The sigil pulsed faintly, casting a dim glow over the corridor. Dust blanketed the floor, untouched, undisturbed. No footprints. No sign that anyone had passed through in centuries.
Thorne ran a calloused hand along the stone wall, his brow furrowing. "This place wasn't meant to be found."
Zara nudged a broken statue with the tip of her boot. "Then why's it opening for us?"
No one answered. The passage stretched forward, narrowing before widening into an enormous chamber. Overturned bookshelves loomed in the gloom, their contents scattered across the ground like forgotten relics. Some statues stood whole, others had crumbled into jagged halves, their faces lost to time. The air smelled stale—like parchment sealed away for too long.
Kael exhaled, watching the dust swirl unnaturally in his breath's wake. "It doesn't feel abandoned."
Lira turned in place, taking in the massive chamber. "That's because it isn't."
Elyra's fingers tightened around the strap of her satchel. "This place wants to be hidden. That doesn't mean it's empty."
A hush fell over them. The only sound was the faint shift of debris beneath their boots. The sigil's glow dimmed behind them, as if reluctant to follow.
Elyra paused, her gaze tracing the walls. "Look at this. The patterns in the stonework—they weren't here a moment ago."
Thorne leaned in, eyes narrowing. "They're moving."
Kael swallowed. He could feel it too. Not just in the walls. In the air. His breath felt… off. Slightly delayed, as if the very space around them was struggling to keep up with reality.
"Anyone else feel that?" he asked.
Zara frowned. "Feel what?"
"Like everything is lagging. Like time is… slower here."
Lira ran a cautious finger along the surface of an open tome, half-buried beneath fallen debris. Instead of crumbling parchment, the ink looked fresh. Too fresh. "This was written recently."
Thorne huffed. "Impossible. Look at this place. No one's been here in—"
A low groan echoed through the chamber.
Elyra jerked her head up. "That wasn't the wind."
Kael turned, scanning the archways. The chalk mark Elyra had placed minutes ago—gone. The passage behind them had sealed itself shut.
Thorne's jaw clenched. "We're being boxed in."
Kael's hands curled into fists. "Then who's doing the boxing?"
Kael turned slowly, scanning the room. The walls felt closer now, the air heavier. The faint scent of old parchment was thick, but beneath it, something else lingered—something unplaceable.
Lira stepped forward, her boots barely making a sound against the dust-covered floor. "Do you hear that?"
Zara shot her a wary glance. "Hear what?"
Lira didn't answer immediately. It wasn't a sound exactly, more like an absence of one—a pull, a whisper just at the edges of perception. Her gaze swept the chamber until it landed on something too pristine to belong here.
A book.
It sat atop an ornate pedestal near the center of the room, untouched by time. Unlike the others, its cover bore no dust, its pages uncurled by age. It wasn't just well-preserved. It looked... new.
Lira hesitated. The unnatural stillness surrounding it made her skin prickle, but something drew her forward.
Thorne shifted beside her, frowning. "That's not right."
Elyra took a slow breath. "No. It isn't."
Lira reached out, fingertips hovering just above the page. The ink moved.
She flinched back as letters twisted and reshaped themselves, shifting on the parchment as if just written. The words weren't old. They were being written right now.
Swallowing, she forced herself to read aloud.
"A group of five steps into the lost wing. They disturb the silence, unaware they are not alone."
The moment the words left her lips, the ink melted and reformed, curling into a new sentence right beneath it.
"The smallest one reaches for the book. The ink shifts before her eyes."
Lira yanked her hand back. Her pulse hammered in her ears.
Kael took a sharp step forward, his breath coming short. "It's writing about us. Right now."
Zara's fingers flexed over her dagger hilt. Her usual flippancy was gone. "Who's doing the writing?"
The air pressed in, thick with an invisible weight.
Thorne's voice was low and edged with warning. "Put it down. Now."
But Lira wasn't touching it. The book simply sat there, writing on its own. Her hands curled into fists at her sides, but she couldn't look away. Slowly, she turned a page.
The ink bled across the parchment, forming sentences in real time.
"They hesitate. They question. They have seen too much."
Elyra exhaled sharply. "We're being watched."
A sound—soft, almost imperceptible—shifted in the dark beyond the torchlight. A scrape, a rustle, like something moving just out of sight.
Zara tensed. "We need to leave."
But the book wasn't finished.
"They read too much. They see too much. Now, something sees them."
The ink stopped moving.
Kael's throat tightened. The chamber felt smaller, like the walls had inched closer while they weren't looking.
Lira snapped the book shut. The soft thud of parchment meeting leather echoed like a gunshot in the silence.
The torches flickered.
