Chương 20: Young Prodigy

The swarm of lab coats and jackets flooded the university corridors the moment the great twisted pendulum in the inner courtyard struck its twelfth bell. The shared relief and exhausted sighs accompanied the chorus of footsteps draining out of the institute. Left pressed against the smooth white wall was a lean young man with his hair tied back in a somewhat unkempt ponytail, with a strange silver colour. His bright violet eyes had a spectral quality, underlined by the heavy dark circles beneath them.

He drew a rapid series of wide breaths, tightening his grip on the yellowish paper bags whose corners, white and slightly creased, poked out at the top.

"It's always like this. Every time the bell hits, this whole place is engulfed by chaos." He gathered from the floor the papers that had slipped from under his arm, then set off slowly and with some difficulty in the opposite direction. In his hand, the ochre-bright pommel of a heavy cane, its shaft a warm black. The tap of its tip marked his steps, carrying him toward the far end of the corridor.

With every movement, a thin gold chain swung at his neck, hung with a ring engraved with the silhouette of a woman, frozen in the act of reaching out her hand.

"I still have the report on Lambdite potential dispersion to finish, the instruments for the field analysis to set up, and the thesis to write. Excellent. Quite a night ahead of me." He murmured this, glancing sideways at the chain as it swayed, then looked away at once. He reached the courtyard at last. The gigantic clock responsible for clearing his colleagues stood in front of him. From its base, two roads and two staircases extended, draped in long crimson runners.

Inside the thick structure of metal and stone was the entrance to the lift. The researcher pressed his badge to the keypad. The doors snapped open immediately, releasing a light, cool vapour. He rested his cane against the internal rail and settled onto the soft cushions of the wooden seat inside. A jolt told him the mechanism had engaged, rising slowly.

"I wonder what the director wants from me this time." He had been summoned by her numerous times, and each visit had been a long sermon about his health and his achievements, spiced with pointed remarks about his state of mind. The faint light moved across his face in intervals through the lift glass, accompanying his ascent toward the office.

"The Ruther Institute really is something extraordinary." He had ridden the university lift dozens of times since his arrival, but the view of Bayork from the top of the tower remained singular. The palaces and spires blurred as the lift completed its run, breaking the panorama with the wall of white brick that marked the entrance to the great hall. The marble floor, sourced from the reserves in Sector II, shone with delicate gradations of colour, splintering its own light against the chequered wall.

His steps echoed through the empty room. All the seats had been left vacant, the meetings having ended unexpectedly early. The large projector hanging from the ceiling resembled a bat roosting, switched off, unused. His long coat billowed as he navigated between the armchairs to the exit door, behind the thick black lectern with its gold detailing. The institute logo seemed to brighten under his gaze and follow him until he left. Before him stretched a long corridor lined on both sides with heavy wooden doors.

Beside each one was a nameplate bearing the researcher's name and role. The gold lettering glittered on the thick silver metal. He leaned on his cane and continued to walk toward his destination, letting his gaze drift across the rooms as he passed. He remembered the faces that belonged to those names well enough: each one a cornerstone of the university, bearer of distinctions recognised even in Termìe.

He was almost level with the last door when he stopped just short of it, brushing its nameplate with his fingers.

"Lucas… Hoppenheimer?" He murmured, reading the owner's name. He had certainly heard the name mentioned, but had never dared ask his colleagues who it was, or why the room had sat unused for so long.

"He was the vice-director of the Ruther Institute until he was forced into military service! He was really young, too. From that point, every trace of him vanished." A voice behind him called to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. His face went pale. He turned sharply, meeting the sharp but generous gaze of the director. Her black bob moved slightly as her coat did as she approached.

"Grayson, you're early." She said, pivoting on her heel toward the door.

"My apologies. I wanted to avoid being late," the boy replied quickly, gripping his bag under his arm and leaning on his cane.

"Have you eaten anything?" She spun back to look him in the face, the same sharp gaze intact. Dirac tried to avoid her eyes, turning his head in every direction, managing only a few seconds of escape before meeting them again. She exhaled, seized his cheeks, and held him still.

"How many times have I told you not to skip meals?" She measured out the words deliberately, not lifting her eyes from him.

