It had been thirty-six hours since Callum last slept.
At least, he thought so.
Time no longer obeyed the same rules within the Archive. Clocks in the study spun in reverse. The sun rose from the north. He'd watched the same crow land on the same branch outside the window three times in a row, each with a bleeding beak and nothing in its eyes.
And still, the changes continued.
His spine now pressed against his shirt like a second skin. It had begun forming offshoots—small bone spurs along his lower back. His shoulder blades itched constantly, as if something was growing beneath them.
He hadn't spoken aloud in days.
Because he feared who might answer.
---
The fireplace lit itself again that night.
But this time, it wasn't flame.
It was light. Pale, unnatural—bone-colored. Cold, not warm. And from within it, a voice emerged:
> "Dr. Greaves. Final transmission. Date unknown."
Callum stared into the light, unmoving.
It flickered, and an image bled into the air: Greaves—alive but haggard—stood within the Archive chamber, sweat-drenched, teeth clattering.
> "To whoever receives this… If you're watching, then the archive has accepted you as a candidate. Which means… I failed. Again."
His eyes twitched. One of them was clouded, the other burned red.
> "It was never about discovery. Not really. The Archive doesn't want to be known. It wants to be remembered. Through us. In us."
He placed a hand on the bone table beside him.
> "I uncovered its mouth. I saw it. I fed it."
> "And I think… I think it's still hungry."
The feed cut out. The flame vanished.
And Callum was left alone again—with only the echo of the word mouth still curling around the room like smoke.
---
He returned to the Archive.
No coat. No light. Just the itch in his shoulders and the cold certainty that there was still more beneath.
The shelves were mostly empty now. Bones had vanished. The air was thicker—moist, heavy with breath. He passed the white door, which now bore a new marking etched into it:
> "Host 14: Descent Required."
The tunnel beyond it had shifted again.
The cathedral of ribs was gone.
Now it was a throat.
Lined with flesh.
Pulsing.
Every step he took sounded wet.
Every breath was echoed.
And somewhere in the dark, something waited with its mouth open.
---
After what felt like hours, the corridor opened into a massive, circular chamber.
At the center stood a dais of fused vertebrae.
And upon it: a figure.
Not Greaves.
Not a failed host.
This one stood straight.
Tall.
Draped in a robe of stitched skin and cartilage.
Its face was hidden by a smooth bone mask—featureless except for a vertical slit running from scalp to chin. The slit opened, slowly, like lips parting—
and revealed another mouth beneath.
No eyes.
Just teeth.
It raised one hand and gestured for Callum to kneel.
And without knowing why, he did.
---
> "You are almost formed," the thing whispered. Its voice sounded like marrow being sucked through a straw.
"Your bones remember. Your skin does not."
"You are the Fourteenth. But not the last."
Callum's body trembled.
He couldn't speak.
His tongue felt thick, unfamiliar.
The thing stepped closer.
> "We are not gods. We are curators. The flesh forgets. We keep what matters."
"And soon, so will you."
It placed one hand on his skull.
Callum screamed.
Not in pain.
But in recognition.
Something inside him opened.
He remembered—
—not his life—
—but another.
---
He saw a room of glass, filled with other versions of himself—each one twisted, deformed, broken.
One was missing a face.
Another had a spiral ribcage.
One bled endlessly from the spine.
Another floated in fluid, suspended by wires.
They were all him.
All attempts.
All failures.
He saw Greaves, too—kneeling before the bone-masked thing, begging.
> "I wasn't ready. I wasn't whole."
And then he saw the first host.
Not human.
Tall. Crowned with antlers made of fused ribs.
Eyes like hollow sockets that reached into time.
It turned toward him and whispered a word he couldn't understand.
But his bones did.
---
He awoke on the archive floor, gasping, drenched in sweat.
He had no idea how much time had passed.
But his arms were covered in cuts.
Words.
Etched by his own hands:
> "When the Archive eats the flesh, it leaves the shape."
"You are only real if remembered."
"The Archivist is inside."
He stumbled back to the study.
The mirror was gone.
Replaced with a wall of x-rays.
All of them were of him.
But each was slightly different.
One had four lungs.
One had no skull.
One showed a spine that curved into infinity.
---
There was a new journal on the desk.
Written in his own handwriting.
He didn't remember writing it.
Page after page of anatomical diagrams—notes, ritual instructions, symbols drawn from bone structures.
At the bottom of one page:
> "Tonight you will see your final face."
He turned the page—
—and found a photograph.
Of his body.
Skinned.
Smiling.
Holding a candle made of cartilage.
---
That night, the house grew quiet.
Not empty.
Expectant.
Callum moved through the rooms like a ghost.
Each step was guided by something older than thought.
He returned to the Archive one last time.
The chamber below had changed again.
Now it was a sanctuary.
Ribcages lined the walls like stained glass.
The Archivist waited at the altar.
It held out a mask—smooth, pale, identical to its own.
Callum took it.
Fitted it to his face.
And saw.
---
He saw the truth of the Archive.
Not a place.
A consciousness.
A being made of memory and bone, long buried beneath the roots of time. It had whispered to mad doctors, to grave-robbers, to artists carving sculptures from skeletons.
It had been passed down, encoded in evolution, waiting for a host strong enough to remember its shape.
And now, it had chosen him.
---
> "You will be the Librarian," the Archivist said.
"You will write the new anatomy."
> "And one day, you will call another here."
Callum placed his hands on the altar.
The bones beneath it opened like a mouth.
And from the dark inside, something rose.
Not a monster.
A replica.
Another Callum.
Fresh.
Unformed.
Sleeping.
Waiting to become...