Chương 22: Daydreams

The young scientist lay stretched across the black sea, his limbs extended toward the vault of dark, brooding tentacles that moved overhead like storm clouds. He let his hands and feet sink into the surface, rocked by the imperceptible vibrations along it. A distant sound of flutes accompanied his hollow rest. Slowly, shapes appeared at his feet. They disturbed his body where the arms of the water had cradled it, seizing him by the ankles.

He could neither resist nor make a sound, awaiting with dull inevitability the end of what was about to be done to him. The group of Shadows, vaguely feminine in form, took hold of long crystalline nails resembling violet stalagmites. In an instant, his flesh was torn apart at every joint by the crystal, black tar bleeding from the wounds. His collarbones, his knees, his wrists and his elbows were pierced and shredded, reduced to clots of bone.

The shapes coiled around the fatal lances and vanished inside them, followed by the scientist's obligatorily blank stare, incapable of reacting to the pain corroding his nerves. Above him, a gigantic sphere of violet flame began to consume the sky, spreading like a slick. It descended slowly toward him, making the core of the fireball visible. A figure emerged from the sparks, moving toward his face until her hands framed it.

He was lifted, drawn along the nails slick with his own blood, closer and closer to the shape wrapped in flame. Her nails carved slowly into his face, burning the flesh beneath. The woman's hair fell across his face like a hood; the smell of burning and ash enveloped his mind in a harsh, suffocating storm.

"Grayson…" The shape's voice was barely a murmur, followed by the crackle of fire behind her, the violet tongues contracting and shooting into the dark sky. A tremor seized his body, engulfing every organ in terror, slowly annihilating whatever remained of his reason.

"You were right to abandon me." The woman said, tracing a line with her finger, slowly weaving it around his neck, leaving him to hang there above the boiling surface of black water.

"After all… You always wanted this, didn't you?" The woman smiled at him, and he finally recognised her face. The black hair was like a crow's wings, the magnetic but gentle gaze and the full, soft lips he had met with his own more than once. The fine, kind features were wrapped in an air of maturity and comfort. Her dark eyes fixed on his, slowly dissolving into a scatter of sparks. He reached toward the fire and was swallowed entirely by the violet glow.

The last thing his sight could grasp before it vanished into the flames was a gigantic tangle of iron cables, like an immense furnace lit by a violet even more intense. The massive structure seemed almost to pass judgment on him before disappearing into the ethereal fire. His bed shook from the sudden lurch of its occupant, trembling under the weight of the jolt. The young man had bolted upright, clutching his shoulder reflexively, eyes filled with tears, mouth slick with saliva.

He gasped, then gradually pulled himself together.

"Erika…" That was the first name he murmured through his ragged breathing, wiping the moisture from his face with his palm. He could still feel the electricity running through him, permeating his veins. He rose with difficulty, stumbling across the floor covered in sheets of paper, documents, and ink stains. Close to one of those black pools, a thin rivulet still trickled from the desk, which was in considerably worse condition.

He dragged himself to the bathroom door and pushed it open with his own weight, easing it inward until the pale light inside washed over him. He leaned over the sink and examined with paranoid attention the water droplets left near the rim, afraid something might at any moment erupt from those small crystalline capsules to attack him. For an instant, he raised his chin and caught his own reflection in the mirror, and terror moved across his face immediately.

His cheeks were ashen and sunken; compared to previous days, he looked in considerably worse condition. The nightmares had done nothing but increase at the expense of his rest.

"That song… It hasn't come back." He sighed, gripping the white fabric tight against his chest, keeping those spectral notes from echoing inside his head.

"A little longer and it will all be over." He settled on the edge of the tub, bracing himself with his weak wrists against the cold, silent marble. The only sound in that moment was the flickering of the bathroom light. He looked at his palms, covered in scratches and dried ink, a disturbing smile spreading across his face.

"What am I complaining about?" He murmured, letting his lips pull into an even more unpleasant expression. It looked almost like a smile drawn by pain.

"After all, I was the one who left her there, wasn't I?" His voice trembled, as though moved by the same wind shaking the capital's winter.

"I'm only trying to wash away the pain hammering at my heart, aren't I? Erika doesn't matter to me. I only want to finish the Demiurge and bury all of this under another pile of gold. That's it, isn't it, Grayson?" He stared at his hands so intensely it seemed they might split open of their own accord.

"Enough… I need to get back to work, or I won't amount to anything anymore." He murmured, pushing himself up from the tub and using the wall to avoid straining his ankle. He dressed quickly, pulling on his coat and picking up his cane, then moved to open the door. He paused a moment to glance back at the desk. The diary pages on the wood stirred faintly in the draught at his back, but the heavy burden of ink splattered across them seemed to weigh them down.