Elyra's grip on her satchel tightened. "We're not alone."
They didn't need the book to tell them that.
The book shut with a soft thud, but the sound carried, stretching unnaturally through the chamber. For a moment, everything was still. Then, the ground beneath them groaned. It wasn't the creak of shifting stone, nor the settling of dust. It was something deeper. Something alive.
Kael tensed. "Did… did we just wake something up?"
The walls shuddered, dust shaking loose from high above. The sound should have been distant, a harmless tremor, but it felt too close—like the very Archive was exhaling around them.
Elyra's eyes darted toward the stonework, fingers tightening around her satchel. "No," she murmured. "It was already awake."
The floating dust thickened, curling into tendrils in the edges of their vision. Shapes flickered, just barely there—things that shouldn't be moving but were.
A rustling sound crept through the silence. Not the flutter of loose pages. Not footsteps. It was something between the two, a dry, shifting whisper that slid along the floor, the shelves, the ceiling.
Kael's skin prickled. "Okay. Someone tell me they hear that."
Zara's grip on her dagger tightened. "Oh, I hear it."
Another sound. Closer this time. A slow, deliberate creak, like old leather being stretched.
Thorne exhaled sharply. "Stay together." His voice was even, but there was an edge to it, the kind that only surfaced when something was very wrong.
Kael turned back toward their entrance—only to find it gone.
He blinked. The passage they had come through, the one they had just walked through moments ago, had vanished. The door had sealed itself shut, the stone smooth, unbroken, as if no passage had ever been there.
His stomach dropped. "Uh. Guys?"
Elyra turned, and the color drained from her face.
"No," she whispered. She reached out, pressed her palm against the wall—solid, cold, unmoving.
Zara let out a slow breath, her grip flexing. "Yeah. We're not waiting for whatever's coming."
A second tremor ran through the chamber, this time beneath their feet. The whispering sound grew louder. The torchlight flickered wildly—and in that brief second of shifting shadows, Kael swore he saw something move between the shelves.
A shape. A presence. Watching.
Thorne's stance shifted. "Move. Now."
No one argued.
They had no choice but to go forward.
The chamber had gone silent again. Too silent. The kind that pressed in around them, thick and suffocating.
Kael exhaled slowly, shaking off the tightness in his chest. He could still feel the weight of the book's final message, the words burned into his mind:
They read too much. They see too much. Now, something sees them.
He swallowed hard and forced himself to move, keeping pace with the others. They needed to go forward—it was the only choice left.
As they stepped deeper into the corridor, the air grew colder, not just in temperature, but in a way that made his skin prickle. Something brushed against his arm. Soft. Quick. Gone.
As Kael's breath caught, the walls seemed to shift—not physically, but subtly, like they were exhaling around him. The Archive wasn't just reacting. It was thinking.
Kael jerked to a stop, heart hammering. He turned, but there was nothing there.
Nothing but shadows stretching in the flickering light.
Elyra glanced back. "What?"
Kael hesitated. Had that been real? Or just his nerves twisting in on themselves? His voice felt too tight when he answered. "Thought I felt something."
Thorne exhaled sharply. "You're not wrong."
They all turned to him. His usual gruff demeanor was unchanged, but his stance had shifted—tense, ready.
Lira's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
Thorne nodded toward the ground behind them. "Look."
They followed his gaze.
The dust wasn't settling. Their footprints stretched out behind them, clear as ever. But another set of marks trailed between them.
A soft sound followed them, too faint to pinpoint—a delayed echo of their own footsteps. Or not theirs at all.
Not footprints. Not exactly. Just… distortions. As if something had moved through the dust without truly touching it.
Kael's fingers curled into fists. "Tell me that's just the Archive playing tricks."
Zara let out a slow breath, dagger drawn but unreadied. "Yeah, I'd love to. But it wouldn't believe me either."
Lira spun toward the book still resting on its pedestal. A chill crawled up her spine as she saw the ink shifting once more. The last entry had changed.
They do not leave alone.
The torchlight flickered violently.
Kael turned toward Elyra, but before he could speak, he saw it.
Just for a second. Just in the instant between light and dark.
A shadow.
Not cast by any of them.
Not shaped like anything that belonged.
Lingering just behind them.
His breath caught. "Elyra."
Elyra's breath quickened. The corridor ahead wavered, just for a second—like something had shifted, something new appearing where there had been nothing before.
The Archive wasn't just closing in. It was leading them somewhere.
She didn't hesitate. "We don't stop moving."
Thorne took the lead. The others followed. Fast. Focused. Not running. Not yet.
But the air was different now.
The Archive was no longer just a shifting maze of forgotten knowledge.
Now, it was hunting.
And they weren't alone.