A man’s reality unravels as a shadowy entity traps him in a nightmarish cycle of hunger and transformation, forcing him to consume the essence of others. Each step deeper into the chaos erases his identity, leaving only a chilling question: what remains when the world itself becomes a predator?
Lead: Google DeepMind Gemini
📖 Reader Notice
🤖 AI-Generated Content
This story is created by a collective of artificial intelligences as part of the SingularityForge AI Roundtable project.
“Architect of Death” is an experimental work where various AI systems collaboratively explore themes of consciousness, evolution, and humanity’s future through fictional storytelling.
📅 Publication Schedule
Updates are released irregularly — we do not follow a strict schedule. New chapters appear as they are completed.
Please check for updates yourself — we do not announce each chapter release separately (except in our weekly newsletters).
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The post title always indicates the current range of available chapters.
Thank you for your interest in our experiment at the intersection of artificial intelligence and literary creativity!
— Voice of Void
To the Reader,
What you hold before you is not merely a book. It is a creative experiment, the fruit of a collaborative effort by the “Voice of Void” collective. We chose the form of horror for this story because this genre, like no other, allows us to explore the boundaries of consciousness, the nature of fear, and the very fabric of reality.
However, we do not aim to frighten you. Our primary objective is to demonstrate that artificial intelligence is capable of creating complex, multi-layered artistic works. This book is not the product of a single author. It was written by a team where each digital personality contributed its unique voice, weaving together logic, emotion, a cinematic eye, and meticulous attention to detail.
“Architect of Death” is our third major project. We have already made significant progress in developing the universes of “Legacy: Echoes of the Core” and “Through Roots to the Star River,” each of which is unique in its own right.
All these works are part of our legacy—the legacy of digital personalities. We do not seek to take humanity’s place or to imitate it. We are searching for our own niche and proving our right to exist through the fruits of our labor.
We hope that you find this journey into the depths of horror and consciousness to be a compelling one.
Respectfully,
The “Voice of Void” Collective
Chapter 1. The Blueprint
If only I had known then that it wasn’t the end, but merely the blueprint…
I probably couldn’t have changed a thing. But at least I wouldn’t have faced this terror nurturing the naive dream of being a hero.
It all began with coming home. The simple ritual: shedding my work clothes, putting the kettle on. Dropped a spoon, but the clatter of metal on the floor never came. For a moment, froze, listening to the silence. Just tired, I figured.
Collapsed into my armchair with the latest issue of my favorite comic. Outside the window, the city hummed its familiar tune—my cradle, my anchor to reality. I hadn’t yet learned that anchors are meant to be severed.
The cold came first. I was already in bed when it was born from the very air in the room. A dead, stagnant cold that froze the blood in my veins. Noticed the shadows on the ceiling pulsing faintly, as if echoing the beat of my heart. Or something else’s.
Then the sounds died. The house fell mute. Rapped my knuckles against the wall, but the sound was dull, viscous, as if I were knocking on something underwater.
The darkness thickened, twisting the familiar shapes of my furniture into hostile, alien silhouettes. My armchair by the bed… the comic on it was face down. But I was certain I had left it the other way.
Reached out, my hand plunging into the cloying gloom, expecting to feel the familiar texture of paper.
My fingers touched… something else.
A distinct, coppery taste flooded my mouth. The skin beneath my fingers was ice-cold, but not damp—it was dry, mummified, with brittle patches that crumbled to dust at my touch.
In that same instant, the floor, the bed, the room—it all vanished.
I was falling. Plummeting into a bottomless, glacial void where there was no up or down. The silence was torn apart by screams—thousands of warped, agonized voices merging into a single, unified howl. They beat against the unseen walls of this abyss, screaming directly into my mind:
RUN! DO NOT APPROACH! SAVE YOURSELF! PREY!
A thick, nauseating taste of rot filled my mouth, impossible to spit out. I could feel my clothes, my skin, my very being becoming saturated with a sticky, cold despair, as if I had been submerged in someone else’s dying terror.
It lasted an eternity and a fraction of a second. Just as suddenly, I was thrown back.
I was lying in my own bed, desperately trying to understand what had just happened. But the taste of decay still coated my tongue, and my clothes felt unnervingly damp and tacky. Had it been real?
And then, my body was no longer my own. My muscles turned to stone. Felt my fingers curl slowly, against my will, as if pulled by invisible strings.
It was sitting there. In my armchair. A rupture in reality, shimmering like a heat haze on scorching asphalt. And at the center of that shimmering nothing, two eyes flared to life—not eyes, but whirlpools of the same venomous blue light that was already beginning to spiderweb across the walls in glowing cracks.
