Liam couldn't sleep that night. Every time he closed his eyes, the image of the creature he had seen in the abandoned building haunted him. It wasn't a dream, nor a nightmare. It was real. He could feel it in the dense air surrounding him, in the way the shadows no longer seemed like mere shadows. There was something more. Something had awakened, and he could no longer ignore it.
The next day, he went straight to the library, his only refuge. The diary was still on his desk, open to the same page that had caused him so much unease. The creature, the being that had escaped... its presence still lingered in his mind. And as he read, something began to click in his head: the creature wasn't just a meaningless apparition. It was a door in itself, an entity connected to another world, and all the doors the diary mentioned seemed to work in the same way. The Original Void, the place from which these entities came, wasn't just a parallel world; it was a space beyond all logic. The doors didn't just release beings, they connected dimensions of chaos and desolation.
It was then that he remembered something from the diary's map. There were other doors, beyond the first. There were more of those creatures waiting to be released. If he didn't act quickly, if he didn't close them, the Void could begin to consume the city.
That afternoon, as he walked through the city, Liam realized that something had changed in the air. The streets, which once seemed familiar, now filled him with unease. The lights flickered with an almost imperceptible frequency, and the shadows seemed to follow him, moving around him. At first, he thought it was just his nerves, but when he saw a human figure at the end of the street, standing still, something inside him made him think that this figure wasn't normal.
The figure didn't move as Liam watched it. It was dressed in worn clothes, but its eyes... those empty, gray eyes, as if something had devoured everything inside it. Liam took a step back, feeling his heart begin to race. But at that moment, the figure vanished, dissolving into the shadows.
He couldn't resist anymore. He had to find the next door.
With the diary as his guide, he headed to a secluded neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, a place where the buildings were nearly in ruins, covered in graffiti and debris. It wasn't a place people visited often. As he walked through the crumbling hallways, he began to notice that the atmosphere was growing more oppressive. The air thickened, as if something was about to happen, and a sense of discomfort overwhelmed him.
Finally, in the center of an empty square, he found what he was looking for: a door, similar to the first. It was hidden among the graffiti and rubble, almost imperceptible. His fingers trembled as he touched the doorframe. He knew what he had to do. He knew that by opening it, he would release something else. But curiosity pushed him forward.
When he opened the door, a wave of cold struck him. A freezing wind wrapped around him, and from the darkness, a grotesque shape began to emerge. This time, the creature was different. It had the shape of a man, but its skin was like oxidized metal, with cracks that let out a reddish light. Its eyes glowed with an unnatural intensity.
Liam took a step back, but before he could close the door, the creature spoke with a voice that seemed to echo in his mind.
- The Void shows no mercy, young one. You are approaching what you cannot control.
With an instinctive impulse, Liam slammed the door shut. The creature vanished as quickly as it had appeared, but something in the city began to change. The shadows grew denser, and the feeling of being watched intensified. The lights flickered more frequently, and the people passing by seemed oblivious, as if nothing had changed.
But for Liam, everything was clear: every door he opened, every being he released, was bringing the city closer to its doom.
On his way back, Liam decided to visit Elena. He had heard rumors about a hidden bookstore in the city, and after some research, he found it in a small dead-end street. The shop was small, with shelves crammed with old books and rolls of parchment. A faint scent of incense filled the air, and in the corner, Elena was busy organizing some papers.
- Liam? What are you doing here?- she asked, looking up in surprise.
- I need help,- he replied quickly, moving toward the table where she was working.
- I know about the doors. I know what they're doing,- he continued, placing the diary on the table.
Elena looked at the book with a concerned expression. Her face grew serious as she opened it.
- This is worse than you think,- she said quietly, as if she didn't want anyone else to hear. -The doors don't just connect worlds. They are keys that open the prisons of the Void. And the more they open, the stronger the call of what's inside becomes.
- And what can we do?- Liam asked, desperate.
- We need to find the mother door. It's the final key, the one that connects all the others. If we don't stop it, everything will collapse.
- Where is it?
- Somewhere in the city, but it's guarded by the most powerful beings. If we get there, we risk losing everything.
Liam gritted his teeth. There was no turning back now. If he wanted to save what was left of the city, he would have to face the Void, and nothing would stop him.
The doors were already open. And something far worse than the creatures was about to awaken.