He peers down into the abyss and feels it staring back.
Something vast. Something still. Older than stars, older than silence. It does not breathe, but it waits. And somehow, it knows his name.
He begins to descend.
The staircase winds like a spine — downward, always downward — curving in on itself with no center. The walls sweat with condensation, though there is no heat. The air is thick, like breath held too long.
There is no light.
But he sees.
The spark inside him — the thing he thought was his — glows with unnatural brightness. It lights each step as he walks. Not warmth. Not fire. But something colder. Something aware.
It feels… watched.
He feels… exposed.
He does not know how long he walks. Hours. Days. Or seconds misplaced in the folds of eternity.
Finally, the stairs end.
A room.
Empty.
Absolutely empty.
No doors. No symbols. No altar. Just smooth stone, stained with something too old to name. At the center—
A bed. Torn and rotting, pressed against the far wall like a forgotten offering.
He stares at it for a long time. Then kneels.
His hand moves on instinct, reaches beneath the bedframe.
And finds it.
A book.
No title. No symbol. Just tattered hide, ashen to the touch. Its surface has been scraped raw—as if someone had violently erased its name. But still it hums. Still it calls.
He doesn't remember opening it.
But now, it's open.
The pages are not in a language he knows. Not in any language at all. The ink is black where it should be red, red where it should be gone. Words twist mid-sentence. Letters rearrange when he blinks.
But he understands what the book allows him to understand.
Somewhere, between comprehension and horror, a sentence forms.
If you see the Word, close your eyes.
If you hear the Name, cover your ears.
If you feel the Light, bury it.
His hands tremble.
Because now, he realizes —
The spark that once guided him here?
It is not his.
It never was.
And down here, at the end of all things, it begins to dim.
He slams the book shut. Dust scatters into the air like spores from something long dead. Without thinking, he shoves it back beneath the bed — as if hiding it could undo what he'd seen.
He runs.
Back to the stairs. Up, up, up—feet barely catching the steps, arms scraping stone. The climb should take forever, but it doesn't. Time is fraying.
He reaches the trap door.
It's shut.
No light leaks through the seams.
No handle.
No sound.
He pounds on it.
"Hey! Let me out!"
The wood does not budge.
He yells again. Louder. Nothing.
And then—
He hears his name.
Not from above.
Not from behind.
But from inside.
He turns.
There is nothing there.
Then something.
A shape unfolds in the dark.
The head of a lion. The body of a serpent. Horns. Fangs. A crown of flickering light that blinds but does not shine.
Its eyes are infinite. Not in number—but in depth. He sees himself reflected in them, again and again, smaller each time. Diminishing. Forgetting.
It does not roar. It doesn't need to.
It just speaks.
But not in sound.
"I want to exist."
Three words.
A prayer.
A threat.
A truth.
Behind him, the book has reappeared. Open. Pages fluttering like wings soaked in ash.
Another verse is waiting.
He doesn't read it.
He will not read it.
Because some knowing is a trap.
His spark sputters, flickers, begins to dim.
The glow fades from his hands.
From his chest.
From his eyes.
He is going blind—not from darkness, but from unbeing.
"I want to exist."
The voice does not rise. It is not louder.
But it swells.
It fills him. Wraps around his lungs. Claws into his ribs.
He screams.
"LET ME OUT!"
His voice shatters in the chamber, echoes folding back on themselves like mirrors turning inward.
"LET ME OUT—"
The lion-serpent tilts its head. Its mouth doesn't move. But the silence around him deepens, drowns.
Lies.
Lies.
Lies.
The chamber breathes. His mind frays. He doesn't know if he's shouting anymore.
His voice is nothing.
And then—
A sound pierces the noise.
A woman's voice.
Far. Familiar.
Calling him home.
"Elias!"
Like an axe breaking ice, the name slices through the unreality. The trap door above explodes open with a blast of heat and golden light.
He is launched upward.
Back through the stairs.
Through the floorboards.
Onto the chapel stage.
He lands gasping. Cold. Shaking.
Behind him—
The trap door slams shut.
And the silence breathes one last time.
