ARC I: The Man With a Page in His Mouth
Chapter 1: The Man With a Page in His Mouth
The Circle of the Dead
The first sensation was blood—thick, metallic, coating his tongue like a communion he'd never consented to take. Not pain. Not fear. Just that ancient, coppery taste that spoke of endings and beginnings in equal measure.
Then came the text.
Not words spoken or written on parchment, but burned directly into his vision—flickering, corrupted letters that seemed to writhe with their own malevolent consciousness:
[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION... ERROR]
[SUBJECT: ELIAS_NULL]
[NARRATIVE COHERENCE: 34% | DECLINING]
[ROLE ASSIGNMENT: ██████ | FAILED]
[IMPROVISING PARAMETERS...]
[WARNING: You are not supposed to see this]
"What the hell?" Elias's voice cracked like dried parchment as consciousness clawed its way back into his skull. His eyes, stubborn and sandpaper-dry, fought against the oppressive darkness before finally surrendering to sight.
The text pulsed behind his eyelids, refusing dismissal. Numbers and symbols that shouldn't exist crowded his peripheral vision like parasites feeding on his perception.
[CORE ATTRIBUTES - STATUS: FRAGMENTING]
NARRATIVE WEIGHT: 0.34/10.00 [CRITICAL]
├─ Reality Anchoring: UNSTABLE
├─ Story Significance: UNDEFINED
└─ Erasure Resistance: 12%
TRUTH/LIE BALANCE: ???/???
├─ Accepted Truths: ERROR
├─ Rejected Lies: ERROR
└─ [Cognitive Dissonance: SEVERE]
SANITY: ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░ (67/100)
└─ Draining per revelation: Variable
MEMORY INTEGRITY: 0/100 [TOTAL FAILURE]
└─ Last Backup: NEVER
└─ Corruption Events: CONTINUOUS
A lone gaslight sputtered overhead, its weak flame performing a death rattle dance. Shadows writhed across stone walls like living things, painting a theater of the damned around him.
He wasn't in a bed. He wasn't in safety. He was sprawled on raw stone that seemed to pulse with malevolent hunger beneath his aching body.
And he was not alone.
"Jesus Christ," he whispered, the words scraping his throat raw.
[BLASPHEMY DETECTED]
[The Mouthless Church disapproves: -1 Standing]
[Current Standing: UNKNOWN | -1 | UNKNOWN]
[Note: All gods are characters. All prayers are monologue.]
Bodies. Dozens of them. Arranged in a perfect circle around him like offerings to some unspeakable god. Each face was alabaster pale, eyes wide open and staring at nothing.
All of them were smiling.
Through his corrupted vision, each corpse displayed hovering text—information he didn't want but couldn't unsee:
[Ritual Participant #1]
Name: Dr. Victoria Knowles
Status: DECEASED [Narrative Completion: 100%]
Cause of Death: Voluntary Unwriting
Final Expression: JOY [Mandatory]
Role in Story: ███████ [REDACTED]
Last Thought: "My daughter will be—"
[Ritual Participant #2]
Name: [EDITED OUT]
Status: NEVER EXISTED [Retroactive]
Paradox Level: HIGH
Smile Status: PRESERVED
[ERROR: This person remembers not existing]
[Ritual Participant #3]
Name: Dr. Edward Kramer
Status: DECEASED [Loop Count: 17]
Cause of Death: Recursive Narrative Failure
Final Words: "Elena... which Elena... which..."
Smile Authenticity: 0%
"No, no, no," Elias breathed, his heart hammering against his ribs like a caged bird. "This isn't real. This can't be real."
[DENIAL REGISTERED]
[SANITY: 67 → 64]
[Tip: Accepting impossible truths reduces Sanity drain]
[Warning: Rejection of reality may cause Narrative Ejection]
But the air told a different story. It tasted wrong—sickly-sweet with the cloying perfume of funeral roses, undercut by something electric and wrong. Ozone. Like lightning had made love to death and left its signature in the atmosphere.
Panic, sharp and primal, flooded his system. He tried to move, muscles screaming in protest, joints grinding like rusted hinges. Every inch of his body felt like it had been disassembled and rebuilt by a madman with a grudge against proper anatomy.
[PHYSICAL STATUS CHECK]
├─ Motor Function: 23% [SEVERELY IMPAIRED]
├─ Neural Pathways: REFORMING
├─ Pain Receptors: OFFLINE [Temporary]
└─ Cellular Integrity: UNDEFINED
[DEBUFF ACTIVE: Post-Ritual Dissolution]
Duration: Until First Movement
Effect: -80% to all Physical Actions
Note: Your body forgot how to be a body
"Come on, move!" he commanded his treacherous limbs. "Get up, get out, get away!"
