The scratching sounds followed him, a dry, rhythmic chorus that seemed to be coming from inside the walls.
Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.
Kaelen moved through the maze of glass cylinders like a man walking through a minefield. His pistol was raised, his grip slippery with sweat, but he forced himself not to run. Running made noise. Noise was death.
He stepped over a pile of gray dust—the remains of a scroll that had dissolved into entropy.
To his left, a shadow moved.
Kaelen froze, pressing his back against a cold metal shelf. He held his breath until his lungs burned.
A scrivener shuffled past the end of the aisle, just ten feet away. It didn't see him. It was focused on the air in front of it, its quill-fingers twitching spasmatically as it wrote on the empty darkness. Trails of glowing, smoking text hung in the air where its fingers passed.
Kaelen narrowed his eyes, trying to read the floating script before it dissolved.
...Subject 892 failed. The lungs collapsed at 04:00. The Silence does not accept bargaining...
It wasn't just writing nonsense. It was writing a death certificate.
Kaelen watched as the creature moved on, trailing ink like a wounded squid. These things were the immune system of the Void—documenting the death of the old world to make room for the nothingness.
He waited for the creature to turn the corner, then moved.
[ ECHO STEP: COOLDOWN COMPLETE ]
He didn't activate it yet. He saved it. He moved heel-to-toe, rolling his weight to silence his heavy combat boots.
After what felt like an hour of navigating the gloom, the rows of cylinders ended abruptly.
He stepped into a clearing.
In the center of the darkness, surrounded by the rotting shelves and the scratching monsters, stood a glass cube. It was pristine, untouched by the grime and the ink. Inside the cube, bathed in clinical white LED light, was a command console.
It looked alien compared to the gothic ruins of the rest of the library. It was sleek, clean, and humming with a low-frequency thrum of power.
"The Brain," Kaelen whispered.
This was the Security Hub. The "Sanctuary" within the Sanctuary.
He approached the glass door. He expected a lock, a keypad, or a puzzle.
[ SCANNING... ][ BIOSIGNATURE DETECTED: HUMAN (NON-CORRUPTED) ][ WELCOME, SURVIVOR ]
The glass door slid open with a smooth pneumatic hiss.
Kaelen stepped inside. The silence was instant. The heavy, soundproof glass cut off the scratching noise of the scriveners as if a switch had been flipped. The air inside was scrubbed clean, filtered, and cool—smelling of recycled oxygen and sterile plastic.
He holstered his pistol, the tension in his shoulders dropping slightly. He walked to the ergonomic chair in front of the terminal and sat down.
The screen was black. He touched it.
A logo appeared. A golden eye inside a triangle, weeping a single tear.
[ THE ARCHIVE OS v.9.0 ][ STATUS: LOCKDOWN (LEVEL 5) ][ EXTERNAL CONNECTION: SEVERED ][ DAYS SINCE LAST LOGIN: 4,022 ]
"Four thousand days," Kaelen muttered. "Ten years of silence."
His fingers flew across the holographic keyboard. He wasn't a hacker, but he was an observer. He could see the logic of the system, the flow of data like veins in a body.
"Come on," he whispered. "Give me turrets. Give me gas. Give me a way to kill them all."
He navigated to the [ DEFENSE GRID ] menu.
A 3D holographic map of the library bloomed in the air above the desk. It was beautiful and terrifying.
The Atrium (Ground Floor): A swarm of red dots was pouring in through the broken front gate. Valerius's army. They were spreading like a virus. The Archives (B1): A single blue dot. Him. The Core (B2): A massive, pulsing white light.
He focused on the red dots. He selected the Atrium sector.
[ COMMAND: ACTIVATE INTERIOR SENTRY GUNS ]
[ ACCESS DENIED ][ ERROR: BIOMETRIC MISMATCH ][ REQUIRED CLEARANCE: KEEPER ][ CURRENT CLEARANCE: OBSERVER (LEVEL 3) ]
"Dammit!" Kaelen slammed his fist on the desk. The hologram flickered.
He could see them. He could see the hidden turrets in the walls, the gas vents in the floor, and the energy barriers that could slice a man in half. They were all online. They were all ready. But the gun was locked, and he didn't have the fingerprint.
"Think, Kaelen," he hissed, rubbing his temples where the migraine was still throbbing. "You can't hack it. You have to bypass it."
He tried [ACTIVATE BARRIER].
