"Cities are like bodies. They have blood, bones… and secrets buried beneath their skin."
Lucien Varro stood in front of the rusted iron gate that led into the old undercity of Austère. Locals called it "The Hollow Veins," though no one said that name loudly.
He held no torch, no weapon — only that obsidian-black notebook retrieved from the Black Library, now bound to him like a parasite stitched to the soul.
Behind him, the city was asleep in fog and silence.
Before him: a descent into forgotten stone, tunnels left behind by history, and myths even the Church refused to document.
He stepped forward. The iron gate creaked like something alive stretching after centuries of slumber.
Each step downward felt like walking into someone else's memory. The gaslights, the carriages, the surface world faded behind.
Here, the walls curved like ribs. The stone underfoot was warm — almost… breathing.
Lucien opened the notebook again. The ink moved on its own. A new diagram appeared: a spiraling glyph of concentric circles, with a single pulsating word at the center.
"Fracture."
He didn't read it aloud. He simply looked. And something listened.
The air bent. The tunnel twisted unnaturally to the left, like space had forgotten how to remain straight. A cold breath brushed his ear.
The walls exhaled dust.
Something old… had noticed him.
He tightened his grip. Not fear — not yet. Just clarity.
He walked deeper.
More symbols appeared along the stone walls — some familiar from old Occultist manuscripts, others that no archive dared explain.
The notebook trembled at his side. It vibrated like it knew something he didn't.
Ahead, the tunnel split in two. One path was collapsed — yet Lucien could hear something behind it: not wind, not dripping water… whispers.
He followed the narrower path.
Darkness followed him, like it had been waiting.
The path narrowed. The air thickened with something not quite dust. It clung to his lungs like memory.
Each footstep echoed too long, like time had loosened its grip here.
Lucien passed an archway partially caved in. Strange vines—thin and silver—crept along the walls, pulsing faintly with light.
He paused. Touched one. It recoiled like a living vein.
Just then, his notebook flipped a page on its own.
A new sigil appeared. A rune shaped like an inverted triangle with thorns branching from its edges. Beneath it, the words inked themselves:
"Blood remembers the path forgotten by reason."
"What do you want me to see?" Lucien whispered.
The wall beside him crumbled—just slightly. Behind the stone: a hole. And through it, a chamber… round, ribbed like the inside of a skull, lit by nothing but veins of soft-glowing mineral that ran like lightning across the ceiling.
Inside, a single object:
A mirror, oval, standing upright on a three-legged brass stand, untouched by time or decay.
Lucien stepped in.
The moment his foot crossed the threshold, the mirror rippled. It showed not his reflection—but his silhouette, fractured, like a body made of shattered glass.
Each shard moved at its own pace, each carrying a different version of him — one older, one younger, one cloaked, one wounded, one laughing.
"What are you?" he murmured.
A voice spoke, but not aloud. It vibrated through his spine.
"You are not whole, Lucien Varro. You are memory unstitched. Fragment among echoes."
The notebook at his side caught fire—without burning. The flames licked across its surface, tracing a new page into existence.
It read:
Stage One Acquired: Observer of Echoes.
Ability Gained: Echo-Seer — You may see fragments of alternate events tied to places of memory rupture. Use sparingly. Sanity may fray.
Lucien's vision blurred. He staggered back, heart racing, temples throbbing.
The mirror shattered without sound.
Glass fell upward into the ceiling.
And then, the chamber dimmed.
He turned on instinct and left, not running—but fast enough to admit what lingered behind him was not meant to be stared at for long.
Lucien emerged from the chamber breathless, sweat clinging to his skin despite the cold.
The tunnel no longer seemed the same.
It had straightened.
The walls were clean.
The silver veins gone.
As if the place had reshaped itself now that it had given him what it wanted.
Or taken something in return.
He didn't look back. He didn't dare.
The notebook had closed itself again. But now, a symbol was etched onto the leather — not drawn, but seared into the cover: the same inverted triangle of thorns.
Lucien walked until the whispering silence began to fade, replaced by the distant echoes of the waking city above.
The iron gate stood ahead, still ajar.
He stepped through it. A cold wind hit him.
Morning had begun to push away the fog.
Gaslamps flickered their last.
And Austère exhaled its secrets once more, unaware that something buried had just stirred.
He looked back once.
The gate was closed now.
He hadn't touched it.
⸻
Later that morning, back at the Archive Tower…
Lucien sat alone at his desk.
The ink on his fingers refused to wash off — it pulsed with a strange iridescence. The notebook lay still beside a pile of translated manuscripts, but he could feel it watching him.
He lit a candle and reread his notes from the chamber.
Words still danced on the page, rearranging themselves when he blinked.
There was more to this.
The mirror had not only shown fractured selves — it had shown choices.
Had they all been him?
Or were they… others who wore his name in different possibilities?
He began to write:
"There are doors beneath cities. Not of wood or metal, but of thought and memory.
Some open when spoken to.
Others, when forgotten."
A knock came at the Archive door.
Three precise taps.
Lucien closed the notebook carefully.
"Enter," he called.
It was Archivist Rendel, the older man who trained him years ago — blind in one eye, but sharp as a blade.
His gaze went directly to the closed notebook, then to Lucien.
"You've been below," he said. Not a question.
Lucien said nothing.
Rendel stepped closer. His voice dropped. "It leaves a mark, doesn't it? The Hollow Veins."
Lucien's spine stiffened. "You've been there too."
"I was young once." Rendel smiled bitterly. "You hear the echo?"
Lucien nodded slowly.
Rendel put a hand on his shoulder. "Then be careful, boy. Once you hear the echo, it never truly stops. It waits. It grows louder the more silence you feed it."
He turned to leave, then paused.
"Oh — if you start dreaming of reflections that speak, don't answer them. That's not you anymore."
And with that, the door closed.
Lucien sat still.
The candle flickered.
From inside the closed notebook, a whisper pressed against his mind.
"Who were you before the silence?"