Whenever she tried to close her eyes, images of the strange runes and symbols from the crystal spires surged forward, unbidden, crowding her thoughts. They drifted and twisted through the darkness of her mind, flickering as though they were aware of her gaze. The longer she resisted, the brighter they pulsed, tugging insistently at her focus. And just as she was about to open her eyes to banish them, the scattered runes shuddered and slid into place, locking together to form a single, unmistakable command:
Architect. Proceed to the Final Mechanism.
The woman's eyes flew open, her head spinning, sweat running down her temple. She tried to stop her thoughts from spiraling out of control, so she focused her gaze on the mark on her hand. It was a burn mark. After days of following the same procedure of steadying herself, she was sure of that. What still eluded her was the form it took.
It was precise, minimalist, yet clearly intentional. It was composed of thread-thin lines forming a radial pattern that mirrored a neural network. The lines branched and reconnected, converging around a tiny central void no wider than a pinhead. What intrigued her most was the flaring. During these last days, whenever she felt a heightened sense of danger or urgency, the lines subtly reconfigured, like a living circuit rewriting its own design. As if burning from the inside out, the lines turned deep red, as they did now.
Panicked, the woman stood up and stepped toward the window of the little hut outside the city where she had found refuge. A short walk away, she saw the glimmering lights of the city she had been walking toward for the last few days. It had already taken longer than she had anticipated when she left the spires behind, the road changing its path at will, breaking open just long enough for more crystals or anomalies to bleed out from below. She knew that tomorrow she would arrive in a city whose name she didn’t even know, or simply could not remember.
These past days, she had tried to make sense of her surroundings, of herself. Who was she, and why had she woken up beneath a shattered sky?
She let out a frustrated sigh.
It didn’t matter, did it? There was no one to answer her questions. For days she had wandered the road to the nearest city, only to encounter frightened people, too frightened to give her a meaningful answer. From what she could piece together, the fracture had started around the time she awoke, and it had not only impacted the immediate surroundings. All over the world, cities had begun to report anomalies and paradoxes.
She pulled the blanket she had found in the hut closer around her shoulders. This spring night was too cold, as though winter had lingered out of spite. With no way to make a fire, the woman sat down against the cold stone wall just below the window, her gaze resting on her hands. Again and again, she traced the outline of the burn mark in the faint light of the red moon, as if in a trance.
Architect, she voiced in her head, echoing the word she had awakened to. It stirred something within her, made her anxious to go back to the spires … to complete whatever she had begun.
Suddenly, a loud crash tore her from her trance as glass rained down upon her. She let out a small shriek and dropped to the floor, then quickly rolled over and crouched, staring at the hole in the wall where the window had just been. A long arm reached through the opening, misshapen as if designed by a cruel inventor. It had only three fingers, entirely made of steel, with tubes and pipes holding the hand and arm together. As it touched the ground—where she had been sitting only seconds ago—she noticed the arm was seemingly detached from any body, like a monstrous anomaly bleeding out of the places where spells and science collided.
“What the …” she murmured under her breath, slowly crouching backward toward the door.
Architect. We see you. You are here. Do not resist.
A voice, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once, boomed through the air. The woman covered her ears for a split second, only to abruptly pull her hands away as warm liquid began to drip between her fingers.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.”
Now fully standing, she looked around in panic. Aside from furniture, there was nothing to defend herself with, not that a wooden chair would do much against that thing. But she needed to get out of here. Just as she considered running out the door without a plan, a trapdoor she hadn’t noticed until now opened a few inches.
Curious eyes scanned the scene before the hatch opened completely.
“Come on!”
The woman didn’t hesitate. Whoever it was, they were at least human.
As she ran for the hatch, the anomaly’s arm whipped toward her, stretching farther than it should have, fingers curling to catch her shoulder. A rush of air sliced past her left ear. The crack followed, sharp and final..
She turned just in time to see the outstretched hand snap backward—a clean hole punched straight through it. The limb jerked, its grip broken, and dropped uselessly to the floor.
For a split second, she froze.
Then she noticed it: a narrow gun barrel retreating into a thin seam in the floor. The panel slid shut with a quiet click, leaving no trace of whoever had fired the shot.
The anomaly recoiled, its advance halted.
She shook herself from her paralysis and slid down the hatch, pulling it shut above her. Only then did she realize there was no floor beneath her, just a narrow shaft yawning in the dark. She plunged down and hit hard, landing on her knees with a breathless grunt as pain shot up her legs.
“Sorry. Should have warned you about the basement.”
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
A calloused hand marked with small scars reached toward her. She ignored it and stood up by herself. As the adrenaline suddenly drained from her body, she had to lean against the nearest wall.
“Ah… yes. But thanks for the rescue,” she sighed under her breath.
When she opened her eyes, she looked at the person in front of her. He was observing her, his brown eyes assessing whether she would collapse.
