On the eve of the first day of the seventh month… after the appearance of the Monoliths.
["Sectors One through Three have fallen!"]
Shouted the last surviving officer from the upper levels, struggling to keep his composure now that the entire underground base could hear him through the loudspeakers.
["All remaining forces… regroup between Sectors Six and Nine!"]
Lifting his gaze, he stopped pressing the wound in his abdomen.
There was no point in delaying the inevitable any longer.
He watched as the blast door sealing the communications room buckled under each impact, cracks spreading across the reinforced concrete that framed it.
The officer placed his bloodied hands on the steel table, bracing them on either side of the microphone. The surface was freezing cold—yet his voice did not tremble.
["Our lives… and those of our fallen comrades… will not have been in vain if we can just—"]
A thunderous crash —the door giving way— cut him off. He knew he was going to die. Fear was still there, breathing with him, but he held on to a single thought: hope.
["Even a second longer… for Project Prometheus!"]
That it might grant them a second chance.
The door and the concrete gave way at once. Despite the horrors that burst through from the other side, the officer spoke one last time before switching off the microphone—so no one would hear how he died.
["For the Brotherhood! Even Forsaken, we en—SCREE—Hvzt—"]
A distorted scream cut through the speakers, followed by a burst of static and the abrupt end of the transmission.
Yet…
"WE ENDURE!" his final words were completed by the hundreds of voices of those regrouping in the deepest sectors of the base.
For a brief moment, their unified cry drowned out the frantic beating of their hearts and the tremors above their heads, which grew worse with every level lost.
Despite their fear, they stood ready to give their lives— if only to protect one more second of humanity's most dangerous—creation.
Our last chance.
-
In Sector Ten — an enormous vaulted chamber shaped under a geometry that seemed almost divine — The air was thick and heavy, like the very atmosphere itself.
The father of modern computing was… a child of barely seven.
His fingers raced frantically across the terminal keys, his face lit by the greenish glow of his greatest creation: Deus-ex, a machine decades ahead of its time.
His clothes clung to his body after a week without change. Dark circles under his eyes testified that he had slept no more than a couple of hours in days.
From the control platform above, a voice only slightly older than his own rang out: "Alan! How much longer until Deus-ex finishes the calculations?"
The not-so-young boy looked up, biting his lip until he tasted blood. He didn't know what to say. "Not much longer…" — or maybe lie again.
"Just a few more minutes!" he finally shouted.
Alan couldn't tell them that his creation had been frozen at [99%] for six hours and fifty-eight minutes.
Around him, the alarms of the complex blended with gunfire and distant explosions shaking Sector Six.
"We can't wait any longer!" cried Oppenheimer from the command platform.
"You think I don't know that?!" Alan roared, slamming his fist against the supercomputer's chassis.
As if in answer to its creator's frustration, the screen flickered— and the [99%] changed to [100%].
Alan's eyes widened in disbelief. Before him stood the first miracle.
On the command platform, Tesla, Einstein, Curie, and Oppenheimer stared without blinking at the Nixie tubes and cathode screens flashing equations and diagrams freshly completed by Deus-ex.
"The values are acceptable…" murmured Oppenheimer, his twelve-year-old voice trembling.
"Prepare for activation."
At his command, the brightest mathematicians, physicists, and engineers in the world held their breath—aware that the reinforced doors of their sector, like those in the rest of the base, would not save them.
They all began the activation sequence of what, like Deus-ex, was the largest nuclear reactor ever built—meant to power the project that would steal fire from the gods.
And it could only have been brought to life thanks to three factors:
The first came through the hands of the brotherhood's linguistic experts, led by Muhammad Iqbal and J.R.R. Tolkien, who had devoted themselves to studying the runes that composed the Divine Dimension.
They had reached the conclusion that several ancient tongues—Hebrew, Sanskrit, Aramaic, and other archaic languages—all stemmed from a primordial language.
Though time had distorted their forms, they still shared symbols in common with those of the Divine Dimension. Thanks to these similarities, the brotherhood succeeded in deciphering the vast majority of the runes.
Some believed this was no mere coincidence, but a deliberate clue—as if, at some point in the distant past, the very language of God had splintered and scattered across our history and cultures, leaving behind a trail that humanity was only now beginning to follow.