He grimaced in disgust, then closed the door behind him and merged into the corridor teeming with staff.

"Oh, hi, Dirac! How's the research going?"

"You look pale. Are you sure you've slept?"

"Don't push yourself too hard at work!" He greeted his colleagues one by one, pausing briefly in the crowd to reassure each of them and let them go with a smile, watching their backs dissolve among the lab coats.

"I need to keep working on the reactor and get out of here as soon as possible. I don't know how much longer I can hold." As he retreated down the corridor, he felt an icy shiver run up his nape. A reflection in one researcher's lenses froze him. The sight of the same figure wrapped in white swept over him, leaving him suddenly immobile. A thread of music grazed his ear, shutting his thoughts down completely.

"Why is she here? This is a dream, isn't it?" The question ricocheted through his bones, searching desperately for an answer in his heart, which beat faster and faster as the woman drew closer to his back. He lurched forward, trying to pull away from her, managing only to fall sideways, directly into the crowd. His cane slid to the feet of another researcher. For a brief instant, he thought he could sense her breath behind him and spun around with a gasp.

"Gray, are you all right?!" Exclaimed Lug Well, director of the Ruther Institute. Her black coat fluttered before his eyes, still gripped by the feverish prickling of the vision. He couldn't steady his gaze and simply grabbed her hand and pulled himself upright. The staff looked at him for a moment, some with puzzled faces, others with a strange concern pressed into their expressions.

"Don't worry, I just tripped." He replied with a smile, sweat gathering on his forehead. He retrieved his cane from his colleague and resumed walking, but Lug stopped him.

"You're pale… You look like you've seen a ghost." Her grip was firm on his arm, but she released it quickly when she saw the baffled expression on Grayson's face, confused and shaken by the question.

"Ghosts don't exist, Lug! We're in a university. The only thing I care about is solving equations!" His smile looked bright as he turned to continue walking to the library. Lug lowered her arm and watched, concerned, as the young man disappeared into the crowd that had resumed moving. His cane struck the floor the moment Dirac sank into a chair, looking around him, scanning every corner of the remote alcove of the library in which he had taken shelter.

"I can't let Lug see me like this, or she'll cut my access entirely." He thought as his eyes moved across the dark wooden shelves towering over him. Centuries of knowledge were nestled inside every one of their countless rows. Grayson recalled the famous story of the Institute on the first day he rolled in." The Ruther Institute was a faculty devoted to scientific progress and the development of new technologies, founded after the Great War.

The family had been extinguished by the War once its last member, Christopher Ruther, the university's founder, died young in the aftermath."

"As I recall, Christopher Ruther died without heirs, though the Ruther bloodline had spread into many cadet branches."

"Well, the Institute is just a facade. Most people here know that the building is more similar to a museum than a university." His eyes wandered over the immense number of books lined up on the shelves. Dirac turned this over in his mind as he leafed through the biographical pages attached to every document of the Institute.

"Well, Maxwell, Xoloum are all families carrying Ruther blood. It's no surprise they've produced brilliant minds." The thought of Lug Well crossed his mind, reminding him that beneath her severe, steely exterior was a girl with a profound passion for the world. The image of the woman with the black bob and the cold air faded, replaced by another, trembling vision. A slightly taller girl, the same dark hair, a little longer, and eyes wrapped in a glow of shadow that was almost innocent.

The woman reached out her hand to him, then vanished into the flames. Grayson struck his own face hard with his palm, nearly falling from the chair. He had broken into a heavy sweat; a drumbeat had replaced his heart in his chest.

"Is this some kind of punishment?" He murmured, gasping, barely managing to hold one of the books he had scraped together to study.

"IT'S BECAUSE I'M DISGUSTING! ISN'T THAT IT!!" He hurled the book hard at the shelf, doing nothing at all to move the heavy wooden furniture. He watched the text fall to the floor with regret, quickly covering his face with his hands.

"No no no no no! She doesn't want this! Erika doesn't want this!" His furious eyes peered through his knuckles, scattering their attention across his papers. He shot to his feet, still holding his head in the grip of the panic and guilt that had seized him. He slammed into the bookcase, this time managing to crack the row of books on the upper section. He recovered his composure for a moment and stopped the wood from collapsing. A small notebook fell directly onto his head, rolling to the tip of his foot.

The cover was dark leather, entirely ruined by dozens of deep scratches with a vague black outline. The corners of the yellowed pages were charred, leaving behind ragged, dirty edges. Even the spine and the binding were completely wrecked, the pages protruding from the sides"Someone must have lost this." He regained his composure, drawn by the strange little notebook that had fallen on him.

