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A space without time.
There, all six staggered, feeling their bodies not fully real, as though their souls drifted in a warm yet cold violet fluid. Before them, five large eyes encircled a dark hole: a small door to the core of horror. And beyond that door… something breathed slow, heavy, like the long-buried heartbeat of the cosmos.
Jonathan Blake reached for Ayaka's arm, though he wasn't sure they could even touch. "Where are we?" he asked, his voice muffled by the pounding in his chest. Ayaka merely nodded, eyes closed, still singing the summoning verse within. Between her final notes, another echo emerged a whisper calling Wulan's name.
Soraya El-Mansour knelt, cradling the now-empty wooden doll. "This... is the in-between," she whispered. "Where meaning and dream blend." At the edge of the violet darkness, a figure stirred a large being with misty limbs, standing among the eyes. It stretched out one massive hand, pointing toward Tirta.
Wulan Adiningrum still felt the ritual blood pulsing in her veins. "We're called… to give meaning," she said, her voice echoing in the false space. As she stepped forward, the violet ground trembled beneath her feet, releasing small stars that sank into the swirl. Behind her, Mirek Varga and Thiago Costa exchanged glances two men now bound by an invisible resonance.
Mirek raised his journal. "There are records of a cosmic legacy awaiting human bearers. If we refuse, this gate will consume us forever. If we accept…" He fell silent, placing a hand on the misted figure's chest, feeling a soft pulse beneath his fingers.
The Primordial Dialogue
From the darkness, a voice echoed:
"Six pulses of man, one beat of cosmos. Give meaning, or vanish within the unspoken."
Tirta, silent until now, stepped forward. His mouth moved but not in human language. A fusion of Kulina tribal tongue, Javanese whispers, Arabic, and Latin flowed out. In a single short sentence, he bound the six souls together:
"We are ready to become the door."
The violet eyes surrounding them pulsed faster. The misted figure merged with the five eyes, forming a ring of light before them. And at its center, the sixth eye in Tirta's chest flashed white.
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The space split apart. In an instant, the six felt torn by another reality visions of a seaside city, dancing snow, screaming sands, trembling shrines, melodic castles, and praying forests all exploded into a synesthetic blast.
Then silence.
And they collapsed in a place beyond comprehension. In front of them, the misted figure was now whole: a tower-sized being cloaked in night, with a fully open sixth eye on its chest.
Before the darkness could draw them further in, a final voice echoed in each of their minds:
"Now, your task begins. Bring meaning into the dark."
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