In the Academia, the new students stood silently before the towering library, their eyes lifted to the sky. The instructors moved among them, organizing the lines with stiff motions, though even they seemed unsettled by what they saw above.
Erif's mind drifted back to what Instructor Jiro Inn had told them earlier.
Every evening at exactly 7 p.m., a strange phenomenon unfolded within the grounds. A specific entity, different for each day of the week, would appear, attempting to breach the protective layers that sealed the Academia from outside horrors.
The barrier, however, only shielded the institution from direct influence. These entities couldn't cross the veil but they could still affect the Academia indirectly. Through fear. Through presence. Through mechanisms far more insidious.
Instructor Jiro hadn't gone into detail about the nature of these influences. Perhaps he couldn't. Or wouldn't.
All that mattered was this, for thirty minutes, the students and staff were to endure. Survive the entity's influence. Resist being unmade.
Erif remembered the way the others had reacted to that truth. The wide-eyed disbelief. The trembling hands. The sudden silence as the weight of their purpose settled in. They were not just here to study their metaphors. They were also to serve, unwitting guardians of the Academia's continued existence.
Some students had begun to shake. Others just stood, frozen in place, their breath caught in their throats. None spoke.
The reason they hadn't experienced the phenomenon before, Jiro explained, was because the Academia had not yet "recognized" them. Had the barrier not granted them that moment of anonymity, they would've been erased before they even understood why.
Now, they were known. Now, they were seen.
Their gazes remained fixed skyward.
From the center of a growing ripple in the sky descended a towering, ethereal figure. It floated motionless above the clouds, robed in tattered, ivory cloth that billowed like smoke. Its head was a hollow void, an open ring where a face should have been, the sky itself visible through it. Its arms reached forward from bent elbows, palms up, as though waiting to receive an offering.
The very air around it felt wrong, thick with a presence that crawled beneath the skin.
It had been appearing and vanishing for the past fifteen minutes, slipping in and out of the ripple like a haunting refrain. But it had yet to act.
Instructor Jiro shifted where he stood, glancing nervously at his colleagues. His voice was low and tight.
"It's… not following the routine,and where is the self proclaimed pinnacle of knowledge?."
Normally, the entity for Sunday had a behavior the academia's residents had streamlined to a pattern, predictable, rehearsed, manageable. But this? This was strangely unusual.
A man with a massive build and a thick, reddish beard turned to him. "Imhotep never bothers with this stuff," he said, though his voice wavered near the end. "He just stays inside the library like he's always sure we'll survive."
The word survive hung heavy between them.
The entity's erratic behavior disturbed them. The Academia had grown accustomed to its monsters, had cataloged them, scheduled them. There were protocols even. And now those protocols meant nothing.
Among the students, one voice broke the hush among the students.
"The instructors seem lost," said Bahl, the Berrik noble, his voice smooth and almost amused. "Seems all we can do… is wait."
...
A choir of anguished screams rippled through the Nelipot city, rising like a siren's wail.
The cries echoed down the crumbling streets, drawing horrors from all directions toward a single source.
Back at the ruined building where the Listeners had hidden, the walls had burst apart, shattered by some unseen force. Across the debris-strewn floor, students began to stir groaning, blinking against the harsh light, each emerging from their own scattered place.
Isolde sat up slowly, her breaths shallow. The memory of what she'd just witnessed clung to her like wet silk. They don't remember, she thought, scanning the room.
She raised her arm, it was whole.
Unbroken.
As if it had never been torn apart. Her fingers twitched, half-expecting pain. None came.
But then she noticed the sleeve of her dress, one side was missing, ripped clean off. Her brow furrowed. Not everything had reset.
A flash of memory struck like lightning, sharp and sudden. Her eyes squeezed shut.
The moment her mind had grasped even a sliver of her metaphor, the entire room had frozen. No… not frozen. She felt like she had momentarily killed them, all of them, if only for a moment. She had pulled them into something beyond that building, beyond breath.
The screams now weren't from now. They were after reactions. What had they seen before she pulled them under?
The Nelipot who had brought the darkness lay convulsing on the floor, his eyes wide, frothing at the mouth. Madness had rooted in him.
Nearby, Instructor Lazarus groaned as he sat up, wiping blood from his nose. His gaze swept over the wreckage, his thoughts racing. The barrier was gone. Their cover, exposed. The students, were now vulnerable.
Then, like shards of glass piercing the mind, a scene flashed through him. Deaths. His own. Over and over, In different ways.
Was that… her metaphor's effect? he thought, chest rising unevenly.
Then he felt them, the horde. The Nelipots. Drawn by the screams, now closing in. He straightened, spine rigid, voice booming:
"ARISE!"
The word cut through the air like a command from something ancient.
The students who still lay on the ground stirred, eyes fluttering open. Some screamed. One girl stumbled to her feet and let out a shriek, her hands trembling violently.
If they saw what I saw… or even a fragment of it… Lazarus didn't finish the thought. Another grotesque vision slipped into his mind unclear, abstract, but ending always in death.
"We must return to the Academia. Immediately. The last ten minutes… are the most dangerous."
"Last ten minutes?" someone repeated, breathless.
A murmur of relief spread. They had lost all sense of time, just knowing it would end brought a flicker of hope.
But as Lazarus turned to lead them, his mind slowed. Something dragged at his thoughts. Heavy. Oppressive. Wrong.
The world blurred and in a blink, the students were all lying down again, exactly where they had been moments before.
Blood trickled from Lazarus' nose as he rose once more. With force, he spoke:
"ARISE."
But something was wrong.
Wait… didn't I already say that? Didn't they already stand?
The students began to rise again, several letting out screams some identical to before. It was happening again. The moment was repeating.
The echo of Isolde's metaphor still lingered in the air.
As the Listeners tried to steady their thoughts, reality itself seemed to stagger. They were surrounded.
The Nelipots had formed a wide circle around them, silent and unmoving like statues of rot and madness. Then, without a word, the circle parted.
A figure stepped forward through the opening.
"The Nelipot Plaguewalker girl!" Faust gasped, his voice cracking with exhaustion. His mind, already frayed from the repeated falls and twisted memories, could barely hold itself together.
Lazarus narrowed his eyes, scanning the crowd. "Constance?" he muttered. But she was nowhere to be found.
The hooded figure drifted closer, her presence radiating an eerie weight. Chains clinked faintly with every step, trailing behind her like dragged regrets. Her face was entirely obscured, thick hair spilled down in matted waves, hiding every feature. She looked less like a person and more like a monstrosity.
Faust, standing near Maria and Isolde, stiffened. He knew that presence. Even through the veil of corruption and spirit-lust, he recognized her.
"Guinevere…" he whispered. "From the Nelipot Church…"
A guttural growl rumbled from her throat. Low at first, then building, beastlike, pained, ravenous.
She turned her hidden face toward Faust.
His breath caught. "Wait… me?"
He looked over his shoulder, as if someone else might be there. No one was. The growl deepened.
And then everything shifted.
An oppressive force slammed into him like a fist to the soul. The air thickened. A hole tore open on the spot where the now collapsed building had been and above, where the building's ceiling once was.
Faust's mouth fell open. "What the...?"
There was no time.
Immediately he appeared in between the holes, as he began his former decent. A word silently resonated in his head "When! ".
He fell again plunging through layered holes in space, slipping into some recursive nightmare. Again.
And again.