He crouched to pick it up carefully, running his fingertips along the pages, thin and fragile, giving the impression that the slightest movement might reduce them to dust. His gaze fell on the gold plate fixed to the shelf beam, and a profoundly sinister sensation invaded his eyes as they reflected the inscription etched in the metal.

"This is the Index… of Forbidden Texts?!" He immediately grasped the sheer weight of information contained within those shelves, shuddering and stepping back, fingers still trembling on the notebook. He looked around, making sure no one was using the library.

"How is it possible for a text like this to be in this section? They were all digitised by that new technology." Grayson began at once to scan the dozens of shapes and shades along the spines of the books enclosed in the wood. Every one of those texts was, in truth, empty, mere covers intended to record what had once been between their pages.

All texts classified as dangerous or harmful to society had been preserved in a digital archive hidden somewhere in the institute's lower levels, before being defaced and rendered illegible. Grayson gathered his composure and turned his full attention to the slim notebook of burnt leather in his fingers. He confirmed there was no one watching him, then began leafing through the first pages.

"Critique of Common Scientific Thought: Essay on the Study of Metaphysics as Pure Science, by L. H."

"I've never heard of a text like this… And these initials, could they possibly be Lucas Hoppenheimer?" He caressed the leather, smooth to the touch, as if it had avoided the passage of time completely. Grayson's eyes went wide as he swallowed the weight of the title, turning the text in every direction in search of some clue. His gaze filled with disappointment when he realised the signature had been burned away.

He began working through the pages covered in black sketches and burn marks, with few images visible among the stains and equally few legible lines, limited to long critiques of the formulas he had studied.

"Following what has been stated above, this anomaly in the collapse of nuclei within the accelerator violates every principle to which we have been accustomed until now, forcing us to take up a new front in grappling with this diabolical discovery. In Experiments I, II, V, and XVII, illustrated above, I became aware of a subtle variation of energy in the systems analysed. The entropic level of those same systems had, moreover, fallen by an imperceptible yet meaningful margin.

It is with this that I wish to introduce my explanations for the initial critique: this variation of energy, dispersed into nothing by this new material, is accompanied by a peculiar form of perturbation in the electromagnetic field, quite unlike any other radiation indicated in the spectrum known to us, and it is here that a disconcerting revelation struck me: this radiation invests and permeates every single interaction occurring between particles in a manner still unknown to us.

However absurd my words may sound, a variable entirely worthy of undermining the solidity of my work, I ask you, readers and colleagues, to reason from the foundations of our reality before accusing me of having slipped into madness. The question I put to you is this: before all of this, what labels had we given to light, to electricity, to gravity, and what had been said of those who had tried to provide answers?" Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"This is madness! It contradicts every written law of physics known until now!" Grayson could not tear his eyes from the thin, elegant black script covering the fragile paper. The content of those pages was sufficient to demolish every foundation on which he had built his years of study. He slid his fingers along the page and kept reading.

"Fools! That is what you have called those who tried to provide answers to what had always been considered a mystery, and I personally am no different from them. Now that I have justified my madness, I can lay out my theory. Following the discovery of this pseudo-radiation, pseudo, given its anomalous behaviour of not transporting energy but simply causing it to vanish, I noted a variation also in the gravitational field. Setting aside the possibility that this might finally lead to acceptance of the G. E. T.

, this indicates that the radiation does not disperse but simply 'travels' through spacetime, curving it until it perforates it in an utterly incomprehensible manner. Now, however, a question arises: where does this new form of Radiation travel?

That very question is what I wish to address in the essay: whether it is possible to explain the metaphysical journey scientifically, if I may be permitted a term so remote from scientific parlance, of this energy, and whether it is possible to subject it to our instruments.

By examining various historical sources, I have come across similar accounts from scholars of the past, who have named this dispersion phenomenon Lambda Radiation, or more precisely Lambda Decay, and by combining this evidence with other sources from philosophers, artists, writers and theologians, I have discovered that this dimension may have existed for millions of years, perhaps even since the beginning of the universe.

Some have called it Niveus, others Blass, but the most recurrent name has been a term from a language now lost to historians, namely Hel. Descriptions of this place are fragmented and varied, but many identify it as perpetually shrouded in a veil of white ash, resembling snow, accompanied by a dark mist. Below I reproduce several extracts from my sources with accompanying illustrations and formulas, to adv…"

Grayson lost his grip, letting the notebook slide from his hands the moment he noticed that the rest of the pages, and the information they contained, were ruined and illegible. It fell open on the very last page, written in haste with dozens of equations and details on Lambdite scratched into it, far more complex than any he had encountered before.

