The Sound Beneath Silence
Two days passed before the Earth breathed again.
The team—what remained of it—had cleared the chamber and sealed the outer entrance, but the gate beneath remained warm. Quiet, yes. Still, no. Something pulsed within it, like the exhale of an ancient sleeper.
Mirella stood at the edge of the opening, head tilted. She'd begun hearing tones again—low frequencies, just below sound. A vibration that settled in her teeth.
"It's calling again," she said.
Efua sat nearby, folding the Ayetoro relic into layers of cloth.
"No. This is different," she replied. "This isn't a call. It's a warning."
Ayinla ran his fingers along the chamber wall, where the shimmer of the Book of Echoes had once danced. He paused, pressed his palm against it, and whispered, "There's something beneath the gate. Another level."
Efua frowned. "We were never meant to go lower."
"Then why does the Book show us maps with no surface cities?" Mirella asked. "Everything points downward."
Descent Protocol
That evening, Ayinla activated an encoded compass from the Book's pedestal. It projected a floating pattern—concentric rings that shifted as they moved closer to the centre of the old chamber.
They dug for hours. Through layers of fossilised wood and crystallised clay, their tools singing against the stones.
Until finally, they hit bone.
But not fossil. Not an animal.
Architecture.
Beneath the chamber was a massive dome built from calcified vertebrae—some human-shaped, some serpent-like, and others distinctly non-earthly. Doorways arched like ribs, and columns spiralled like femurs fused with coral.
Etched into the entry gate: a Custodian sigil crossed with a warning:
"Memory is mercy. Those who step through must not turn back."
Efua paled. "This is the Bone Archive. It remembers everything, even what should not have happened."
Ayinla was already moving. "Then let's remind it who we are."
Entry into the Archive
Inside, the world changed.
Time twisted.
Light came from the bones themselves, glowing like ancient runes. The city stretched in every direction, inverted and mirrored. Towers folded into stairwells. Pathways rearrange when unobserved. And above all, there was no sound—only the echo of steps they hadn't taken yet.
Mirella gasped as images shimmered in the air around her—memories not her own:
A woman birthing twins in a flooded cave.
A man screaming as his memories were erased by silver light.
A girl with Mirella's face sealing a scroll with her own blood.
"It's reading us," Ayinla murmured. "And showing fragments of what we might've been."
Efua's voice came through gritted teeth. "This place feeds on potential. That's why most don't survive more than an hour inside."
"But we're not most," Mirella replied.
The Mirror-Hound
The moment they reached the Archive's central corridor, the silence broke.
A howl.
Low. Wet. Wrong.
From the corridor behind them came something four-legged, but with a spine that moved like a snake. Its body was made of glass and breath and reflected only the viewer's deepest regrets.
The Mirror-Hound.
Efua screamed, "Don't look into it!"
But it was too late.
Mirella turned—and saw herself, older, draped in power, standing alone in a burning world.
The image shattered.
The hound lunged.
Ayinla pulled a coded ring from his belt and snapped it open mid-air. Sound exploded—a pulse tuned in ancient Yoruba solfège. It didn't destroy the creature.
But it recoiled. Hissed.
Then vanished into the bone wall like smoke through teeth.
Mirella stared at Ayinla. "What was that?"
"A weapon," he said, eyes trembling. "One my father taught me. But only once, in a dream."
The Hollow Name
At the very centre of the Archive lay a vault.
Black. Unmoving. Covered in writing none of them had seen before—neither in the Book, nor in the Codex, nor even in dreams.
Only one word repeated in every direction:
"He-who-is-unremembered."
Efua's voice cracked. "The Hollow Name. A Custodian who turned against time itself. They said he died… or was sealed."
Ayinla shook his head. "This isn't a tomb."
Mirella stepped closer. "It's a prison."
And then the vault breathed.
The Vault Breathes
The black vault hissed open—not with gears or hinges, but like lungs releasing centuries of stale breath.
Dust did not rise. Instead, light spilled out—soft, silver, pulsing like a heartbeat out of rhythm.
Then the air spoke.
"Only one may enter. Only the unbroken."
The voice was neither male nor female. Neither warm nor cold. It echoed inside them.
Efua stepped forward.
But the vault door glowed red.
"Bound. Cannot enter."
Ayinla tried next. The same.
Mirella looked to the others.
And stepped in.
Within the Vault
Inside, Mirella found herself standing in a temple of mirrors—but none reflected her. Instead, each showed a life she could have lived.
A priestess in a city beneath the sea.
A war-bride in chains of gold.
A Custodian child, burned at the edge of a betrayal.
And at the centre of the mirrored room, seated on a throne of fossilised feathers, was the Hollow Name.
He had no face.
Only shifting fragments of others' features—lips of a dying king, the eyes of a child, the hands of a priest who lost faith.
"You have come," the Hollow said, "but not yet remembered why."
Mirella circled slowly. "What are you?"
"I was once the Ninth of the Eight. The architect of the first Veil. Then I chose mercy instead of command. And so they erased me."
"They forgot me so thoroughly… that time itself broke."
The Offer
The Hollow Name rose.
The air rippled with him.
"They fear me not because I lied—but because I told them the truth. That memory should not be guarded by gatekeepers, but shared."
He pointed to Mirella.
"Your blood remembers. Your heart resists. That is why the Book opened to you. That is why the hound did not kill you."
He stepped forward.
"I offer you knowledge. Of all gates. All timelines. In exchange, you need only speak my name once more."
Mirella's lips trembled.
She felt the name on her tongue—not a word, but a vibration.
Outside the vault, Ayinla and Efua began to feel light-headed. Time in the Archive was slowing.