The fall had no direction.
It had no wind.
It had no time.
Marikka wasn't plummeting: she was being transported. The darkness around her moved like a page being flipped too quickly, and the deep vibration gripping her chest wasn't weakening: it was growing.
"Marikka!"
Aurelian's voice echoed, as if torn.
A moment later, Cedric's, more trembling: "Hold on! Please!"
Then both dissolved, sucked into a silence that wasn't silence, but waiting.
Thump. Thump.
Thump—thump.
Two rhythms.
Two presences.
And the second one was getting closer.
The darkness opened beneath her without transition.
She didn't slow down.
It simply ceased.
Marikka stopped falling.
Now she was floating in a place that seemed like a filled void: a space of compressed light where silver filaments flowed. They looked like veins in an immaterial body, pulsating with an ancient rhythm.
The floor appeared beneath her feet with a whisper of turned parchment: a circle of living paper, worn at the edges, on which incomplete letters danced.
She was not alone.
The environment's vibration shifted, synchronizing with her breath. The filaments of light slowly gathered in front of her, intertwining to form a humanoid figure. Unstable. Shining. Impossible.
Not the Fragment.
Something else.
Marikka took a step back. The parchment circle moved with her, as if it were her anchor in the world.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
The voice produced no sound.
It produced waves.
The place responded with an immediate scent:
wet ash.
Then a metallic clinking, like a pen hitting an inkwell.
The figure did not speak. It vibrated.
You already know me.
The impulse crossed her chest with surgical precision.
Her heart-vibration responded involuntarily.
Thump—thump.
Thump. Thump.
"I don't know you," Marikka said, more to resist than out of conviction.
Not by the name you use now.
The figure advanced. Each step produced a vibration that made the filaments tremble like the strings of an invisible harp. The runes in its body constantly changed, trying to complete themselves and failing.
"Tell me who you are."
I cannot.
A vibrating pause.
Not until you remember yours.
The parchment circle beneath Marikka's feet darkened at the edges, as if burned.
The letters changed direction: now they moved towards her, not around her.
The book at her waist vibrated, agitated.
A filament of the figure detached itself, approaching like a luminous finger.
Marikka recoiled.
The circle followed her.
"Stop."
The place stopped.
The figure did not.
I have searched for you for a long time.
A warm, terrible vibration.
Now that I have found you, I cannot let you return incomplete.
Marikka shook her head. "I don't want to be part of what you are."
The figure emitted a vibrational roar that made her ribs vibrate.
You are not part.
The light grew more intense.
You are the origin.
Marikka's fingers tingled. No... they vibrated.
A warm impulse started from her chest and spread to her palms. The filaments of the place immediately responded, approaching her, drawn towards her frequency.
The figure seemed pleased.
See? No Key can command the Place-that-Does-Not-Exist.
A pause.
Only those... like you.
Before it could finish, a different sound shook the space.
A tear.
A tremor.
A dissonant note that did not belong to the place.
Marikka recognized it an instant before it happened.
"Serian...?"
A dark glow appeared at the edges of the void, like an expanding burn.
From that wound, an arm of ink emerged, followed by a body made of broken phrases.
Serian entered the place like one who crosses a barrier that punishes every step.
"Don't trust that thing," he said, and his voice seemed filtered through torn pages.
The luminous figure writhed.
You do not belong here, draft.
A vibrational wave struck Serian, who staggered.
This space is for Keys, not for errors.
Parts of his body dissolved, falling to the ground like confetti of text.
Marikka felt a sharp pain in her chest: her vibration had intertwined with Serian's for an instant.
"You're hurt!" she cried.
"It's the price..." Serian coughed, producing only fragments of letters. "...to reach you."
The luminous figure expanded, trying to engulf Marikka.
Filaments stretched out like fingers.
Serian raised his arm, each gesture costing him entire phrases. "If you don't wake up... he will rewrite you."
"I'm not sleeping!" Marikka protested.
The rhythm in her chest changed.
Faster.
Deeper.
Serian gasped. "Wake up on the inside. Not the outside."
The figure reached Marikka.
Its luminous fingers brushed her skin.
An icy mark appeared on her wrist: a small, incomplete rune, made of light and ash. It burned without pain.
It is a beginning.
The figure smiled without a face.
And names always begin in silence.
The floor exploded.
The place collapsed.
The light became absolute white.
And Marikka ceased to exist for a beat.
Just one.