He managed to sit up, barely, only to gag as something foreign scraped the back of his throat. He spat, retching.
[FOREIGN OBJECT DETECTED]
[Analyzing... Please wait...]
[Analysis Complete]
A page fluttered to the stone—crisp, yellowed, covered in sprawling black glyphs that seemed to writhe and coil when observed directly.
[ITEM ACQUIRED: Fragment of the Inverted Gospel]
Rarity: UNIQUE [Cannot be destroyed by normal means]
Type: Narrative Artifact [Living Document]
Weight: 0.0 kg [Exists partially outside physics]
PROPERTIES:
├─ Whispers truths the Architect rejected
├─ Grants skill: [Veilwalker's Sight]
├─ Passive: Reality appears 23% more honest
└─ WARNING: Attracts hostile entities
CORRUPTION LEVEL: ████████░░ (87%)
└─ This page wants something from you
CURRENT STATUS: Dormant [Awakening in progress...]
└─ Synchronization with host: 12%... 13%... 14%...
"What the hell is this?" He clutched the parchment instinctively, fingers trembling. The symbols seemed to pulse with their own inner light, responding to his touch.
[CONTACT ESTABLISHED]
[The page recognizes you]
[The page has always been yours]
[The page was in your mouth because you swallowed it yesterday]
[Yesterday hasn't happened yet]
[SANITY: 64 → 61]
He looked across the circle of corpses, his voice barely a whisper: "Are you... are you sleeping? Please tell me you're just sleeping."
Silence answered, thick and suffocating.
With shaking fingers, he reached toward the nearest face. The skin was waxen, cold as winter stone, pliant like overripe fruit.
[INSPECTION: Ritual Participant #7]
Name: Professor Elena Vasquez
Profession: Theoretical Metaphysics [Deceased]
Time of Death: 3 hours ago | 3 years ago | Never
Paradox: Body is both fresh and ancient
[KNOWLEDGE ACQUIRED: Pattern Recognition]
All victims show identical smile curvature: 43.7 degrees
This precision is intentional
Someone wanted them happy at the end
"Dead. They're all dead." The words fell from his lips like stones into a well. "But why them? Why not me? What makes me so fucking special?"
[QUERY REGISTERED]
[Accessing Narrative Database...]
[ERROR: Your file is corrupted]
[ERROR: Your file doesn't exist]
[ERROR: You exist anyway]
[TRAIT REVEALED: Anomalous Existence]
Effect: You slip through cracks in the Architect's design
Consequence: Things that shouldn't notice you... do
Rarity: BUG | FEATURE | THREAT
The question carved itself across his consciousness in jagged, bleeding script.
Then—thud.
He froze, every muscle locking in place.
[THREAT DETECTED]
[Calculating danger level...]
[ERROR: Threat level exceeds measurable parameters]
[Recommendation: RUN]
[Secondary Recommendation: PRAY]
[Tertiary Recommendation: ACCEPT FATE]
Another thud. Louder. Rhythmic. Heavy as a giant's heartbeat made of iron and malice.
"What is that?" he breathed into the suffocating silence. "What's coming for me now?"
The sound echoed through the stone chamber like doom given rhythm.
Thud. Scrape. Thud. Scrape.
[ENTITY APPROACHING]
Classification: ARCHITECT'S SERVANT
Hostility: ABSOLUTE
Intelligence: HIVEMIND
Purpose: RECOVERY OF ANOMALIES
[SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 0.03%]
[Update: 0.02%]
[Update: You should have started running]
"Oh God, it's not walking," he realized, scrambling backward across the stone. "It's... it's dragging something."
From deep within the walls came answering sounds—metal on stone, slow and deliberate. Not chaotic. Coordinated. Purposeful.
"They're all coming," he whispered. "Whatever they are, they're all coming."
[MULTIPLE ENTITIES DETECTED]
[Convergence Point: YOUR LOCATION]
[Estimated Time to Contact: 47 seconds]
[NEW SKILL AVAILABLE]
Would you like to learn: [DESPERATE FLIGHT] ?
Cost: 5 Sanity
Effect: +200% Movement Speed for 30 seconds
Side Effect: Mild hallucinations, moderate paranoia
[Accept] | [Decline]
Elias didn't understand how he knew what to do, but his thoughts screamed Accept with primal urgency.
