Elian didn't sleep.
Not here.
Not with the ceiling made of bones, or the faint echo of whispers crawling across the walls like insects in his ears.
He sat in the hollowed-out cathedral for what felt like hours, back pressed against the cold stone, eyes on the shattered mirror. Shards still lay scattered around him, pulsing softly like dying stars.
Each one had drawn something out of him.
And now… something new sat within.
Not power.
Not yet.
But presence.
[Soulform Stability: 8%]
[Core Path: Fragmented. Unfolding potential detected.]
[Threadline Trait evolving…]
[Trait: Divergent Echo — Level 1]
[Description: You deviate from assigned paths. Entropy favors you in minor unknowns.]
Elian read the message three times.
"Entropy favors me?" he muttered. "What does that even mean?"
He didn't expect an answer.
But something responded anyway.
A soft, almost mocking whisper that didn't come from the system.
"It means the world hates you slightly less than it should."
He stood up fast.
The cathedral was still empty.
He was alone.
But now he wasn't sure what "alone" meant here.
There were two exits from the cathedral. The one he'd come through… and another.
A tunnel carved directly into the stone behind the mirror.
He walked toward it, obsidian shard in hand.
He wasn't a fighter.
He wasn't a hero.
But if something had left that mirror here for him — or for someone like him — it meant there were more answers down that tunnel.
And answers were everything.
The tunnel sloped downward sharply. The air grew colder with each step, and the stone under his feet became darker — almost liquid in its sheen. Symbols ran along the walls, pulsing faintly.
He couldn't read them.
But he understood them.
Like memories from someone else's life.
Pain. Sacrifice. Agreements made beneath impossible skies.
Elian swallowed hard.
He kept moving.
Eventually, the tunnel opened into a vast chamber.
The air hummed with power, but it wasn't loud. It was whispered — like the sound of pages turning behind your skull.
Shelves lined the space.
Not bookshelves.
Skinshelves.
Stretching high into the dark, each level held what looked like stretched parchment — thin, veined, translucent. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds.
And on each… markings.
Words.
Images.
Thoughts.
[Welcome to the Whisper Archive.]
[Access limited to Soulfrail threads and Divergent-Class anomalies.]
"I'm an anomaly now?" Elian asked no one.
The system didn't answer.
Instead, a shape moved in the far end of the chamber.
Not fast.
Not threatening.
Just… floating.
A robed figure.
Hollow inside. Literally — its head was a broken lantern, and inside flickered a small, unstable flame.
The Archivist.
Elian didn't run.
He watched.
Waited.
Measured.
The Archivist stopped ten feet away.
Then, it spoke.
"You bring fracture. Good. It has been long since the Archive bled."
Elian tightened his grip on the shard.
"I want information. About this place. About… me."
The flame flickered. It made no sound, but the Archive around them trembled.
Then—
[Request Registered.]
[1 of 1 question granted due to instability level.]
You may ask one question.
Elian's mind spun.
Just one?
He had a hundred. A thousand.
But he had learned long ago that the right question mattered more than the most questions.
So he asked:
"Why me?"
The Archivist didn't speak again.
Instead, a nearby skin-page unpeeled itself from the wall and floated toward him, hovering in front of his face.
A voice echoed from it. Not the Archivist's. Not the system's.
A voice he recognized. His own.
"Because you were born with a mind that doesn't fit. And things that don't fit… break things that do."
Then the skin flared — and burned.
Gone.
No second chances.
[Cognition Trait reinforced.]
[Insight Potential: unlocked (Level 0)]
[Effect: You have a chance to interpret non-human knowledge without translation.]
The Archivist turned.
Floated away.
Back to the shadows.
Conversation over.
Elian clenched his jaw and turned toward a side passage opening in the Archive wall.
Stone steps again.
Another descent.
But something pulsed beneath his ribs now. Something new.
Not courage.
Not strength.
But trajectory.
He was moving. Slowly. Deliberately. Into the center of something no one sane would walk into.
As he descended, he noticed the air changing again.
Thicker. Wet. The walls bled.
Not metaphorically.
Actual blood.
He kept moving.
Until he reached the bottom.
And saw them.
Figures.
Dozens of them.
Hung from the ceiling by invisible threads. Bodies twitching in silence. Still breathing. Still alive.
Dreamers?
Victims?
No.
Other Soulfrails.
One opened its eyes.
Pale white. Glowing.
And it smiled.
"Welcome," it rasped. "We've been waiting… for the one who broke the mirror."