Aiden never believed in gods.
Not until the night he found the library that shouldn't exist.
The alley was familiar, the same one he walked through every night after his shift. But tonight, it stretched longer… darker.
And at the end of that impossible path, a door waited.
It opened without his touch.
Inside—shelves upon shelves stretched into infinity. Books chained shut, locks that pulsed like beating hearts. Whispers crawled between the rows, hungry, patient.
And in the center of it all lay a single book on a pedestal of stone.
Dripping.
Bleeding.
Alive.
His hand moved before his brain caught up.
The instant his fingers brushed its cover, the world shattered.
The book screamed. Blood hissed across the floor. And a voice seared into his skull—
"Reader of the Divine. Page One… Claimed."
Aiden's vision went white. The ground fell away.
And he plummeted into the Archives of God.
—End of Prologue—