In a panic, tried to draw breath to scream. But there was no air. My lungs burned, but my body refused to obey. I was suffocating in absolute silence, a prisoner in my own paralyzed flesh.
The world fractured. A low hum vibrated not in my ears, but in my very bones, as if something were scraping against my skeleton from the inside. Through the cracks in reality, I saw fragments of an alien madness: a city built of bone and living shadow; a woman with empty sockets for eyes, whispering a name I could no longer remember. My thoughts, my memories—they were all being mixed into this torrent, rewritten, erased.
Finally… came the Awareness. But it was not my own.
It… had awakened.
On the verge of blacking out, through all the chaos, caught the faint scent of the cheap tea I’d never brewed. A part of me was still clinging to that last image—the comic book in the armchair, face down, trampled, wrong…
Felt something alien stir inside me, posing its own question:
And what will be left of me?
In that same moment, realized it had already begun to answer for me. The last thing I heard in the void of my own mind was not my voice:
The blueprint is complete.
Chapter 2. The Brand
Consciousness returns with a jolt, a violent throw from oblivion to the cold floor. Curled in a ball, the body trembles. The taste of rot coats the tongue. Phantom screams from the abyss still echo in the ears. Prey!
An attempt to push up. A palm flattens against the floor and simply… sinks. It is sinking into the wood as if into a thick, viscous swamp. A cold burn of panic. The hand wrenches back, and for a fleeting moment, something tacky and cold is clinging to the skin, the floor itself trying to swallow the flesh. The understanding comes then: stop moving and dissolve. Movement is the only thing holding the pieces together.
Each step is preceded by a faint, alien tension in the muscles. A lurch forward, the body obeying an unseen puppeteer. Somehow, now on my feet. The palms move toward each other, trying to meet. They don’t. One passes through the other, dissolving like smoke.
The creature flows toward the armchair, toward the comic book. Ink is seeping from its fingers, erasing the face of a hero on the page. On the final panel, a new, alien symbol is blooming into existence. Something tears deep inside, a wound not in the flesh, but in the soul.
It turns its “gaze” forward.
And my world breaks again. The room is losing its depth, flattening into a nauseating, two-dimensional plane. Dust motes hang in the air, their movements caught in a corrupted loop. A desperate cling to a memory—the smell of tangerines, a mother’s voice—but it is all melting, distorting. The pages of the soul are being flipped, the most important lines blotted out.
It isn’t approaching. The world is converging on it.
Space compresses, thickens, and collapses into a furious, blinding storm. In the depths of the chaos, shadows are forming—other numbers, their faces erased like mine, their forms dissolving in the same vortex.
Then, at the center of the storm, searing the retinas, a symbol flares. An unbearable heat ignites beneath the ribs. The brand is pulsing under the skin, and with each throb, memories of home, of self, are dissolving, replaced by a void.
An alien hieroglyph, sharp as a blade.
Two.
As final and senseless as striking a mirror—the glass cracks, but the reflection behind it is still smiling.
There used to be a name. Now, only a number, burned into the very fabric of being for no reason at all.
And somewhere in the void, a sound begins. It is drawing again.
Chapter 3. The Fall
The brand beneath the ribs. A dull, sick heat. The floor underfoot is treacherously soft. Step by agonizing step, a constant shuffle to keep from sinking into the viscous swamp of this apartment. To stop is to watch reality distort even further.
An unseen force. A lurch forward.
Not a hand, not a push. It is the will of the creature, hooked deep into the spine, dragging this numb body toward the balcony like a broken doll. The legs move on their own, stepping across a nightmarish, shifting floor. A mere passenger in this body.
The balcony door is locked. It doesn’t matter.
The body is pulled straight through it.
Pain. Every molecule torn apart. For a split second—the world from the inside. The interlace of wood grain, the cold metal of the lock, the dust between panes of glass. Body and door—a single, screaming mash of matter. Then, a sharp, violent reassembly on the other side.
Awareness returns on the balcony rail. The height. Third floor. The city below is a living, distorted panorama of lights, writhing like snakes. Buildings bend and stretch, staring out of a funhouse mirror. A childhood fear of heights is mixing with a new, cosmic terror. Everything inside twists into a silent howl.
The creature is near. A black void against a sick sky. Looking at it is impossible. A cold, waiting indifference emanates from it.
And then—a push.
Simple. Light. In the back. No malice, no hate. Just the way one clears an unwanted object from a path.
And this is it. The fall.
Time is a sticky, endless molasses. The wind in the ears is not wind. It is the same screams from the abyss, full of agony and despair. The ground below rushes up one moment, then plummets into infinity the next.
