Lia didn't call the number.
For seven days, the card sat on her desk like an accusation. She'd pick it up, her finger hovering over the first digit, then put it back down. What would she even say? That she was having dreams? That her notebook filled itself with messages she didn't write? That she felt watched?
It sounded absurd even in her own head.
The week crawled by with agonizing slowness. The forum had gone from concerning to genuinely disturbing. @skeptic_mike's account had been deleted entirely. @luna_night posted a single message—"I can't do this anymore"—then vanished. New accounts appeared with increasingly frantic posts about geometric patterns, voices in static, shadows that moved wrong.
The university's mental health services released a statement about "collective anxiety" and "mass psychogenic illness." Several news outlets picked up the story, framing it as mass hysteria among impressionable students studying fringe archaeology. Professor Finch declined all interview requests.
Lia saw Marcus only once that week, in the library. He looked terrible—gaunt, hollow-eyed, his usual meticulously organized notes replaced by pages covered in mathematical equations and strange diagrams. When she approached, he looked at her with something close to terror.
"The math works," he whispered. "The codex describes physics we haven't discovered yet. Lia, what if it's all true? What if they're—" He stopped abruptly, his eyes darting to the shadows between the stacks. "I have to go."
He left before she could respond.
Now, walking to Monday's lecture, Lia felt a knot of dread tightening in her stomach. The autumn morning was unseasonably cold, her breath fogging in the air. The campus felt different somehow—quieter, more watchful. She found herself checking the spaces between buildings, the shadows under trees, the dark corners where even morning light didn't quite reach.
The auditorium was less than half full. Empty seats gaped like missing teeth. The students who remained looked exhausted, wary, sitting in scattered clusters rather than their usual rows. Marcus was there, in the back corner, surrounded by papers. He didn't look up when she entered.
Professor Finch stood at the lectern, but the change in him was startling. Gone was the theatrical energy, the wild hair, the mischievous twinkle. He looked older, worn, his tweed jacket replaced by a plain dark sweater. His hands gripped the lectern as if it were the only thing keeping him upright.
Dr. Thorne was nowhere to be seen.
"Good morning," Finch began, his voice quieter than usual. "I debated canceling today's lecture. Several colleagues advised me to. The university administration… strongly suggested I take a sabbatical." He looked out at the scattered students. "But you're here. You chose to come back. So I will honor that choice with honesty."
He clicked the remote. The screen showed a passage from the codex in flowing script.
"Last week, I told you about the Lumin—beings of Noor, cold coherent light. Today, we discuss their counterparts. The codex speaks of another creation, made not from light but from its opposite. From heat. From fire. From chaos."
The translation appeared beneath the script:
"And before the First Man, We created beings from a flame of smokeless fire."
"The codex calls these beings by many names," Finch continued. "The Hidden Ones. The Ancients. Beings made from Samūm—intense, smokeless flame. It describes them as existing before humanity, created from what the text calls 'angry fire'—plasma, perhaps, or some form of energy we haven't identified."
He advanced the slide. "But here's what matters: not all of these beings are neutral. The codex describes three distinct behavioral classes."
The screen divided into three sections.
"First: the Daemons—the rebellious ones, the hostile entities. These are beings who chose opposition, who actively work against cosmic order. The codex is very clear that while Lumin were created obedient, the beings of fire were created with choice. Some chose submission. Others chose rebellion."
A student near the front raised a trembling hand. "Professor, you're talking about these things like they're… like they're really out there. Not mythology. Not metaphor. Actually existing."
Finch met her eyes steadily. "Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying."
The room seemed to hold its breath.
"The codex describes their abilities in disturbing detail," Finch continued, his voice dropping. "They can fly—move through spaces we consider solid. They can shapeshift—the codex mentions serpent forms and, most commonly, the form of black dogs. And they can become terrestrial—walk among us, invisible, in forms that seem almost human."
He clicked to another passage. "But their primary weapon isn't physical. It's psychological. The codex describes attacks through whispers, intrusive thoughts, manipulation of our weakest moments. They exploit doubt, fear, anger, desire. They don't possess us in the Hollywood sense. They influence us. They amplify what's already inside us."
Marcus's voice cut through from the back, hoarse and strained. "You're describing cognitive parasites. Entities that exist in the space between thought and action. That's… that's terrifying."
"Yes," Finch agreed simply. "It is."
He brought up a new image—ancient cuneiform tablets. "This isn't unique to the codex. Every ancient civilization describes these beings. The Sumerians called them Udug. The Egyptians, Seba. The Persians, Daeva. All describe entities of fire or heat that can influence human behavior. All describe protective rituals against them."
"But the codex goes further," he said, his tone darkening. "It identifies a hierarchy among them. Lesser daemons, greater daemons, and at the apex…" He paused, seeming to struggle with whether to continue. "The codex describes a being who was once among the Lumin. Who dwelt in the upper heavens. Who refused a direct command and was cast down."
The screen showed a simple name in elegant script: Azazel.