"I'm sorry." He murmured, drawing a breath the moment she released him.

"Then we'll eat together this time." She smiled, walking toward her office. Grayson Dirac followed in silence, not lifting his gaze from the floor. The black door creaked open, letting the pair into the office. Light filtered through the thick, opaque black windows, permitting only a partial view through them. The woman settled into the old, greenish armchair, pulling a box of cutlery from her bag. She glanced at him for a moment, indicating the sofa beside her.

"I'm sorry, Miss Well, I really have to—" Grayson tried to object, looking for an exit, but her gaze froze him where he stood. He swallowed, went to the sofa, and sat with his knees together and his shoulders low. A plate of rice covered in meat and sauce slid onto the thin glass table before him.

"Eat. You need it." She said, settling against the backrest and lifting a spoonful to her mouth. He picked up the plate slowly, bringing it close to smell it. The warm, gently spiced aroma reached him and nudged his appetite awake, if only slightly.

"You think I'd poison you?" Well smiled, swallowing her mouthful before she spoke. Grayson shook his head and set about scooping rice onto his spoon in quick, piling motions. The food on the plate lost volume steadily.

"I honestly don't know what to do with you, Gray. You're disengaged, you barely speak, and you have no acquaintances in the department. If it weren't for your results, you'd be a ghost." Well said, watching him with concern. She was a decisively authoritative person, shaped by the effort it had taken to carve out a place in that world, but with him, she was different.

"I'm sorry." He replied, setting the plate down alongside the yellowish paper bag.

"You've always been like this. That doesn't mean I'm not glad you're here, you know." She rose slowly, crossing to the white lectern, slightly chipped at the edges. She picked up a photograph from inside a brown frame, smiled at the pair pictured in it: she had her arms around a young man, barely of age, who wore a dark air about him despite the row of medals of various shapes hanging at his neck.

"Even then, you were always this cold." She set the photograph back on the wood and sat beside him.

"If there's a problem, tell me. You know I'd do anything for you." She placed her hand in his hair, trying to coax his chin upward.

"The ankle is healing." He murmured, straightening without looking at her, his gaze fixed ahead on the opaque black of the window.

"I wasn't talking about that, and you know it." She drew her hand back gently and rested it on her leg. Her eyes had moved to the paper sheets on the table.

"Still more research. Gray, at this rate, you'll make yourself ill." She looked him in the face, and he simply looked away. She reached for his papers without stopping her concerned watch on him, beginning slowly to pull the pages from the folder. She stopped the moment she noticed him raise his gaze.

"There's no need to help. I'm fine," he said with a smile, though the tired, dark face beneath it suggested otherwise entirely.

"What is this?" She asked sharply, pointing at a long series of sketches and diagrams concerning a particular reactor. She launched herself toward him, grabbing him by the collar and pushing him to the far end of the sofa.

"I TOLD YOU TO STOP WITH THE DEMIURGE!" She shook Grayson harder and harder, but he seemed completely switched off, cutting the space between their faces entirely. Well's expression filled with a grimace of sadness and disappointment. She forced his face up toward hers.

"Why? Why?!" Her voice was beginning to fade, reaching him slowly, as whispers carried on the wind.

"Why are you still carrying that incident? Why?" She was the one with her face lowered now, her voice splintered by short, heavy sighs.

"Because it's my fault." He replied, taking her by the shoulders and moving her away from him. Her severe yellow eyes were bright and wet.

"My own incompetence caused the disaster with the Reactor. I'm simply making sure it won't happen again." He got to his feet, took the bag from her hands, then turned to grip the door handle.

"WORKING YOURSELF TO DEATH WON'T BRING ERIKA BACK!!!" She struck her knees with both hands, the salt of her tears marking her cheeks.

"I know, Lud. I know. But..." He tightened his grip on the handle until his hand trembled slightly. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"I'll make sure a tragedy like that can never happen again because of me. If I can sacrifice myself to wash away that mistake, I'd be very glad to do so." He turned as he opened the door. The corridor light fell across his shoulders, casting shadows on the smile of his face and throwing a grim brightness into his eyes. Well watched him leave, his figure dissolving through the doorframe before the door snapped shut.