This theory, however, was cast into exile by the founders of the order, who had neither the time nor the resources to chase ghosts.
The second would come in a far more painful and cruel form.
When it became clear that extinction was only a matter of time, the Brotherhood managed to persuade most of the world's leaders to launch the greatest military mobilization in human history.
Entire armies, in every corner of the globe, marched toward death in a suicidal offensive. Their purpose was not to reclaim territory—nor to destroy the enemy—
but simply to get close enough to the monoliths.
When they activated—just weeks after appearing out of nowhere—it was, at least in theory, the first time it became possible to approach them without meeting the same horrific fate as Ayaz and Elif.
The frequency they emitted—the one that shattered every trace of order and symmetry in our genetics, snapping bones, tearing muscles, and erasing reason—suddenly ceased in the surrounding areas. Instead, it converged between each pair of monoliths.
But the real catastrophe came from the constructive interference that arose between them... a distortion so intense it tore through space itself.
Lacking a better metaphor—or perhaps none was needed—it was as if six gates to hell had opened. And from them emerged "demons" of shapes so inconceivable to the human mind that even the bravest soldiers went mad at the mere sight of them.
In that global deployment of troops, a portion of humanity was sacrificed—all for a single data reading, taken at nine hundred meters. The closest we ever got.
Though it seemed a futile and desperate act, that reading—along with the translation of the runes—allowed one of the most brilliant and eccentric minds in history, to create something that perhaps should never have been within mortal reach.
Our first move in a game that had always been played by two... Our own human Monolith.
To our eyes, and to the eyes of our science, it was the antithesis of the black ones that had consumed and corrupted the Earth.
Its structure, carved from pure marble, rose in a harmonic pattern—twisting upon itself like two intertwined serpents in perfect symmetry. An opposite reflection of the originals, whose monoliths rose in order only to writhe like torn muscle fibers.
But to the "eyes" of another player, that creation might have seemed nothing but a blasphemous construct—just as dangerous and corrupt as its opposite.
As the two hundred scientists in the vast domed chamber prepared to begin the transfer of nuclear energy into the Monolith, a deafening roar tore through the base's foundations.
Dust rained from the ceiling. Instruments and papers quivered where they stood.
The reinforced doors burst open with an ear-splitting groan, and a wave of hot, dusty air swept into the room.
Soldiers stumbled in—some barely standing, their uniforms torn, weapons trembling, and their eyes... those eyes reflected the terror of men who had stared into the abyss—and found it staring back.
"What's happening?!" shouted Robert, his youthful voice cutting through the chaos.
A general, his head wrapped in an improvised bandage and his gray uniform of the Order stained red, stepped forward with unsteady strides.
"Sir..." he coughed, swallowing his pain. "We've lost every sector up to the tenth. The corridors are gone. We planted charges at the access points and gathered the survivors to form the last defensive perimeter."
His gaze fell upon humanity's final hope before turning back to him. "Here, sir!"
Robert clenched his childlike fists. "Alright…" he muttered, his jaw tightening. "Give us all the time you can!"
The general gave him a sharp, lacerating smile before turning to his men.
"You heard him, sir!"
On the platform, Marie Curie struck the floor with her cane. "You heard the order! We're out of time! We fail—and we vanish! We survive—or we burn out!"
Her command needed no repetition.
Feverish hands slammed down switches. Levers were pulled. The roar of the nuclear reactor shook the entire hall.
An electric current surged through the conduits of the Monolith, coursing through the carved grooves and runes like a code—glowing with a spectral blue that climbed upward, pulsing like a heartbeat through its marble frame.
The air quivered with a growing hum. Energy built up until every rune on the Monolith blazed to life. The lights of the chamber flickered, wavering between darkness and a blinding glare.
"It's working!" cried Nikola Tesla, his voice trembling with awe as he once again heard the frequency—the song—that had haunted his mind for the past five years.
And then…
Silence.
A brutal blackout devoured every trace of light.
The reactor's roar died in a metallic wail. Sparks scattered across the floor as the systems failed, one after another. The darkness swallowed the room whole.
And within that silence… the emergency lights flickered on, bathing the hall—and the desperate faces within it—in a ghostly red glow.
We had failed.
"Nikola!" roared Robert, turning in fury. "What the hell just happened?!"