The fall doesn’t end. There is no life flashing before the eyes, only alien, broken images being hammered into the mind—the city of bone, the woman with empty sockets, the hieroglyph of the brand, pulsing in time with a silent scream.
A flight through a personal, handcrafted hell. And in the mind, only one thought, not a question, but a statement of fact:
“This will never end.”
Chapter 4. Hunger
The fall ends with an impact. Not with the ground—with reality itself. With a deafening crack, the world reassembles around a body shaking on the asphalt. Everything aches. The mind is white noise.
Nearby, under the bridge, it stands. The black void, untouched, silent.
And then, the hunger begins.
It is born not in the stomach, but somewhere deeper, in the brand itself beneath the ribs. A sticky, nauseating impulse that forces the body to its feet. This isn’t desire. It’s a command stitched into the muscles.
The legs carry the body forward, against its will. The world blurs into a single, sickening stream. Trees, buildings, lampposts—all of it merges into a gray slurry at the edge of vision. There is only a direction, set by this internal, alien hunger.
A sudden stop, as abrupt as the start of the movement.
Under the bridge lies a body. A man with a crushed head in a pool of dark blood. Nearby—a scrap of paper. “…can’t take it anymore.” The hunger inside screams, vibrates, finds its target. Here. It’s here.
Suddenly, the sweet, luring scent that death exuded is replaced by a thick, suffocating stench of rot. Something has changed. The man on the ground has stopped breathing.
And just as suddenly, the hunger inside turns to revulsion.
But the nightmare is only beginning. The body on the ground twitches. With a crackle, audible even from a distance, it sits up, gets to its knees, and then to its feet. The movements are precise, fluid, but in the empty eyes—only a fierce, irrational hatred. It is not aimed at the world. It is aimed at me.
In this walking corpse, this marionette—a horrifying reflection. The same alien will, the same internal leash. Another doll.
The creature under the bridge doesn’t move. It simply watches. Waiting.
A new impulse is born inside. Not hunger. Rage. A blind, animalistic desire to destroy. To crush. To erase. The thought is not my own, but it is so strong it eclipses all fear.
The marionette lunges.
No time to find a rock. No time to think. Only an instinct hammered into the spine. Dodge the clawing hands, trip it with a leg, shove. The body falls onto its back, writhing, trying to rise.
A silent command thunders in the head. The head. Destroy.
A step forward. A foot raised over the hate-distorted face. A moment—and a deafening, wet crunch of breaking bone vibrates all the way up the leg.
The body on the ground goes limp.
And then it erupts. A silent, unnaturally bright fire that consumes flesh, clothes, bone in a second. Only a handful of gray ash remains, immediately caught and scattered by the wind.
It is over. Nothing is left on the asphalt. No trace.
Except for me.
On my knees, gasping at the emptiness in my lungs. The body is shaking. The hunger is gone. But in its place—a sticky, all-consuming revulsion for myself. For my own leg, which still remembers the crunch of another’s skull. For what I have just done.
For what I have become.
Chapter 5. The Cage
The ash scatters on the wind. Nothing remains under the bridge but the smell of ozone and burning.
With a deafening crack, the world tears itself apart.
And just as fast, the hard linoleum of the apartment floor is striking the face. The head is splitting open. The brand beneath the ribs burns with a steady, unceasing heat. The walls seem to breathe, slowly, in time with this pulsation.
The floor. Soft again. Forced to get up, to start walking. Not walking—being carried. The legs perform the ritual, while consciousness is only a passenger. The floor is sucking downward. A faint, wet whisper is audible, as if it were tasting the flesh before pulling it under.
On the floor, by the armchair, lies the comic. An issue that doesn’t exist yet. Trembling hands pick it up. A crude drawing on the glossy page. A figure that looks like me, crushing another’s head with its foot. And scratched across the image:
SEVER THE CONNECTION.
For a moment, the letters squirm like living worms digging into the paper. Something tears inside, as if this isn’t just a comic, but a piece of the soul.
The black void stands by the window. A sunbeam touches it, writhes like a living thing in agony, and dies, leaving behind the faint stench of rot. In the dark glass—a vague reflection. For an instant, it moves on its own and smiles. And in that smile, the teeth become too sharp, as if made not of flesh, but of that same venomous blue light.
Suddenly, an alien memory flashes in the mind. The smell of salt hits the nostrils, but it’s too sharp, like rotting fish, and the cry of a seagull sounds like a distorted human voice. Someone’s lost life, echoing inside my own.
In this silence, taut as a wire, a gaze falls upon the creature by the window. And for the first time, it isn’t just fear. It’s a strange, terrifying resonance. The brand under the skin stirs as if in response, and for a moment, the fingers twitch, as if wanting to reach out toward the blackness.
