The air smelled of burnt paper and metal. My lungs filled with it, and yet I could breathe. Not entirely—just enough to survive. The jagged doorway had spat me out into another part of the Archive, one that felt older, colder, more mechanical.
The lantern in my hand flickered, struggling against an unseen wind that whispered through the shelves. Shadows stretched long across the floor, and I realized the books here were different. Thick, black-bound tomes hummed faintly, their spines etched with symbols that writhed when I stared too long.
Then I heard it again: the hiss. Steady, mechanical, unending.
From the end of the aisle, a figure emerged. At first, I thought it was a mannequin. Its body was stiff, humanoid, but the helmet reflected nothing—no face, no light. Just a dark void where a human head should have been.
It raised one hand—gloved, metallic—and pointed at me.
A voice, distorted, almost like a radio skipping frequencies, crackled from the helmet:"You shouldn't be here."
I stepped back. The lantern cast my shadow across the figure, but it didn't move with me. Every motion, every hesitation of mine was mirrored incorrectly, lagging behind, as though reality itself was fractured.
The figure took a step forward. The hiss grew louder, now punctuated by the faint grinding of metal, like gears turning deep within its suit. I noticed something unsettling: its chest cavity wasn't solid. I could see inside—gears, wires, tubes of something dark, almost like blood, but glinting metallically.
My stomach churned.
I swung the lantern again, but the light barely touched the edges of the figure. It didn't falter. It didn't blink. It simply continued its slow approach, and with every step, the air seemed heavier, thicker, as though pressing against me.
Then I saw it—a page floating between the shelves. Not on a book, not in the air naturally. It hovered.
File VI: The Hollow Astronaut.
The text shimmered like mercury. My hand reached out, compelled, and as my fingers brushed the page, words etched themselves beneath my skin:
He was sent to explore, but he never returned. His mind became a vessel. His body—a cage. He watches. He waits. He remembers everything he should not.
A metallic clang rang behind me. The figure was closer. Too close.
And then, a faint whisper reached my ears:
"Join him… or run."
The shelves began to twist. The books rearranged themselves, forming walls, corridors that hadn't been there moments ago. I stumbled forward, guided by the pulsing light of the lantern, toward… I didn't know. Anywhere but here.
The hiss became a roar. The void inside the helmet seemed to stretch, tendrils of darkness reaching toward me, probing, testing. I realized—the Hollow Astronaut didn't just move. It consumed space, bending it, dragging reality around it like water.
I needed an escape. My eyes darted frantically over the shelves, over the black-bound tomes, over the floating pages. And then I saw it: a book lying open on the floor. Its pages were blank… except for a single word, glowing faintly:
"Remember."
I didn't understand. I didn't have time. But instinct told me to touch it.
The moment my fingers brushed the page, the world fractured. The Hollow Astronaut lunged.
And I fell—again, into darkness.