"If she knew the truth, she'd hate me for certain." He murmured this, walking with difficulty along the corridor. His gaze fell on one of the sheets. The image of a woman and himself standing close beside a complex tangle of pipes and tubes made his stomach contort. At her neck, the same chain that now swayed at his neck.

"Forgive me, Erika. I just don't want to hear that song again." His voice came out broken and afflicted. He entered the lift, a dark and leaden atmosphere following him inside.

"I let you die." He leaned against the wall, slowly letting the cane slide between his legs. For an instant, the black reflected his face in the pommel.

"I was incapable." With force, he was squeezing the cushion beside him, pressing his fingertips into its surface until his nails sank into the fabric.

"But that's not a problem, is it?" At his feet, drops began to break, staining his leather boots and the hem of his trousers. His voice was growing tremulous and faint, but the fervour in his eyes seemed only to intensify.

"After all."

"I can still make it right, can't I?" His skin had turned pale, drained of every shade of warmth, his violet gaze lost in the foggy landscape beyond the glass. A disconnected stream of words struck his skin, piercing through him from side to side like a swarm of needles.

"A terrible day, and unto us shall be revealed a being of enigma…" Grayson dropped to the floor, gasping and writhing.

"A terrible day, with no hope of one last jubilee…"

"Stop." He began clenching his fists, striking the lift floor while desperately trying to get back to his feet, the cane left motionless at his feet.

"A terrible day, where the long-sung voice fell silent."

"Stop. Stop!" The words from his throat were flowing in the grip of something dark and subterranean, like phlegm blocking the mouth of his soul.

"Oh, terrible day, oh bright day of horrors, yes, master of a sinning enigma…" The unsettling chant rose in force and vigour, now accompanied by the delicate, rapid notes of a piano.

"STOP!" His scream was met by the shriek of iron, followed by a sudden jolt. His eyes snapped open. He looked out, pale and nauseous.

"Oh, son of man, to you too shall be granted a serving at the table of crimes." The sound, relentless as a blizzard, began to carve itself into his skin, slowly cutting down to his insides.

"What is this?" The view of Bayork had gone, replaced by a bleak fog wrapped in the darkness of what passed for a sky. Filaments like tentacles writhed in the atmosphere, hungry for life. The lift seemed suspended in nothing, hanging in that unknown sea. The voice fell quiet, leaving him at the mercy of the sombre, drifting notes that echoed through the wooden and iron cage.

"What is this? I… I…" His lips began to tremble, and his limbs felt soft and sick beneath him, dropping him to the floor a second time. With his chin low and weak, he noticed he was now suspended in a void. He could not even suppress the scream rising from his throat before he found himself in a sea of black water, seemingly bottomless. He was submerged to the waist, unable to distinguish anything beneath the surface.

"This is a nightmare. Just a nightmare." His mind was slowly being corroded by the foul atmosphere he was floundering in. He tried to move, managing only to wade heavily through the liquid.

"For the fields violated by the graves, a new sinner shall be born, to stand against the law that has forgotten…" The voice struck him again, forcing him to roll in the dark water, driving his synapses ever closer to collapse.

"Please... Please, stop." His prayer, murmured on a thread of voice, did not reach the ear of the terrible singer, who seemed almost to press forward at the sound of it.

"Dance for the new golden queen that shall be born, dance for the new hideous price of chaos." The piano stopped accompanying the music, leaving the words alone to stab at his exhausted body. He pressed his hands desperately over his ears and hauled himself upright, moving toward the horizon, dragging himself toward the nothing marked by the bleak dance of shadow-threads in the sky. Grayson found himself seized at the hips by something viscous and nauseating.

Tentacles had risen from the water, forcing him to stand still and face the scene that was beginning to materialise before him. A figure cloaked in a thick white dress, decorated with a long series of fine chains and a golden cape, emerged from the water, walking across its surface until she reached him. The darkness inside her hood froze his body instantly, leaving him at the mercy of her icy touch.

"How much of the blame is yours? How much of the blame is mine?" Another voice seemed to ring inside his skull as he was drawn ever closer to the figure. Its tone was calm, threaded through with a disturbing sense of powerlessness. He found no words. He nervously swallowed the saliva gathered on his tongue. The woman released him, letting his chin sink toward the water.