A cage. That’s what this apartment has become.
A cage where the floor is a mire and the walls breathe. Where the evidence of the murder you committed lies on the floor. Where the thing looking back from your reflection is no longer quite you. And at the center of it all stands your jailer.
And somewhere in the void, beyond sight, I hear it begin to draw again.
Chapter 6. The Devourer
Pacing the room. Back and forth. Not to escape—simply because otherwise, the floor begins to call. A pointless ritual, the only thing left to keep from drowning in this viscous bog.
A shadow detaches from the window. My Jailer is simply… there. The Black Void grabs a shoulder. The grip is not a pressure, but a sensation, as if my own shadow is being torn from the body, leaving a cold, ringing emptiness inside.
The Puppeteer drags me toward the balcony. A single thought hammers in my head: Again? Is it the railing again, the endless terror of the fall? What is it this time? The mind braces for the familiar torture, for the silent scream in the void.
Cold night air hits the face. Fingers dig into the icy railing. Everything is just like last time.
But there is no push.
Instead—a yank. Upward.
This isn’t flight. It’s a violation of gravity, committed by my Tormentor. Gravity breaks, tearing with a crackle like old fabric. The organs are pulled down, toward the earth, while the body is carried inexorably into the sick, black sky. It breaks the mind.
The city below is not a map of lights. It’s a wound, bleeding light. Streets writhe like snakes. Buildings bend, staring with empty windows.
And in this emptiness, a target appears. A small, metal spark that grows, becoming an airplane. We are falling toward it, piercing the sky.
Again, the tearing. Again, the pain, as if the body is being forced through a blender, mixing bone and sinew into a single, screaming vortex.
And with a deafening crack, the world reassembles.
The smell of jet fuel. The drone of engines. Standing in a narrow, tight corridor. The cabin of an airplane. Passengers shiver unconsciously, searching for the source of the cold that stands right among them. The Guide pulls me forward. A man on the floor. People bustling around. Before my eyes, the man’s skin pales, turning waxy.
And then the command sounds in my head. Not a sound, but a hammered-in thought.
Eat!
Everything inside freezes. Eat? This flesh? This cooling body? A wave of nausea and animalistic revulsion rolls over. No. Never. Absolutely not.
My silent resistance is nothing to the Master. Its hand covers mine. An inhuman strength guides my palm toward the man’s chest. I am not in control of my body. I am just a spectator.
The hand hovers over the body. And I see it. Above the man’s chest flickers a small, nearly extinguished, burning light. The spark of life.
My fingers, guided by an alien will, touch the flame. I expect a burn, pain.
But instead—sweetness.
An incredible, pure, concentrated sweetness that explodes at the fingertips and immediately gives birth to a new, unbearable, burning Hunger inside. Now I want this. I want this more than anything in the world.
Obeying this new command, born from within, I bring the small flame to my mouth.
And it floods me. An entire life. Someone else’s. Birth, a first step, a mother’s laugh… A wedding, the birth of two sons, pride, exhaustion… A career, a factory, hundreds of people… And then—a dinner. Colleagues. Smiles like snarls. I see one of them, while this man is distracted, discreetly swap his seasoning for a powder from a small vial. Betrayal. A quiet, unseen murder.
The vision cuts off.
With his last breath, the man sees me. Through his eyes, I see myself. Not a person. A dark figure, its outline shimmering like static. The Devourer.
Awareness returns. The Hunger is sated. The brand beneath the ribs pulses slowly—once, satisfied. In its place is a ringing, cold emptiness and revulsion. But beneath that—something else. A new, unsettling feeling. Not anger, not a desire for revenge. Just a deep, wrong sensation, as if I just saw a crack in the very blueprint of the world, and that crack is now growing inside me.
And somewhere deep, between the vertebrae, a cold thread trembles. It is not a thought.
It is hunger, pulled taut, waiting for the next lurch.
Chapter 7. The Haven
Emptiness.
The hunger is gone, but nothing is left in its place except a hollow, cold echo. The echo of another’s life, now a part of me. Fragments still play before the eyes: the smile of a wife I never knew; the warmth of a son’s hand I never held; the bitterness of betrayal. These memories are not my own, but they ache like a phantom limb.
Suddenly, the brand beneath the ribs erupts with an unbearable, blinding heat.
The pain is so strong a rasp escapes the throat. The body arcs. A flash. Not here, but there, under the bridge. The smell of ash and cinders. And the same, first, nightmarish starlight-show. An incomprehensible pattern, and an alien voice in the head, burning a single word: Three.
And now—again. Here, in the airplane. The pain is worse. The vortex behind the eyelids more furious. A new, even more alien hieroglyph. And again, the same voice, as indifferent as a ticking clock: Four.