"This could finally make the Demiurge work. How is it possible that a text like this was banned?!" Dirac's excitement broke through as he hid the book in his coat pocket, gathering all his papers and notes from the desk in a rush. He was about to flee the library when the same figure that had been haunting him since morning blocked his way. She did not appear to move, only letting her long white robe trail across the wood of the upper balcony, watching him from the darkness sheltered inside her hood.

Her long arms, pale and thin, began to rise toward him, beckoning him to approach. Grayson backed away desperately and tripped to the floor. The whole room seemed to flicker, transforming in patches into that bleak, shadowed ocean that had long tormented him with its unsettling visions.

"The moon of the advent is ready to wake, and at last the Architect shall be born." A chorus rang through his head; the young scientist's eyes filled with tears, the voices burning through him and forcing him to roll across the floor.

"ENOUGH! NOT AGAIN, PLEASE!" He was almost kneeling by now, raising his gaze toward the woman shrouded in ash and white, impassive before him. For a moment, he felt an icy sensation wrap around his ankles. The library began to bleed into the marine hell that had been haunting him for days, creating a grotesque and unsettling illusion.

"The table of crimes awaits its rightful owner, O Architect." The voices continued to assault his eardrums, slowly eroding what little lucidity he had left. He rose with difficulty, pressing his back against the glass railing. He looked down for a moment, searching that forest of papers and shelves for even a single human silhouette, finding none.

"Do you hate me?" The darkness that replaced the woman's face drew close, striking him with an icy draught, the viscous mass of tentacles beginning to coil around his hips, pulling him nearer. He pressed his hands against the suckers in an attempt to wrench himself free, but smaller tendrils, coated in tar, tightened around his knuckles. He looked behind him one last time before deciding.

Without a word, he seized the water jug from the desk and brought it down hard on the woman's head, straining every faint remnant of strength left in him. The creature released its grip, though it showed no sign of being stunned, only something closer to concern. He vaulted the railing and dropped to the lower floor. His body built enough speed to shatter the long table below. The planks and legs of the furniture were scattered across the white floor, clattering through the empty hall.

"I need to get out now!" Adrenaline flooded his veins, allowing his brain to bypass the dislocated shoulder and the broken, aching ankle. He dragged himself to the door, not bothering to look behind him The corridor was empty. Fortunately, he would not stumble into a curious and frightened crowd at the sight of a young researcher with a split, bleeding forehead and a shoulder wrenched out of its socket.

He scraped together a minimum of energy, stumbling through to the university hall, unsettlingly empty with no one to meet him. The large circular reception desk, with its computer still running, had been abandoned in a hurry, judging by the scattered papers and the still-steaming cup of coffee.

"Must have had a call." Grayson murmured, lowering his body onto one of the padded chairs in the waiting area. He looked at his shoulder with dismay. Gripping it with his other hand, he used the bone as a lever to set it back in place. His face produced a wince of pain and suffering at the sound, something like a snap, from the joint. The tremor passed quickly, followed by an accelerated heartbeat. He was drenched in sweat, and his breathing showed no sign of settling.

"Excuse me, do you know where the secretary's office is?" A man spoke to him, no more than thirty years old, with a voice remarkably calm and deep. He was wrapped in a heavy black cloak and dressed in an elegant caramel-toned suit. He took a seat before him, holding out a handkerchief.

"My apologies for the intrusion. You seem unwell, and you should disinfect that." He smiled through his dark, shadowed pupils. The sight of the bleeding scientist did not seem to trouble him in the slightest. Grayson took the handkerchief from his hands, sensing a flood of terror and resignation pass through his fingers. His gaze locked onto the elegant figure before him. The man's black hair fell along his shoulders, merging with the shadows.

"Thank you… Very much." He murmured, trying to shift his gaze away from that man. The figure leaned forward, examining his coat, stained with small drops of blood and sweat, until his eyes settled on the name tag.

"But you are Grayson Dirac! The prodigy of the generation! I am mortified to have treated you with so little regard." His interlocutor began to apologise, moving only his face, as though his body were petrified beneath his clothes.

"Please don't worry. I don't place much value on my own status." Grayson laughed, trying to shake off the oppressive, oily atmosphere in the room.

"Then you are like me. We both detest our roles." The man smiled, showing a certain respect for the young man seated beside him.

"You know… In my view, roles and status are mere social constructions, destined sooner or later to fall victim to the destruction that overtakes every human enterprise. In the end, we are all fated to collapse, aren't we?" The man's words completely transformed the air, making it dark and nauseating.