Tesla, his eyes fixed on the dead Monolith and his hands clutching his head, cried out with a voice charged with frenzy:
"I don't know... I heard it again! We almost had it! We just needed a little more!"
A thunderous impact echoed through the outer corridors, shaking the walls once more—
but this time... it didn't stop.
The blast door—four meters thick, a fortress of layered steel and experimental alloys—buckled inward with a monstrous deformation.
Scientists and soldiers froze in place, hypnotized by the sight of the trembling door, each rhythmic blow driving it deeper, dent by dent.
They were only snapped from their trance by the sudden gunfire of the surviving soldiers from the outer sectors—men who, knowing all too well what horrors lurked beyond, didn't even try.
With empty eyes, they placed the barrels of their Pedersen rifles beneath their chins and pulled the triggers.
It was Robert who shattered the desperate stillness—his young voice cutting through the gloom like a spark of hope.
"What are you doing?! We're not dead yet... prepare for another attempt!"
All eyes turned toward him as he added:
"But this time... redirect all the reactor's output at once."
An engineer hesitated. "Sir... the Monolith's materials won't withstand that much energy."
"We're already standing in a field beyond our understanding," Robert replied without hesitation. "As Marie said—we survive, or we die. And I'd rather vanish in an explosion than be devoured by those things."
No one argued.
Panic was replaced by motion. Burnt alternators were swapped out, conduits reconnected, and the Monolith's parameters recalibrated. The reactor's roar began to rise in pitch.
But there was no time.
With a deafening crack, the door gave way.
The metal, unable to withstand the strain any longer, tore apart like paper—followed by a violent burst of dust that flooded the chamber through the newly opened breach.
"Activate the Tesla towers, now!" the general shouted over the chaos.
On both sides of the entrance, the coils crackled, saturating the air with static before releasing it in blazing arcs that tore through the shadows moving within the cloud of dust.
The silhouettes of the "demons" jerked violently under the surge.
The stench of ozone and burnt flesh filled the air.
"Now—hit them with everything you've got!" And with that command, the chamber erupted into an inferno of gunfire and detonations.
Thermite grenades were hurled, charring the electrocuted creatures and those that poured in behind them, hurling themselves into the flames, blind with an insatiable and corrupted hunger to kill.
They're endless, Robert thought in horror from the upper platform.
Some of the creatures advanced on multiple limbs; others floated impossibly, as if flickering between realities. Eyes that shouldn't exist. Jaws that fit no known anatomy. Giants dragging malformed parts of their bodies without any trace of order or symmetry—like cancers endlessly growing.
And among them... the so-called; Broodling.
Grotesque insects the size of wolves, with translucent exoskeletons that revealed the insides of their bodies—where thousands of smaller organisms crawled in a sickening dance. From their warped mouths extended ribbed proboscises, living limbs that stretched and recoiled with dreadful precision.
One of the soldiers screamed as one of those crimson needles pierced his neck.
For a moment, it seemed like nothing more than another wound amid the chaos of war.
But then— He stopped moving.
His breathing turned erratic.
His eyes widened.
And he began to scratch himself frantically.
First his neck. Then his chest. Then his own arms, tearing his skin apart, oblivious to the pain. Something was inside him. Something moving. Even beneath his face.
When he finally collapsed, his squad—knowing what was about to happen—threw a grenade and ran.
As the soldier convulsed, the first insects burst through his flesh. Thousands of them, devouring him from within, spilling out in search of more food. But before they could scatter, ending his misery once and for all— the grenade detonated, killing them all.
Even armed with the newly developed Thompson submachine guns—modified by the Brotherhood—the soldiers watched helplessly as their bullets flattened uselessly against the creatures' impenetrable hides.
After countless casualties, we learned that only explosives, fire, or electricity could inflict any real harm.
But even those wounds closed with terrifying speed.
The situation grew desperate when the faster ones appeared—feline silhouettes with tentacles for tails, no eyes or ears, only gaping maws that roared without end—hurling themselves upon the soldiers, tearing bodies apart and devouring flesh in a single grotesque motion.
Despite the massacre, the scientists did not stop. They kept trying.
And then… the air grew heavy.
From the shattered threshold emerged a humanoid figure.
Even the mindless, misshapen creatures drew back.