“So,” she began after regaining her composure. She didn’t know why, but it felt wrong - plain wrong - to panic, to be agitated, to feel emotions. She took another breath. “What exactly was that?”
The man shrugged, his layered leather clothes rustling. She noticed he was still holding his gun.
“To be honest? You’re the first human I’ve been able to talk to in days since… well, the sky kind of tore open. Everyone I’ve met has been too busy escaping the destruction. Same for me, I guess. I’ve just been hiding in this basement for the last day, waiting for whatever apocalypse is happening to be over.”
“It won’t pass…” the woman murmured without thinking.
Not acknowledging her remark, the young man began pacing before her.
“But that thing? I haven’t seen anything like it. Not after, not before… that shit outside. And I dig up strange stuff for a living.”
He paused and looked at her.
“I’m Cyren, by the way.”
He held out his hand again. Not wanting to alienate the first friendly face she had seen, the woman took it.
“I would like to introduce myself as well… but everything is a blur. I don’t know my name. Nothing.”
“Curious. Have you been like that since… this?” he asked, gesturing vaguely upward.
“Well, I just woke up under the torn sky. At some crystalline spires on a mountain. I could see a city nearby, so my best guess was to walk there. In the absence of alternatives, and any memories to guide me, it seemed like the best course of action.”
Cyren processed that information. His eyes narrowed. She realized he still hadn’t holstered his gun.
“And I’m supposed to believe you’re an amnesiac who just happened to wake up when every part of the known world started breaking apart?”
She knew she shouldn’t feel annoyed. She would act the same in his position. It irritated her that she couldn’t offer proof. What unsettled her more was how sharp and intrusive the irritation felt. In truth, she was annoyed at herself for being annoyed. Why were her emotions getting in the way of explaining her situation?
She absently rubbed her scar, not noticing Cyren stepping closer.
“What’s that?” he asked, nearly touching her hand.
She yanked it away instantly. “Don’t you dare touch me,” she said in a precise, almost monotone voice, though now edged with warning.
Cyren raised his hands and stepped back. “Sure. But please, let me take a look. You’ve been rubbing that mark since you came down here.”
She rolled her eyes but couldn’t deny the persistent sensation beneath her skin. Maybe he could ease the itching.
She stepped forward and held out her hand.
Cyren leaned in. A few strands of his slightly too-long hair slipped loose from the bundle at the back of his head. Suddenly, he stepped away, knelt by a bag she hadn’t noticed before, and began rummaging through it, still holding his gun.
“I want to try something. I won’t hurt you… I think,” he said with a smirk she couldn’t quite read.
He held a palm-sized device that began to emit a faint green glow when he pressed a button on its side. It gave a quiet electrical beep. Before she could object, he pressed it against her skin.
It might have been an hour. It might have been a fraction of a second.
The mark on her hand erupted in a burst of green light. Cyren jerked back.
Between them, a wall of text flickered into existence, stabilizing into a vertical lake of glass suspended in midair.
The green light did not fade. It thickened.
Runes spilled across the air, flickering and rearranging into words.
The mark pulsed again.
Cyren stepped back. She did not.
Fascinated, she began reading.
COLLAPSE
The sky tore open.
Not with lightning. With absence.
Stars blinked out in coordinated patterns. Oceans rose without waves. Reality folding inward.
Cyren’s voice was hoarse. “That sounds exactly like what’s happening outside.”
“No,” she whispered, almost in a trance. “It is exactly what is happening… was happening… will be happening…”
The hologram fractured into overlays. The glyphs burned brighter.
THE LOOP IS INTENTIONAL
Continuity requires correction.
I am… THE ARCHITECT.
The letters distorted.
ALARA
Cyren stiffened.
The hologram trembled violently. She continued, her voice distant:
Reality destabilizes. A calamity emerges. Someone rises and patches the wound. The world limps forward. It prospers. It stagnates. It rots. The instability returns. Another patch. Another age. Another slow decay…
The word flickered again.
ARCHITECT
ALARA
Correction requires identification.
The mark pulsed.
His breath caught.
ARCHITECT
ALARA
ARCHITE—
ALARA
The hologram dimmed but did not vanish. The green glow softened into something steady.
Suddenly, she began trembling. She dropped to her knees, steadying herself with deep breaths. Sweat ran down her temples. Cyren watched her, gaze flicking between her and the runes. He had acted on a hunch: the device displayed the same pattern as the mark on her hand. He had found it scavenging an old structure, but whenever he activated it, it showed only unreadable runes.
Until now.
“What do you make of it?” he asked carefully.
She shook her head and stood.
“I don’t know. Whatever it is, it’s awfully precise about our situation…”
Then she met his eyes.
“But everything I’ve been told says I’m the Architect. I’m Alara. I wrote this. I knew this hell was coming … and I let it happen.”