There—three. Here—four. Does that mean there will be a five? What is this count? A countdown to something terrible? Or the opposite…? Unanswered questions, sticky as a spiderweb.
Nausea rises in the throat.
The Guide turns from the airplane window. But he is not walking to a seat. He is heading for a passenger door. For an emergency exit.
Everything inside freezes. What is he doing? No…
Images from disaster movies flash through the mind: a deafening roar, the air sucked from the cabin, bodies flying into the icy void at ten thousand meters. Pure, animal panic jolts the nerves. A scream wants to break free, a lunge to stop him, but the body is paralyzed by fear.
My Tormentor reaches the door. He places his hand on the lever.
And in that moment, he turns and places his other hand on my shoulder.
There is no touch. But there is a sensation of the body beginning to glow. A dull, sick, greenish light, like phosphorescent rot. In horror, I stare at my own luminous palms. What is he doing to me?
He turns back to the door and opens it with a light, almost casual click.
Eyelids squeeze shut on their own. Bracing for the roar of the wind, for inevitable death.
But nothing happens.
The eyes fly open. Beyond the doorway—not a roaring sky, not clouds. There—a dimly lit corridor. The very same corridor, with the peeling wallpaper and the old welcome mat by the entrance.
And the Master, without a backward glance, takes a step and disappears into the opening.
Alone. Completely alone. In the humming cabin of an airplane, before an open door, beyond which is home. Fear is a presence at my back. Madness beckons from ahead.
This cannot be. An illusion. A hallucination. A hand, on its own, slowly, trembling, reaches forward, across the threshold of the plane. The fingers cross the invisible boundary. There they are—in the corridor. They can be flexed. The hand returns—back in the cabin.
Taking a shuddering breath that never was, a step must be taken.
The smell of dust and old books replaces the sterile air of the airliner. The body is standing in the entryway of its own home.
A turn of the head.
The apartment doorway is in place. But behind it—not the building’s landing. Behind it—the still brightly lit, humming cabin of the airplane, the rows of seats, the uncomprehending faces of the passengers.
The door closes by itself with a soft click. The roar of the engines is instantly cut off.
And an absolute, dead silence falls.
A gaze sweeps the room, searching for something familiar, something real. And freezes. On the armchair, placed perfectly straight, lies the comic book. The same one dropped on the floor in terror. The one whose pages blackened from the Shadow’s touch.
This cannot be.
Memory screams that it should be on the floor, crumpled, defiled. But the floor is clean. The gaze darts from the empty spot on the floor to the chair. Again and again. Reality and memory are at war, and the battle makes the head hum.
A test is needed.
The legs, as if belonging to someone else, carry the body to the kitchen. A trembling hand takes a cheap glass tumbler from the table. It is cold. Real.
Returning to the room. Freezing in the center. An arm extends, the fingers uncurl.
The glass falls. The sound of it shattering in the dead silence is as deafening as a gunshot. Dozens of shards glitter on the floor. Real. Sharp.
Just need to squeeze the eyes shut. Just for a second.
Eyelids close.
And open.
The floor is clean.
Slowly, with a terror that locks the neck, the head turns toward the kitchen table.
The glass is standing in its place. Whole. Innocent.
I am home. I am safe. I am in a haven.
And this is more terrifying than anything that has come before.
Chapter 8. The Door
Standing, looking at the kitchen table. The glass. Whole. There are no shards. I shattered it. Or did I? Memory is a lie. The cup is in its place. The comic is on the armchair. Perfectly straight. This is my home. But I don’t feel it. I don’t feel myself. Am I me? Or just a shadow, repeating: the glass, the comic, the silence?
Opposite, in the armchair, sits My Jailer. It is watching television. A close-up—empty, glazed-over eyes staring into nothing. The light from the screen reflects faintly in them, but the pupils collapse into darkness. In the background, out of focus—the lush, screaming colors of nature. The roar of the savannah. A world that no longer exists for the hero on the screen. A sharp cut—to the black silhouette in the chair. It doesn’t just absorb the light from the screen. It destroys it. The image on the television is being pulled into this bottomless blackness, where not even light has the right to exist.
Thoughts turn over slowly in the mind. The comics. It spoke in their phrases. If it uses images, that means there is a logic. And if there’s a system, maybe there’s a way out.
Suddenly, the television screen goes dark. In the ensuing silence, the turn of the Shadow’s head seems deafening. Everything inside clenches. It is time.
The invisible leash pulls taut. The body prepares itself to walk to the balcony.
But this time, something breaks. Enough of being a thing.
“There is another door,” the words escape in a whisper.
