Horu moved without thought, his fighter's reflexes snatching a heavy, dark cloth from a nearby reading stand and throwing it over the paper. The moment its malevolent symbol was hidden, the pressure in the room seemed to break. Isis gasping as if surfacing from deep water, her body swaying. Abasi bolted to her side, his hands finding her shoulders.
"Isis? Look at me!" His voice was tight, his fingers trembling against her vestments.
Her eyes were wide, pupils dilated, seeing not the library but some lingering horror imprinted on her mind. Horu, his face a grim mask, pulled a heavy oak chair and helped Abasi lower her into it. Her breath came in ragged pulls for what felt like an eternity, the only sound in the silent, fearful room. Finally, a flicker of recognition returned to her gaze. She blinked, slowly, and her eyes focused on Abasi's veiled face.
"What's going on?" she whispered, her voice hoarse.
"You–" Abasi began, his own voice cracking with relief and fear.But before he could form the words, her brow furrowed in genuine confusion, and she asked again, the sound weaker this time.
"What's going on?"
"The symbol, Isis." Horu chimed in. "You gazed at it and one moment you were here but you were gone the next. What…what did you see?"
Isis brought her hands to her temple, her fingers pressing hard as if to contain pain.
"A heartbeat," she whispered. "I saw…I saw a heartbeat of…of nothing. A point of light so dense it was a void. It condenses pulling all in existence into a single, silent seed…and then it explodes. It is a light that is also a scream that is of a mother giving birth. But it also…it…"
She shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself.
"but the scream turned inward, into a held gasp of a mourning father. The light, everything, it implodes. All that was birthed was now pulled back, crushed down, faster than it began, back into that single, silent point. Condense. Explode. Implode. Again and again. It was a heartbeat but…but…"
A scream came from deep inside her being, shaking the books on the shelves. Her eyes, filled with new and terrifying knowledge as they bled inside her veil. Abasi and Horu feel the hair on the back of their necks stand on edge.
"It was His," she choked out a few words she could. "The Light… it was His. The Father's. I saw the first breath of Creation… and I saw it strangled in its crib."
She clutched at Abasi's robe, her voice dropping to a terrified whisper.
"We were not meant to see this. No one is meant to look upon the machinery of His will. To see the moment He speaks… and the moment His Word is… unmade."
Isis began to rock slightly, a prayer tumbling from her lips, fractured and ancient. "Forgive me… I have looked upon the face of the deep where only His Spirit should move. I have seen the foundation stones of the world, and they are cracked. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive…"
As the pleas of Isis gradually lost their volume, a new sound could be heard within the Per-Netjer. A soft cry coming from a soul as new as the breath itself.
…
The sound pierced the heavy silence in the library, a stark, living contrast to the terror that still clung to the air. For a moment, the three elders froze, their shared dread momentarily displaced by a more immediate, human concern.
In the quiet room reserved for mother and child, Layla stirred from a fitful sleep. Nefer was usually so silent, so reluctant to draw attention. This cry was different—not of pain, but of distress, as if the baby had been startled from a dream.
"What's wrong, Nefer?" Layla worried, as she held her baby in her arms. The weight of Nefer suddenly dawned on Layla. She was a little taller than when she was born! It had only been 5 breaths!
A cold, sharp dread piercing her exhaustion. Something is wrong. She knew that some children can be affected by the fog and be born with deformities. But Nefer hadn't even left the Father's temple. Something is wrong.
"Elder Isis!" Layla immediately thought of a way to seek answers. "She'd know what's going on."
Her night gown flowing within those narrow halls, she searched frantically for Isis. Nefer's crying increases more in volume as they keep getting closer towards the library, as if she sensed their destination, or the terror that emanated from it. The dim flames of the candles lining the hallway flicker as she rushes past. Nefer's closed eyelids, flickering with a distressed light. Twin rivers cascading down Layla's cheeks and her lips quivered. "Here comes night, goodbye morning", is sung through severed breaths and a stream of unchecked tears, a sad lullaby that tries to soothe the child, maybe the mother as well.
She doesn't bother to knock. Throwing her weight against the heavy library door, stumbling into the room where the three elders stood in a tableau of horror. The scene before Layla was all wrong. It felt wrong. Isis was hunched over a chair, slightly trembling as her arms were around herself. Horu's gaze directed to a dark cloth spread on the ground. The air tasted of old books and something else. She couldn't put it into words.
"Elder, please!" Layla cried, holding Nefer out like an accusation and a plea. "Something's wrong! She's…she's growing! And she won't stop crying! Why?"
The sight of cold reality conquered the warmth that burned Isis, her eyes widening further. Abasi remained glued in place, wondering whether he should chew out Layla for entering a place strictly accessible to elders, or console his wife about visions she saw that he does not understand. Horu was the first to act, his face hardening into a mask of grim resolution. He stepped forward, not towards Layla, but to block the covered symbol from her view. His tone was now commanding as if he had ventured back into the fog.
"Layla, be calm. The child is safe in the Father's home."
But Nefer was not calm, her cries now reached a higher pitch, a piercing pain striking the heads of company. Her eyelids flew open for what seemed like a minute, engulfing the surroundings in a blinding light. Everyone quickly shut their eyes, the terrified Isis not being a moment too late. With closed eyes, Horu felt a warmth from his back. When the light receded, he turned quickly to see ashes from where the cloth had been placed. He turned to gaze at the now exhausted, hunched over child in Layla's arms.
Abasi rushed to his wife's side, who has now regained her composure. Her voice, weakened and defeated. Horu quickly rushed outside the library. Abasi, now certain Isis and Layla were okay, moved to examine the ashes. His hand, hesitant but still moving to touch the pile of black on the ground.
"Don't touch that!" Horu shouted, bursting through the doors. "Don't touch it!"
In his hand he held a golden vase adorned with black ancient illustrations and a cloth with written text aligned in its interior. Kneeling down on the floor, he wrapped the cloth around his hands before scooping up the ash. He winced as a hot searing pain filled his senses. Only when was he done pouring the ashes into the vase did he use the cloth to wrap it.
"Thank the Father that I had stopped you in time," his hand trembled before clenching into a fist. "The warmth of those could melt flesh. It's by Father's grace and bestowments that I only have suffered a slight burn."
"Thank the Father," Abasi sighed. A hint of resignation and frustration beneath his breath.
Isis turned to look at Layla who was sitting on the floor by her knees as she caressed her child. Her eyes filled with terror and tear-filled, as she mutters the lullaby beneath her breath. The three elders watched this sight in sympathy. In their eyes, she was simply a child that had no inkling of what was going on with her baby. Isis reached for Nefer, Layla's grip tightening around her child. Her wide gaze turned to look at Isis, before they offered slight resignation. She handed her over to Isis. Isis hummed the same lullaby for the child, maybe for the mother as well. The room was silent, save the humming and a silent cry that finally escaped Layla's lips filled the emptiness that began to grow.