Jakarta, a city that never sleeps, now lay veiled beneath a shimmering haze—an almost invisible heat-fog, as if the very air were evaporating through the fissures of a fragile world. The sounds of traffic echoed like the mechanical heartbeat of the metropolis; the blare of horns, the growl of engines, and the whisper of wind carried dust from the forgotten corridors of time. The rising morning sun, far from refreshing, pressed against the skin with an unfamiliar warmth—artificial, as though it were the false light of a fabricated realm.
In the city's quietest corner stood the National Library, grand and silent—a relic defying the age it inhabited. Its walls peeled like the skin of an ancient creature, hiding secrets too dangerous to touch. Inside, the air was thick—damp, laced with the scent of mildew and old paper. Dust danced slowly through shafts of sunlight that slipped in from high windows, forming unnatural silhouettes—shapes that almost appeared to be, only to vanish if looked at for too long.
Arsh, a young archaeologist who spoke more often with inscriptions than with people, wandered the narrow aisle between towering shelves that loomed like pillars of some forgotten epoch. His fingers brushed across brittle spines, as if searching for a hidden pulse beneath their cracked bindings. He was not merely searching—he was being called. Drawn by something mentioned in the final notes of his late father: a manuscript inked in symbols that threatened the edge of sanity.
And then, as if guided by a force older than thought, his eyes fell upon it.
A book.
It had been hiding—or waiting.
The cover was pitch black, the fading gold ink scrawling an eerie phrase:
ספר מזויף
Sefer Mezuyaf.
The False Book.
Arsh's heart quickened. His hand trembled as it touched the leather cover, which felt... warm? Or was that only an illusion? Slowly, he opened it.
"I can't understand this language... But it's definitely Hebrew," he murmured, his voice barely audible, as if fearing the book itself might hear him.
He shut it abruptly, a sudden awareness of something wrong prickling at his senses. Not just in its contents—but in its very presence. The book should not exist—and yet, it did. Now it was in his hands.
"I have to bring it home," he whispered. "Maybe Chloe can translate it."
Arsh made his way to the checkout desk. The librarian—an elderly figure who seemed more shadow than man—nodded silently. His stare was empty, yet piercing. Without a word, Arsh signed the form and left, the book now following him in unnatural silence.
At home, the air was quieter than usual. Objects looked dimmer, shadows stretched longer than they should. Sefer Mezuyaf lay on his desk like an open wound, waiting to be touched once more. Arsh picked up the phone and dialed the only person he trusted.
"Hello, Chloe?" His voice cracked slightly.
"Yes, Arsh?" came the soft reply from the other end.
"I need your help translating a book… something strange. I borrowed it from the National Library."
"Right now?" Chloe asked, a hint of concern in her tone. "It's lunchtime, you know?"
"I know. But this is important. I'm calling the others too—can you come by two o'clock?"
"Alright," she said quietly. "But be careful with whatever you're reading, Arsh. Some things aren't meant to be fully understood..."
The line went dead.
Arsh then contacted the rest of his circle:
Yoru, an obsessive mathematician who believed numbers held truths deeper than reality itself.
Von, an information broker with access to sources so shadowed even governments hesitated to approach them.
Aria, an astronomer whose nights were spent tracking stars that appeared in no known sky chart.
And of course, Chloe, expert in linguistics and ancient literature—who understood dead languages far better than living ones.
They were more than friends. They were fragments of a greater whole, filling each other's voids—and together, they had once unlocked the first page of a secret that had haunted them ever since Arsh's father died.
Among his father's belongings, there had been one note they never forgot:
"If you find the book, then you've come too close to the threshold."
"Do not believe Earth is the beginning. Do not believe Heaven or Hell are the end.
There is something that flows between realities... something that must never be named."
"They call it the False Book—but only because it's far too true."
Night was coming.
And with it, voices not of this world.
What was sealed within Sefer Mezuyaf was not merely an ancient text…
But a summons. A doorway.
To the unspeakable.