glowing walls sank into shadow. The flow of Kucholel retreated like a tide. The apprentice stopped midway down the stairs, whispering, "Master… it's gone."
"I know," the Ajtaseeb said without turning. His hands tightened at his sides.
In the chamber below lay two elliptical forms. One devoured the lanternlight until no shadow remained. The other shimmered in colours that should not exist, as if reflecting worlds behind the walls of this one.
The scholars shifted uneasily.
"It resists us," one muttered.
"No," another answered, voice shaking. "It recoils."
"Hold the circle," the Ajtaseeb snapped. "We are closer than ever. Do not falter now."
The apprentice's chest grew tight. The familiar pulse of Kucholel was gone, and something else pressed in its place—thick, heavy, ancient. Not curse, not spell. Indifference.
The Ajtaseeb lifted his hands. His voice, steady once, trembled now as he forced the last incantation from his throat. The words grated, scraping against the stone. The air folded in on itself. Tendrils of unseen power uncoiled and wrapped the eggs, stroking their surfaces like curious fingers.
The apprentice whispered, "This is wrong."
"Steady!" the Ajtaseeb barked.
The eggs pulsed.
Cracks streaked their shells, spreading like lightning.
A scholar cried out, "By the gods—it's moving—"
Then came the scream. One man dropped, his body bending backwards until bones tore through skin. Another clutched at his chest, gasping, "It's inside me—" before collapsing in silence.
The apprentice stumbled back, bile rising. "Master! Stop the rite!"
"If we break the weave now," the Ajtaseeb shouted, sweat streaking his brow, "we are already dead!"
The force ignored them. It surged straight for the eggs.
The library groaned. Walls blackened. Pillars split down their centres. The vast tapestries froze mid-shift—warriors caught half-drawn, animals halted mid-stride, their stories cut off forever.
One scholar sobbed, "This isn't creation. It's corruption!"
Stone split. Dust rained. The circle broke.
The apprentice ran.
Corridors warped around him. Black flames licked the walls, not with heat but with inversion, eating light until only blinding shadows remained. Every breath tasted of ash and metal. The floor quivered beneath his boots, stone turning soft for a heartbeat before hardening again.
Behind him the sacred hall of knowledge collapsed, consumed by impossible fire. The sound was not of burning but of silence breaking apart.
He dared not look back. The weight of the eggs dragged at his mind. He had seen them pulse, seen the alien fire touch them without burning. They had not died. They had been changed.
Outside, the night felt hollow. The stars above dimmed, smothered by the inverted glow still raging within the ruins. The apprentice bent double, gasping.
He risked one glance. The library—his home, his master's pride—folded into rubble, its veins extinguished.
The eggs.
They sat buried now, warped and cracked, their surfaces inert. To the eye, they were dead things. Failures.
But deep in the rubble, something stirred once—faint, slow, unseen. Not enough for life. Not enough to draw fear. Just enough to remind the stones around them that waiting was also a kind of power.
The apprentice turned and fled into the dark.
The library was gone. History would bury it. But the memory clung to him like ash: the attempt, the collapse, the eggs that did not die.
One day, perhaps, they would hatch.