Kael stepped into the darkness of the ruined hall, his footsteps stirring ghosts of dust from a floor that had not felt life in ages. The wooden door behind him gave a final groan as it settled ajar, the sound echoing through vast, empty spaces. With each hesitant step forward, the air grew colder around him. A stale scent of old paper and charred wood hung heavy in his lungs. In the gloom, he could barely make out the silhouettes of towering shelves and shattered pillars reaching toward a ceiling lost in shadows.
Silence enveloped him. It was a thick, tangible quiet, broken only by the soft scuff of his boots on stone and the distant drip of water seeping through cracks. Kael paused and held his breath. In that moment, even the sound of his heartbeat felt loud—too loud—like an intruder in a sacred tomb. He could taste the dust on his tongue, feel it settling on his skin. This place was long abandoned, yet it seemed to watch him, the darkness between pillars like eyes in the night.
A faint light flickered in Kael's trembling hand: a small lantern he carried to push back the abyss. Its flame quivered with each subtle draft that whispered through the hall. Shadows danced as he moved, looming shapes that felt alive for an instant before sliding back into stillness. Kael's grip tightened on the lantern's metal handle, the warmth of it grounding him against the chill of the unknown. He swallowed, his throat dry, and took another careful step.
Massive stone tables and desks lay toppled and cracked along his path, as if some great force had swept through. Fragments of glass crunched under his boots. Once, perhaps, these floors had gleamed with polished marble; now they were carpeted in debris and time's decay. Kael stepped around the husk of an iron candelabra that had long since rusted into a twisted carcass. Above, a yawning gap in the vaulted roof let in a sliver of twilight from the world outside. A single beam of waning light fell like a spotlight on motes of dust dancing in midair.
As he walked deeper, he ran his fingers along a nearby wall. The stone was cold and damp. Faint lines of carved inscriptions ran beneath his fingertips, but ages of erosion had worn them smooth, rendering them illegible. Kael wondered what stories this hall once held, what knowledge had been guarded here before oblivion took it back. The thought made him feel small—a lone trespasser in the domain of ghosts and echoes.
He realized he had been holding his breath again and let it out in a slow exhale. The sound of it rushed away into emptiness. "Hello," he whispered softly, his voice cracking from disuse and nerves. The word rolled out into the hall and dissolved with no answer. Only the drip of water replied, and a distant sigh of wind.
He wasn't sure what he expected—no one would be here to greet him. Still, the loneliness weighed on him more heavily than the dark.
Kael moved onward, passing rows of what he now recognized as shelves—their wooden frames collapsed and books reduced to blackened heaps. He knelt once, curiosity overcoming caution, and brushed a hand over a pile of crumbling pages. They disintegrated at his touch, leaving only soot and fragments of unreadable script clinging to his glove. A sense of loss, profound and unnameable, pressed against his chest. Whatever wisdom these records bore was gone forever, a whole voice of the past turned to silence.
He stood again, the ache in his knees reminding him how far he had traveled to find this place. A thin layer of ash coated the ground here, marking his boots with each step—charcoal prints in a monochrome world. The smell of burnt paper and ancient smoke grew stronger as he advanced, as if some parts of the hall had been ravaged by fire long ago. Yet beneath that, there was another scent: faint but distinct, like old incense or the lingering sweetness of a forgotten offering. It was out of place in the rot and ash, and it made Kael's skin prickle.
An enormous doorway loomed ahead, its double doors torn off their hinges. Beyond it lay the main atrium of the Record Hall. Kael raised his lantern high as he crossed the threshold, and the chamber beyond opened up vast and cavernous around him. His light reached only so far, revealing a forest of columns holding up the remnants of a dome overhead, while farther corners remained swallowed in black.
Each step he took echoed in a cascade, as if a dozen unseen feet walked with him.
Somewhere in the darkness, something skittered—a quick, sharp sound of stone against stone. Kael froze. The echoes played tricks; it was impossible to tell where it came from, or if it was just debris shifting after he disturbed the air. He listened intently, heart hammering. The silence returned, heavier than before. He could feel the pulse in his ears now. Even so, he forced himself to take another step, then another, every instinct in him insisting that he was not alone.
The central atrium held a cracked pedestal or altar of some kind. Kael approached it reverently. Upon the pedestal lay the remnant of a great book, its cover half charred and half rotted. He hesitated, then gently placed the lantern down on the pedestal's edge. By its light he could see a symbol on the book's cover—a circle or wheel, nearly effaced by time. His fingers hovered over the tome, afraid that even a breath might turn it to dust.
As he leaned in, trying to discern the faded symbol, a gentle breeze stirred through the hall. It carried a faint hint of that incense as it kissed the back of his neck, cold and sudden. The lantern's flame bobbed and shrank as if something had breathed across it. Kael went still. That wind… it came from deeper within, from the darkness ahead, not from the door behind.
He lifted his gaze from the book and peered into the black expanse beyond his lantern's reach. At first he saw nothing. But then—was that a glimmer? A tiny flicker of light, there for an instant, then gone. Kael blinked, holding his breath once more. He stared hard into the void between pillars.
There. Again.
A faint pinprick of radiance, like a single ember afloat in a sea of shadow, appeared and then vanished behind a distant column. It was not the golden glow of his lantern reflected back at him; it was something else, a colder, pallid light, like moonlight caught in glass. And it had moved.
A whisper of sound followed, just on the edge of hearing. It might have been the wind, or a distant sigh, or even a word—his name, carried in a voice not his own. The hairs on Kael's arms rose. He felt a chill that was not from the air this time.
Slowly, Kael lifted the lantern and stepped back from the pedestal. He took a tentative step toward where he had seen the flicker. The darkness seemed to tighten, as if aware of his advance. His mouth was dry.
"Is someone there?" he tried to call out, but his voice came hushed, barely more than a breath. The question sank into the emptiness without reply. Only silence. Only darkness.
Yet Kael's instincts told him something had changed. Something unseen was watching, waiting. The lantern light in his hand felt suddenly feeble.
He moved forward again, drawn by equal parts curiosity and dread, deeper into the unknown heart of the hall. Each footfall was a test of courage. The faint scent of incense grew a little stronger with each step, guiding him onward like an invisible trail.
At the far side of the atrium, where the columns crowded closer together, he discovered a narrow passage that had been hidden in gloom. He might have missed it entirely if not for that fleeting light. The opening was partially blocked by a fallen slab of stone, but there was just enough space for a person to squeeze through. Beyond it, total darkness.
Kael stood at the threshold of this secret way, lantern raised. His pulse thundered as he deliberated. He was alone, but he had come too far to turn back now. Was that light a beckoning call or a warning? There was only one way to know.
He drew in a slow breath, tasting metal and dust on his tongue, and ducked beneath the broken slab. As he crossed into the passage, the silence deepened. The weight of the Hall's forgotten centuries pressed in around him.
In the distance, somewhere deep beyond the corridor, he thought he saw it once more. A pale glow flickered, like a star hidden in fog, flashing briefly to guide him forward.
Kael's heart leapt into his throat. He stepped fully into the darkness, leaving the grand atrium behind. The quiet closed in, almost reverent, as if the Hall itself were holding its breath.
Somewhere ahead, the light flickered again, unmistakable now. Faint and otherworldly, it beckoned him onward.