Tall and imposing, with limbs unnaturally long and thin compared to any human's. Its body was encased not in metal, but in something alive—pulsing, molded to its form like a second skin. Its silhouette was disturbingly slender yet regal, wrapped in a membranous cloak that extended from its back like folded wings. Beneath the helm, two empty, abyssal pits pierced the chamber.
The humanoid figure, seemingly the commander of these "demons," surveyed the scene in silence—as if measuring the insignificance of humanity before it.
"How persistent our seventh brother seems to be," its soft, serene voice echoed within every mind, an inquisitive whisper that buried itself like a dagger into the soul. "It matters not how hard you fight. Even those who take their own lives find no escape… You will suffer beyond the concept of time itself—until an Ancient, a Godfather, takes pity and grants you his blessing."
A moment of dreadful silence followed before it pronounced, almost sorrowfully—
"Like everyone else before you."
Its attention then drifted to the white Monolith.
The Commander of the Void eyed it warily. Its runes were indecipherable, even to him. Different. It was not like the black monoliths from which his legion had emerged; it was not connected to the Void… but to its opposite.
To its old creator.
A shiver ran through its living armor.
This was not the work of humans. It could not be. God was still aiding them.
The thought filled it with rage.
Its empty eyes glinted with a barely perceptible light as it raised its voice, thick with contempt.
"Kill them all and destroy that thing!"
The chamber erupted in screams as the creatures lunged for the men and women in white coats, yet some of them did not stop. They kept trying to activate the Monolith.
Then, as the beasts closed in on the Order's founders present—Robert, Albert, Marie, Nikola, Turing…—the energy in the room collapsed.
Time slowed.
The creatures hung suspended in midair, their claws frozen mere millimeters from human flesh. The screams of pain, the guttural roars—all faded into a distant echo.
Even the Commander of the Void stopped. His living armor tensed, contracting as though something unseen were pressing against it from within.
Time began to flow again, yet no one moved.
In that eerie, bewildering impasse…
The countless eyes of the Void turned in unison toward the white Monolith.
Then, something spoke.
"Interesting…" whispered a feminine voice, reverberating through every monstrous throat.
"This… must be the first time."
So vast was her presence that she seemed to echo not only through the chamber, but everywhere at once.
And yet, for the founders of the Order, that encounter felt strangely familiar.
The Creation in front of her, had used her monoliths to forge one connected to Him.
'And yet—The essence had remained almost untouched. No… even more twisted.'
For the first time in countless eons, she…
'If this works as they expect, then He… haha…'
Laughed.
It was not a sound. Not a laugh.
Something deeper.
A forgotten echo.
".!."
She flinched.
'When was the last time something had managed… to amuse me?'
So much had passed that even she no longer remembered.
When all the creatures of the Void turned their gaze toward the humans, she murmured again, a trace of fascination in her tone:
"How very interesting…"
Her words slid into mortal minds like the restrained breath of a hungry predator at their napes.
Only those who had once felt the presence of a "player" dared to move.
Marie Curie, sensing something far colder and more perilous than the indifferent embrace of her creator, stepped forward—her cane striking the floor with steady resolve.
Robert Oppenheimer followed, then Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, and the other founders of the Brotherhood present. Their eyes fixed upon the humanoid figure, now standing like a puppet without strings.
Marie narrowed her gaze.
"What are you?"
The creatures of the Void turned in unison. Countless eyes fell upon her.
And then, like a revelation both cruel and wondrous, the entity replied—her voice soft, warm, almost intoxicating… and yet, with every syllable, it clawed at what little sanity still lingered in their minds—restrained, however, just enough not to end like Elif.
"I am a sister who gathers the broken toys of her brother…" —a pause, a note of mockery— "and, at the same time… I am nothing."
No one grasped the magnitude of her words.
She had slumbered for eons, indifferent to all things.
Not even her own "children" had ever been granted the privilege of her attention.
But we did.
The humanoid figure lifted her face.
And she commanded:
"Activate it."
Perplexed, they could scarcely believe what they were hearing. Yet, as usual, it was Robert who gave voice to their disbelief by daring to simply ask:
"What?"
A blend of amusement and menace colored the voice that answered from the darkness.
"I'm merely giving you the chance He never did… use it—before my curiosity fades."
Robert didn't dare waste the sudden opportunity; his response came without hesitation, his voice echoing like thunder:
"You heard the… 'Lady'… do it!"