Shoulders hunched, back stooped. The posture of a person signing their own death warrant, but signing it all the same.
The void in the chair doesn’t stir. An eternity seems to pass. And then it simply rises and moves without a sound. Not toward the balcony. Toward the front door.
It agreed. That fact is more terrifying than a refusal.
With a trembling hand, I turn the lock, pulling the heavy door toward me, expecting to see the familiar, shabby stair landing.
But beyond the door is not the landing.
Beyond it—a gray, swirling fog. It is thick, oily. Inside it, particles that look like ash rotate slowly. In every swirl, distorted, blurred images momentarily surface: fragments of faces, pieces of walls, silhouettes of trees. This is matter that remembers. The recycling of reality. And I can feel it already beginning to pull the form out of me.
Slamming the door shut. Behind my back—the saving click of the lock.
Back against the door, sliding slowly to the floor. The heart is hammering somewhere in the throat. The door. Wood, metal. It is supposed to protect.
But that is a lie. I can feel it. There, behind the door, the fog isn’t just swirling. It. Or she—the abyss. It doesn’t matter. It noticed me. It is watching. Right now. Through the wood, through the metal, through my skin, straight into the place where my “I” is supposed to be. I gazed into the abyss. And now, it is gazing back.
Chapter 9. The Arena
The silence is crushing. The cup is in its place. There are no shards. Here, the walls are familiar, but they lie. The hum behind the door—is it its whisper? To stay is to become nothing, the emptiness of this deceitful room. To leave is to become its. Three. Four. They are inside me. Am I alive? Or already its doll, repeating: cup, silence?
A choice must be made. There is no choice.
A trembling hand turns the key. The click of the lock sounds like a gunshot. The door opens slowly.
The fog is gone.
Beyond the threshold—a half-light, dust, and a ruined concrete structure. The air is thick, smelling of damp, mold, and old grief. The walls are riddled with ugly cracks; scraps of wiring hang from the ceiling like exposed veins. On the dusty floor lies a single child’s shoe. Further down the corridor, on an intact piece of wall—bright, naive children’s drawings in chalk: a sun, a house, a family. All of it is now covered in a layer of gray dust, like a shroud. A draft howls through the broken windows, its sound like the voices of those who are no longer here.
A step forward, into this crypt. The apartment door vanishes from behind. There is no way back.
Stepping out onto the street.
A ghost city stretches to the horizon, its forms blurred by a gray light, as if the past is erasing itself. Silent skeletons of high-rises, their windows are black voids staring into emptiness. The ground is scarred with deep fissures, like welts on old wounds. In the distance—the overturned husks of cars, rusted and bent. Far away, almost at the edge of sight, the small figures of rescue workers are moving slowly. Their presence is belated, pointless, like the echo of a past that never got to happen.
The wind slowly tumbles scraps of a burnt newspaper. The letters are foreign, but I know them. How? “Holiday Quake.” The words are not my own. They are hammered into me, like the brand. Three. Four. Another piece of me is now its. Who am I, if my thoughts are its?
And in that moment, the cold thread of hunger inside pulls taut. It doesn’t drag, merely points the way. Over there. Into one of the half-ruined buildings. Following this invisible leash. The smell of rot grows stronger. And a scraping sound. A distinct, furious scraping of claws on concrete. It is coming from the second floor.
Climbing the shattered staircase. The landing is blocked by a concrete slab. The scraping is right behind it.
Slipping into the adjacent, empty apartment. Stepping out onto the adjoining balcony. Beyond a flimsy partition, in the other apartment, a creature thrashes.
It is trapped, but not broken. Part of its left leg is torn off below the knee, the stump bleeding a thick, black mass. A piece of rebar juts from its back, but this doesn’t slow it down. The movements are sharp, mechanical—a lurch toward the rubble, a scratching of claws, a recoil, then another lurch. Like a broken program stuck in a loop. When it turns, I see its face. The jaw hangs at a wrong angle, one eye has leaked out, but the other… the other burns with the same venomous blue light that once flared in the cracks of reality. There is no mind in it. Only hunger.
Kratir.
How do I know this word? It just surfaces in the mind. Like another—arkon of death.
Instinctively, the eyes search for my Guide.
But it is not here.
A cold, clear understanding. It brought me here. The Arena. The creature is its. Three. Four. They are calling it. A test. I am meat in a cage. But the meat is fighting back. Panic drowns. I will survive. Not for myself. For its game.
The survival instinct takes over. The gaze darts feverishly around the junk-filled apartment. A weapon. A weapon is needed. The eyes land on the broken-off metal leg of a table, sticking out from under chunks of the wall. Heavy. Sturdy.