[ ACCESS DENIED ][ ERROR: CORE ENERGY DEPLETED ][ MANUAL RESET REQUIRED AT SECTOR B2 ]
He was locked out. He was a guest in a house that was burning down, watching the arsonists through the window.
"Who locked this?" Kaelen asked the empty room. "Why lock the guns when the enemy is at the gate?"
He opened the [ ADMIN LOGS ] folder. Most of the files were corrupted—eaten by digital rot. But the final entry, dated moments before the lockdown, was intact.
[ FILE: LAST_WORDS.WAV ][ AUTHOR: HEAD LIBRARIAN ARIS ]
Kaelen tapped play.
A waveform appeared on the screen. A voice filled the small glass room. It was a woman's voice—tired, strained, and breathing hard, as if she had been running.
"This is Librarian Aris. Day 4,022. The Siege of the Silence has begun. Malakor's Hounds are at the gate. I can hear them cutting through the outer wards."
The voice paused. In the background of the recording, Kaelen heard the dull boom of explosions.
"I have initiated the Omega Protocol. I have locked the Core. I have put her to sleep."
Kaelen leaned in, his eyes glued to the waveform. Her.
"Elara is the only one who can interface with the Core. She is the key. She is the weapon. But... she is compromised."
Kaelen froze. "Compromised?"
"The corruption touched her during the Fall of the Sky. She fought it, but the Void leaves a mark on everything, even a goddess. If you wake her up... she might save us. Or she might finish what the Silence started."
The audio crackled with static. The woman on the recording coughed, a wet, rattling sound.
"I cannot take the risk. I am sealing the master keycard inside the hibernation pod with her. If someone finds this... if someone is desperate enough to wake the Sleeping Sun... God help you. Do not trust her eyes. Trust her actions."
The recording ended with the sound of a pistol cocking and then silence.
Kaelen sat back in the chair, the silence of the glass room pressing in on him.
It was a gamble. A suicide bet.
The defenses weren't broken. They were locked to keep Elara inside, not just to keep the enemy out. Aris had been afraid of her own weapon.
BOOM.
The glass room shook violently. The hologram on the desk distorted and vanished.
Kaelen spun around in the chair.
Outside the glass cube, deep in the dark archives, a fireball bloomed like a sickly orange flower. The shockwave rattled the Scriveners, sending them screeching into the shadows.
Valerius's men had breached the blast door.
Through the safety glass, Kaelen saw them. Flashlights cut through the gloom. Soldiers in heavy, heat-shielded armor moved in a phalanx. The man at the front carried a heavy flamethrower. He pulled the trigger, and a stream of liquid fire washed over the rows of cylinders.
The scrolls burned. The Scriveners caught in the blast didn't scream; they just evaporated into ink and ash.
And walking behind the wall of fire was Valerius.
He walked unhurriedly, his hands clasped behind his back. His robe of stitched skin fluttered in the draft caused by the fire. He stopped. He turned his head.
He saw the glowing glass cube in the center of the darkness.
He saw Kaelen.
Even through the mask, Kaelen could feel the man smiling. Valerius raised a hand slowly and pointed a gloved finger at the glass.
The soldiers turned. Three flamethrowers aimed at the cube.
Kaelen looked at the terminal. He couldn't fight them here. The glass was bulletproof, but it wasn't heatproof. They would cook him alive in here like a lobster in a pot.
He scanned the screen desperately. Exit. Escape. Vent.
He saw a command flashing in yellow on the bottom right: [EMERGENCY VENTILATION PURGE: SECTOR B2].
It wasn't a door. It was a trash chute. It was designed to flush toxic gas out of the room and dump it into the deep incinerators near the core.
"Better garbage than ash," Kaelen said, his voice tight.
He looked at Valerius one last time. He raised his middle finger.
He hit [ EXECUTE ].
[ WARNING: VENTILATION SHAFT OPENING ]
The floor beneath his chair dissolved.
It didn't slide open; it irised open. Kaelen fell backward, chair and all.
As he plummeted into the darkness of the chute, he looked up. He saw the glass room above him engulfed in a roaring inferno of orange fire. The flames licked down the hole, chasing him, hungry and bright.
But he was already gone.
He was sliding fast, tumbling through the smooth metal throat of the library, plunging deeper into the earth than any human had gone in ten years.
He was going to the Core. He was going to wake the sleeper.
And as the wind roared in his ears, Librarian Aris's words echoed in his mind: Do not trust her eyes.
Kaelen gripped the Void-Glass dagger in the dark.
"I don't trust anyone," he whispered.