She began walking toward the horizon, opening her arms so that her jewels and chains swayed in time with those on the arm that had held another boy. No characteristic of her body was distinguishable except her arms, whiter than snow, like porcelain, covered in fine black scars.

"Oh, terrible day, day of her wrath, receive the birth of a new enigma, laden with pain…" The song continued as from beneath the figure's long skirt there emerged a gigantic complex of pipes and valves. He stared in confusion as the instrument, resembling an organ, rose from the mysterious depths of the black ocean. The woman took her seat on the dark stone bench, arranging her dress before she started to press the heavy, brick-like keys.

The entire landscape seemed to tremble, moved by the spectral force emanating from the instrument's twisted pipes. The slender fingers seemed almost to vanish with the speed at which the song was generated. As it grew in intensity, the water appeared to open. Solemnly, statues appeared: dismembered at multiple points, some faceless, some limbless, others missing their torsos entirely, their components suspended without explanation, floating in the air.

The long corridor of figures flanked a table laid with plates covered in slime and tar, which seemed almost to overflow from the fractured dark marble of the surface. A wave of nausea hit Grayson, but before he could react, he found himself seated on the chair at the far end of the banquet, wrapped in tentacles. He could now see the servings clearly in the dirty, black-stained silver, the cuts of grimy but disturbingly living stone impressing themselves on his sight.

"These are the statues? I don't understand." He twisted his neck, glancing at the pieces missing from the figures behind him, breathing hard as the sound of the organ only intensified.

"O Hopeful Architect, why have you abandoned us?" All the statues began to sing, turning toward him. Their pale skin, stained with slime, seemed almost to allow a glimpse of the capillaries beneath. A golden glimmer caught his gaze, drawing it toward one of the hands on the table, which was gradually beginning to inch toward him, like a spider.

"Why did you abandon me, Grayson?" The hand wrapped around his neck, squeezing with increasing force. For an instant, he shut his eyes and found his face covered by the grave, funerary gaze of a woman he knew very well. Her face was marked with scars. Her eyes, once full of life, appeared extinguished and dead. Her full, vivid lips now resembled those of a cold, abandoned body.

"Erika…" Those were the only words that escaped his lips as the terror slowly excavated into his organs, freezing his blood.

"Is this the price of a meal at the Architect's table?" The statues chanted in chorus. The organ vomited its atrocious notes with even greater force, moved by no one's fingers.

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!" He screamed in desperation, only to be silenced by the fingers of the girl before him, slowly making their way through his throat. He wanted to weep. He wanted to keep screaming, but the figure prevented it, not altering that empty expression.

"IT IS NOT PERMITTED TO ASK THE PRICE OF THE SACRIFICE!!!" The malevolent chorus erupted in a fit of rage and fury, tearing and pulling at his skin, under the dead gaze of Erika, who pressed her fingers ever deeper.

"This is only a nightmare. Only a nightmare." His mind was beginning to shut down. The only thing that prevented his brain from collapsing under the weight of the horror stamped on his pupils was the sky shattering, sending black shards raining down on the table. One of them tore through the figure of Erika in front of him, spattering him with blood and dark, soft viscera. For a brief instant, the hand in his throat seemed to move again.

His eyes darted from one side of their sockets to the other, unable to find a stable grip on reality. The remains of the statues seized him one last time, letting the powder fall from their bodies as they did.

"Show hunger before the banquet of crimes…" Those were the last words he heard before the celestial landslide tore him apart. AAAAA!!!!! The scream bounced across the bathroom floor, only to be smothered by the stream of vomit and blood that scorched its way violently up through his throat. He fell against the rim of the toilet, barely holding himself on the white porcelain edge. Drops continued to fall from his lips, the remnants of the heave. He swallowed with difficulty.

The acid taste woke his brain and forced him upright. He leaned over the mirror, pressing his pale, slack cheeks. His face looked a dozen years older, and he could barely make out his own reflection. His vision was still wrapped in the memory of the black sea.

"Erika... Please." He murmured with great effort, gripping his own sides, trembling. It was almost as though he could feel something contorting deep inside him.

"Please, make it stop. I can't take it anymore."