"This being," Finch said quietly, "appears in the codex as the prototype of rebellion. The first to choose hostility. And according to the text, it made a vow—to prove that humans were flawed, to lead them astray, to attack them 'from front and back, from right and left' until the end of time."
A girl in the second row started crying silently, tears streaming down her face. No one moved to comfort her. They were all frozen, listening.
"Why are you telling us this?" someone called out. "If these things are real, if they're attacking us, why are we learning about them? Isn't that making it worse?"
Finch's expression was grave. "Because knowledge is power. Because the codex doesn't just describe the threat—it describes the defense." He clicked to another passage. "The codex provides specific protections. Invocations. Mental disciplines. It states that these beings cannot overcome conscious resistance, that their attacks fail against focused remembrance of the divine, that their power is ultimately limited."
He looked around the room. "But I'll be honest with you. Since we opened that chamber, since we began studying the codex intensively, something has changed. The Oslo team reported increasing psychological distress before they vanished. The Singapore team's final notes described feeling 'observed' by something intelligent. And I have been…" He hesitated. "I have been advised that certain parties are very interested in why so many students are experiencing similar phenomena after attending these lectures."
"Are you saying the codex is dangerous?" Lia heard herself ask. "That studying it draws their attention?"
"I'm saying," Finch replied carefully, "that the codex is not just a record. It's a beacon. And beacons attract attention."
A sound interrupted him—a student's laptop speakers suddenly emitting a harsh, staticky shriek. The student fumbled to shut it off, his hands shaking. When he finally silenced it, the room felt colder.
Finch waited a moment, then continued with forced calm. "The codex also describes a particular type of being assigned to each human. Various traditions call this entity by different names—the Shadow-Self, the Dark Twin, the Doppelganger. An invisible companion, attempting to influence every decision toward chaos, toward weakness. A personalized adversary."
"That can't be real," someone muttered. "That's paranoia. That's schizophrenia."
"Perhaps," Finch acknowledged. "Or perhaps what we've diagnosed as purely psychological phenomena have an external component we've refused to acknowledge because it doesn't fit our materialist worldview. The codex claims both are true—that humans have psychological vulnerabilities and that certain entities exploit those vulnerabilities."
He clicked off the projector. Natural light flooded the stage, somehow making him look more exhausted.
"I'm ending today's lecture early," he announced. "Not because I want to. Because I must. Those of you experiencing strange phenomena—dreams, intrusive thoughts, the sense of being watched—I urge you to contact mental health services immediately. But I also urge you to practice the protective invocations I'm distributing."
He held up a stack of papers. "These are translations from the codex. Simple phrases in multiple languages. Use them. Test them. See if they help."
As students began filing out in tense silence, Lia remained seated. She watched Finch gather his things with shaking hands. Several students took the papers he offered. Others fled without looking back.
Finally, when only a handful remained, she approached the stage.
"Professor," she began.
He looked up, and she saw genuine fear in his eyes. "Ms. Vance. I was hoping you'd call."
"I almost did. Every day. But I didn't know what to say."
"That's wise. Phones aren't secure." He glanced around the emptying auditorium. "Walk with me. There's something you need to see."
They left through a side exit, emerging into a gray October morning. Finch led her across campus toward the old archives building—a Gothic structure most students avoided because it smelled of mold and old paper.
"The university's founder," Finch said as they walked, "was obsessed with collecting texts about the invisible world. Most of his collection is sealed in the archives. Including the testimony of a man named Kharafa."
"Kharafa?" Lia frowned. "That sounds Middle Eastern."
"It means 'tale' or 'fable,'" Finch replied. "Because no one believed him. He claimed to have been captured by beings of fire as a child and lived among them for years before escaping. He wrote everything down—their social structures, their hierarchies, their weaknesses. His manuscript predates the codex discovery by over a thousand years."
They reached the archives entrance. Finch stopped, his hand on the door.
"I can't access it anymore," he said quietly. "I've been locked out. Too many questions about the Oslo team. Too much attention on these lectures. But you're a history student researching 19th-century folklore acquisition. They might let you in."
He pressed a folded paper into her hand. "This is what you're looking for. Shelf location, call number. Read it. Copy what you can. And Lia—" He met her eyes. "—be very careful. If the codex is a beacon, that manuscript is a map. And maps attract those who don't want to be found."
Before she could respond, he turned and walked away, shoulders hunched against the cold.
Lia stood alone outside the archives, the paper heavy in her hand, and realized she'd just crossed a line. She wasn't a student anymore.
She was an investigator.
That night, she dreamed of nineteen beings standing in a circle around a throne of light. But this time, when they looked at her, one of them stepped forward. Its form shifted constantly—human, serpent, shadow, flame—never settling into a single shape.
It spoke in a voice like burning paper: "Why are you looking for us, Lia Vance?"
When she woke at 3 AM, her notebook was open to a new page.
Written in that same perfect handwriting:
Because now we're looking for you.