[SKILL LEARNED: DESPERATE FLIGHT]
[SANITY: 61 → 56]
[DEBUFF REMOVED: Post-Ritual Dissolution]
[NEW DEBUFF: Everything is Chasing You (Because It Is)]
[SKILL ACTIVATED]
Duration: 30 seconds
Your legs remember how to fear
The Architects of Horror
Elias dove behind the remnants of a fallen pillar, pressing his body into its shadow as if darkness could make him invisible. His pulse hammered against his ribs with desperate urgency, but his limbs now moved with supernatural speed and precision.
[STEALTH CHECK... FAILED]
[They can smell your narrative weight]
[They can taste your paradox]
[They know you're not supposed to exist]
The sounds converged on a massive door at the chamber's far end—a towering slab of black steel etched with sigils that hurt to look at directly.
[WARNING: Observing these symbols reduces SANITY]
[Current Rate: -1 per 3 seconds of observation]
[SANITY: 56 → 55 → 54]
[Look away. LOOK AWAY.]
A thin strip of light bloomed beneath the frame like a malevolent sunrise.
Then came a soft, almost obscene whirring.
Click.
Something slid beneath the door—a claw. Not flesh or bone, but segmented metal gleaming with surgical precision. It latched onto the portal's edge and began to pull.
[ENTITY IDENTIFIED: Reclamation Unit]
Type: Biomechanical Construct
Purpose: Retrieval of Escaped Narratives
Threat Level: EXTREME
Special Ability: Cannot be reasoned with
Special Ability: Cannot be escaped
Special Ability: Very good at its job
"Oh God, oh God, oh God," Elias mouthed, his voice stolen by terror.
The door groaned open with the sound of a tomb being violated. Light spilled in like infected blood, carrying with it a voice that commanded without raising itself above a whisper.
"Status report. Is the specimen secured?"
[ENTITY IDENTIFIED: The Director]
Classification: HIGH NARRATIVE AUTHORITY
Threat Level: REALITY-BREAKING
Current Mood: CLINICAL CURIOSITY
[YOUR STATUS]
Designation: SPECIMEN
Threat to Order: SIGNIFICANT
Recommended Action: IMMEDIATE CONTAINMENT
Elias flinched. The words were spoken with clinical precision—low, unhurried, carrying the weight of absolute authority.
A figure stepped into view, cloaked from head to toe in midnight black, its hood casting shadows where a face should exist.
"Not entirely, Director," the cloaked figure replied, its voice like pages turning in a burning library. "One subject appears to have... persisted beyond expected parameters. An anomaly."
[TRAIT CONFIRMED: Anomalous Existence]
[You are now classified as: NARRATIVE THREAT]
[Bounty Posted: Your Existence]
[Interested Parties: 47 | 48 | 49 | Rising...]
The silence that followed carried more menace than any scream.
"An anomaly." The Director's voice was glacial steel sliding between ribs. "How... unfortunate. And unexpected. The neural dissolution protocol has never failed before."
[INFORMATION ACQUIRED: Neural Dissolution Protocol]
Effect: Erases consciousness completely
Success Rate: 100% [Until you]
Note: You should not have survived
Note: Your existence breaks their statistics
"Indeed, Director. The subject shows signs of cognitive retention and motor function. Most irregular."
"Contain it," the Director commanded. "Intact. No corruption to the neural pathways. We cannot allow another cognitive bleed, not with the dimensional currents already destabilizing."
Elias's rational mind reeled, trying to process the clinical jargon carved from nightmares.
Specimen. Anomaly. Neural dissolution. Cognitive bleed. Dimensional currents.
[KNOWLEDGE FRAGMENTS ACQUIRED]
[Building Database: The Architecture of Reality]
NEURAL DISSOLUTION PROTOCOL
└─ Erases self while preserving body
└─ Allows consciousness transplant
└─ You were supposed to be empty
COGNITIVE BLEED
└─ When memories leak between realities
└─ When truth infects the lies
└─ When the story breaks down
DIMENSIONAL CURRENTS
└─ The flow of narrative energy
└─ Currently: UNSTABLE
└─ Cause: Unknown [Suspected: You]
"They're talking about me," he realized with dawning horror. "I'm the specimen. I'm the anomaly."
They weren't rescuers. They weren't even remotely human.
They were the architects of this charnel house. They had orchestrated this circle of death.
And he was supposed to be part of it.