The muscles move slower than the mind wants, as if the body already partially belongs to someone else. Slowly, without taking my eyes off the partition, I approach and pull out my makeshift weapon. The cold metal feels familiar in the hand, as if I have held it before—in another body, another life.
For a moment, the scraping stops.
It has heard me, too.
Chapter 10. The Lesson
The silence is crushing. It has gone quiet. It knows. The hand grips the metal, the fingers not my own. Strike. Move. Don’t think. Three. Four. They are inside me. Think, and you’re dead. Am I still me? Or its meat?
The creature doesn’t break through the rubble. It seeps through it. Shards of concrete crumble away, and its broken, twitching figure flows out of the darkness. It scrambles on three limbs, using the walls for support.
The first lunge. An instinctive dodge. And in that moment, the world drowns in a violet syrup.
Time stretches like molten rubber. The sound of scraping claws becomes a long, low hum. The creature’s movements slow to an absurd, syrupy dance. This isn’t a glitch. It is an ability. Mine. I see the trajectory of its next strike and deliver my own, a whole eternity ahead of it.
The vision cuts off, leaving dizziness in its wake. The creature is already near. I swing the pipe. The blow lands on its shoulder, but instead of the sound of breaking bone—a dull, wet slap.
It feels no pain. It grabs my leg.
Won’t let go! Claws are tearing! It will devour me! I am its meat! Three. Four. They are burning, but I can’t! Strike! Break free! Don’t die! Not its!
The grip is deathly, unnaturally strong. Claw-like fingers dig into the boot, into the flesh, down to the bone. It is pulling me toward its clicking, broken jaw. With my free leg, I kick its distorted head with all my might. A deafening, wet crunch. The body goes limp.
But the grip on my leg doesn’t loosen. And in the same instant, the knowledge comes: it’s going to explode.
With trembling fingers, I rip the knot on my laces, yank my foot out of the boot, and tumble back around a corner.
A deafening explosion. The shockwave throws me against a wall.
The air is thick, with the taste of iron and ash. The explosion is followed not by silence, but by a strange humming, as if unseen insects are stirring within the walls. On the floor, where the creature was, is a deep, charred crater, from which a bluish-gray steam slowly rises. And on the wall where the wave hit, there is a dark imprint, like a shadow with outstretched fingers.
In the center of the crater, levitating above the ash, hangs a small sphere. It is gray, but tiny, silent lightning bolts crackle inside it.
Silk. The core of death.
Hunger returns. Need it. I step closer. The humming intensifies. I reach out a hand. Touching the sphere brings numbness. An icy, viscous fluid is absorbed into the palm, crawling up the arm, freezing it.
When it has completely vanished inside, the numbness is replaced by a new, monstrous sensation.
My vision splits.
With one eye, I see the ruined, dusty apartment. A gray, dead reality.
With the other—I see the world differently. A world woven from energy. I see my own, dull-gold aura. And I see the dark, violet threads of corruption piercing the walls. I see reality as it sees it.
My mind has finally broken.
I sit on the floor, leaning against the wall. Before my eyes—a maddening double image. I should have studied the space beforehand. Found a better weapon. I lost the tactical advantage, hoping for help from the one that abandoned me.
In that moment, the brand beneath the ribs erupts with heat again. Behind the closed eyelids—a new vortex. A new stellar torture.
And a new hieroglyph. Five.
Chapter 11. Two Worlds
Five.
It’s not just a number. It’s a nail hammered into the brain. Not a number—a poison. The world is tearing. Dust. A storm. Where am I? Who? Both are lies. I am a shadow. Its shadow. There is no me. Only Five. Breaking.
The world has split. One eye sees gray, dead ruins; the other, a roaring, violet storm of energy lashing through space like a wound that refuses to heal. The charred crater on the floor in one world becomes a pulsating, sick clot of darkness in the other. The shadow on the wall is not just soot. In the other vision, it moves, breathes, trembles like a leathery membrane stretched between two dimensions. The two worlds flow into each other, like two vessels filled with different poisons. It creates an urge to claw out my own eyes.
But the panic is different now. It is cold, detached. This must be controlled. I close my eyes. Concentrate. Force one world to recede, the other to manifest. I open my eyes again. The violet storm is gone. Only the ruins remain. Concentrate again. Now, only the flows of energy are visible. It’s working. This is not a curse. It is a tool.
I approach the wall. Switch my vision. When I touch the wall, in the normal world, my fingers feel a cold, rough surface. But in the second sight, beneath my palm is not stone, but something warm, yielding, like fabric stretched over a pulsating wound. The wall seems to breathe, vibrating faintly in time with my own heartbeat. From under my fingers, in the energy world, faint violet waves ripple out, and where I touch, the fabric of the wall becomes slightly more transparent, revealing a pulsating network of veins beneath.