I want to exist.
He gasps, dragging in air that burns like smoke.
His lungs expand, but nothing comes. No relief. No breath.
His chest rises—
Again—
Again—
But the oxygen does not break down. His body will not recognize it. The more he breathes, the more he chokes.
Carbon floods his brain.
Panic coils around his spine.
Then—
The voice.
That voice.
Not loud. Not kind. But sedative. Ancient. Gentle in the way morphine is gentle.
"Be still."
His heart slows.
His vision dims.
And he collapses.
—
When he wakes, he's curled into himself. Fetal. Trembling. His fingers ache.
Something is in his arms.
The book.
He's holding it like a child holds a dying pet. Clutched so tight it hurts. He doesn't remember grabbing it. Doesn't remember picking it up again.
A scream tears out of him.
"AHHHHH—!"
He throws the book across the room.
Kicks it.
Stomps on it until his heel aches.
He tears its pages, but they keep turning.
He smears them with blood and spit, but the words do not blur.
He slams it against the wall, spine cracking—
—but the pages are infinite.
Its wisdom unfolds like a wound, bleeding meaning he cannot unsee.
The words do not need to be read to be known.
They are felt.
He stumbles away, stammering, slamming a palm against the stone wall for balance. His hand slides along the cold surface until—
His shoulder hits a seam.
A false wall.
He leans. It gives way.
And he falls.
Dust billows up around him.
He lands hard on his side, coughing.
Silence.
He lifts his head.
This room is different.
Soft.
The stone here is dry. The air—stale, but not rotted. He sees the vague outlines of what used to be furniture: a bedframe, a desk, a wooden chair whose legs are bowed with time. Shelves of melted candles. A rusted censer dangling from a hook in the ceiling.
Old priest quarters, maybe. Forgotten. Undisturbed.
It smells of wax and cedar and sleep.
No one has been here in years.
And for the first time in what feels like a century of minutes—
Elias exhales.
And it does not hurt.
He presses his forehead to the floor, eyes shut tight, chest heaving.
The book is still down there with him.
But it does not move.
For now.
The next morning, he almost convinced himself it didn't happen.
He returned to school like normal. Ate his bread and broth. Kept his head down in class. Nodded when Jack spoke. Smiled, once, at something Ian said.
But when he walked the halls alone again—
He heard it.
Not a voice. Not a sound.
Just… the memory of being called.
That afternoon, he slipped back into the priest's quarters.
The dust had settled where he fell. The air was still warm from where his body had pressed against the floor. The scent of wax was stronger now, like the room had exhaled.
He brought a candle from home. Set it on the desk. It sputtered, but stayed lit.
The book was gone.
He told himself that was a relief.
—
He came back the next day.
This time, he brought a blanket. Folded it across the bedframe.
It didn't feel like sneaking. Not really. It felt like building something. Nesting. Making a space that belonged to no one else.
He found a chess set with 3 missing pawns, and set them on the floor.
A weathered storybook. A small jug of water. A scrap of cloth embroidered with his family's crest. His mother had sewn it years ago.
He left it on the shelf like an offering.
—
Days passed.
Each time he was asked to stay late and clean, he returned. No one stopped him. No one ever checked the far podium anymore.
Sometimes the trapdoor was open.
Sometimes it wasn't.
But the room was always there.
Waiting.
It became a sanctuary. A place outside the story everyone else was in. Quiet. Still.
In the village, people nodded at him. At school, they glanced. At home, his mother watched him from the table and David ladled stew into his bowl with gentle hands.
But down here—beneath the stone and the candlelight—he felt seen.
He didn't know by what.
And he didn't ask.
—
One evening, he came in late—rain soaking his shoulders, wind gnawing at his sleeves.
The book was back.
No dust on it. No scratches. Not even damp.
It was sitting on the bed.
Open.
Its pages blank.
Or… not blank. Not exactly.
The writing was there. But not visible.
Not to the eyes.
Still, Elias knew it was for him.
That night, he didn't sleep.
He didn't need to.
The words were inside him now.
And the longer he kept them there—
—the dimmer the world became.