"I'm sorry… that strikes me as rather a radical thought. I do agree that status has its value only within society, but as long as there are people capable of advancing humanity, I believe they deserve to be considered heroes, or at least worthy of being remembered." Grayson let those words out through his lips despite the atmosphere worthy of a cataclysm.

"Very well… But what if all of society were destroyed, if every life that comprises it were severed? Would what you speak of still amount to anything? If there were no one left to recognise those heroes, what value would they actually hold?" The man's voice grew deeper, and his tone seemed calmer still. Dirac let those words sink in, failing to form a response before the weight of the question.

"All yield before calamity. No matter how advanced a nation, human beings must perish before the forces of fate, and everything they build will remain permanently subject to the nature of events." Grayson felt a chill each time the man's words bounced between the walls of the room and reached his ears. He had begun almost to tremble, moved by a primordial and intimate fear, the same one feels before a fire or a storm.

"All societies are shipwrecks on the sea of history, moved by waves high enough to eclipse mountains. But I don't want to frighten you, young man. These are only the ramblings of an old man." His tone shifted immediately, returning calm and natural. The dark aura that had wrapped his face dissipated and left the room.

"A rather macabre speech, if you'll allow me… And you don't seem very old." Grayson tried to shake off his anxiety and dread, slowly rising from his seat.

"One grows old much faster when confronted by certain truths, but I appreciate the compliment." The man smiled, standing and extending his hand"My name is Malcolm Harmenszo. A pleasure to make your acquaintance." He introduced himself, smoothing his hair back from his forehead, covering his dark, shadowed eye.

"Grayson Dirac. The pleasure is mine." His trembling fingers curled around the man's hand in a grip that was both unsettling and terrifying The man tilted his head in a gesture of farewell and headed to leave the room at a slow, unhurried pace, pausing a moment to look at Grayson.

"The secretary's office is this way? I have an appointment with Miss Well." He smiled, returning the dark, cataclysmic atmosphere to the room, though only for a brief instant.

"Ask for a pass… The Director is on the top floor." He replied, trying to compose something resembling relief on his pale face.

"Thank you very much." The man answered, disappearing. Grayson waited a few minutes before leaving the room.

"I have a very bad feeling." Just a glimpse of his face managed to shock his stomach, plunging the poor scientist into dizziness. He murmured, shrugging off his coat and heading toward the cafeteria, but something in the corridor stopped him abruptly. He turned the corner only to find his shoes submerged in water. Before him, the entire hallway was flooded with black water that looked almost bottomless.

"What… This… This can't be real." His voice was on the verge of breaking into tears again at the sight of his nightmare. Kneeling in the water was the figure he had fled in the library, the one that had continued to terrorise him with those nightmares even in daylight. His heartbeat began to roar in his chest, the colour drained entirely from his skin, and his gaze seemed to lose its hold as he watched the woman's arms slowly rise. He spun around and broke into a run, chased by the horror at his back.

He didn't even know whether anything was actually pursuing him, but the viscous, almost dreamlike sensation raking at his spine was enough to force him to flee.

"Why, why, why… Why!!" The desperate cry echoed and then faded as he ran for his life. He reached the outer corridor, caring for nothing, not even his swollen, injured ankle. He only wanted to escape that nightmare, to take refuge somewhere and study, to spend a lifetime there if it meant evading that reality.

"No, Maliard, I haven't found the target yet!" He was too disturbed by his own flight to notice the young man in a white coat and dark, round glasses walking ahead of him. They collided head-on, both crashing to the ground. Their bodies rolled side by side across the white, rough corridor floor. A groan of exhaustion escaped both their throats almost in unison as they picked themselves up. Grayson moved to bow and flee, but the young man's hand clamped onto his with an iron grip.

"I'm sorry, I have an urgent—" He tried to pull free, but his young colleague tightened his hold.

"Excuse me, but you look pale. Are you sure you're all right?" He apologised quickly, released his grip, and showed only a genuine willingness to help the person who had been running until moments ago. Grayson looked at him more carefully, almost studying him. He was stockier than him, but his bearing remained balanced and elegant, his sharp young face radiating kindness with a touch of maturity to it. The young man held out his hand, keeping his head slightly lowered.

"Pleased to meet you… I'm Grayson Dirac, researcher in the Lambda Department." He took the hand with hesitation, closing it in a delicate grip. His heart felt lighter near this young man. The young man raised his face, bright with happiness, his eyes lit by a solar joy.

"Pleased to meet you! Lamb Klivt, first-year student."