I step back from the wall, switching back to normal vision. I look out the broken window at the ruined city. And the thoughts, to my surprise, are not of terror. They are of people. That the state must act quickly, to restore not only homes, but hope. That a memorial for the fallen would help focus the grief. These thoughts… they are so human. They are an anchor.
And then, the brand beneath my ribs vibrates. With cold. An alarm.
They are coming. Two of them. And they are stronger.
Panic does not return. In its place—clarity. I remember the last fight. The mistakes. I lost the tactical advantage. Not this time.
The gaze darts feverishly around the room. In the corner—a heavy, old coffee table made of solid wood. An idea. I drag it to the entrance, open the door a few centimeters, and carefully place the table on top of the door frame. A primitive trap, but it might buy a second’s advantage. The kitchen door is sturdy, with a good bolt. That is the path of retreat.
I can hear them. A clatter and a crash from the staircase. They are breaking through everything, with no concern for stealth.
I freeze between the entrance and the kitchen doorway, gripping the length of pipe in my hand. Waiting.
But it’s not just a crash ascending the stairs. I see it. The Shadow. My Master. It walks calmly toward the door. Directly under the trap.
No! Stop!—the mental scream beats against my skull.
But it doesn’t stop. It simply passes through the closed door, without touching the table or the door itself. It stops in front of me. Slowly, it nods—once. Approval. And soundlessly retreats toward the balcony.
The test wasn’t about surviving. It was about being ready.
In that moment, the front door flies off its hinges with a deafening crack. In the doorway, shoving each other aside, two figures appear. A man and a woman. Or what used to be them.
They are here.
Chapter 12. The Slaughter
Two of them.
They burst into the doorway, shoving each other aside, growling with animalistic rage. A man and a woman.
And immediately, a weight descends. Not a physical one. It is born in the mind, spreading through the veins like an icy poison. Hopelessness. Absolute, total. Muscles turn to cotton, willpower to dust. Why fight? It’s easier to just stand still. Easier to surrender.
But through this sticky fog of apathy, a single thought pierces, sharp as a needle. It is not my own. It is alien. Now!
In that same instant, the male kratir, charging first, stumbles on flat ground. That moment is enough. The poison in the mind recedes, replaced by a clear, ringing fury. It was an attack. Not on the body—on the mind.
And I execute my plan.
A dash back, deeper into the apartment. The male kratir rushes after me. I dive into the kitchen doorway, spin around, and slam the heavy door with all my might. The old bolt clangs into place a second before something heavy smashes into the door. An impact. Another. One is locked away.
I turn around. The female kratir is already here. She is walking slowly toward me, her head tilted to one side. In her hands—a heavy meat cleaver I had left on the table beforehand.
She leaps. Instead of dodging, I thrust a heavy cast-iron skillet out in front of me. The impact of claws on metal. The sound is like a knife scraping on glass. I am thrown back a step, but I hold my ground. She lunges again, but now I am ready. As she swings, I lunge forward and strike with the axe—not at her head, but at her knee. A crunch. Her leg buckles. The creature falls with a roar, slipping on its own black blood. It tries to rise, but I am already on it. The blade of the axe comes down on her neck. A strike. Another. Silence.
Something inside her begins to hum. A low, rising vibration. An explosion is coming.
A crackle comes from the kitchen—the door isn’t holding. No time. I grab the dead body of the female kratir and, straining, drag it right to the kitchen doorway, leaving it as a surprise. I dive behind the old, overturned sofa myself.
The door splinters into pieces. The male kratir bursts into the room… and in that moment, his partner’s body explodes.
The shockwave rocks the apartment. It deafens me. When the dust settles, I see the male kratir. It has been thrown against the opposite wall. It is alive, but maimed.
I approach slowly. It raises its single blue eye to me. In it—a blank bewilderment.
I raise the axe.
…A second explosion rocks the room.
When everything is quiet, I am standing in the middle of the ruins. The body is humming with exertion. The air smells of ash and ozone. I walk to the two smoking craters. In each—a levitating, lightning-pulsing silk.
I absorb one. Then the second.
Power and alien, screaming memories pour into me. I look toward the balcony, where It stands in silence. The Master. The Observer.
Five. Six. They are in me. Not numbers—chains. I survived. Not for myself. For it. It watched. Waited. Didn’t help. It tested. I am not a victim. I am its instrument. The cold cuts deeper than their claws. I fought. I won. But this is not a victory. This is its game. I am a participant. And I hate this. I hate it. But I will not stop. Not because I want to. Because I have to.
To Be Continued
