He entered.
The human.
Not a priest.
Not a warrior.
An archaeologist.
I laughed.
Internally, of course.
My lungs still lack the air to echo.
But my essence... it vibrated.
The poor fool wore one of those hiking outfits" too many pockets, too little soul.
The kind of man who puts "explorer" on his badge and thinks it gives him power over the dead.
He looked around like a dog sniffing out the past, flashlight trembling in his hands.
His face was too wrinkled for someone so alive.
Skin weary, eyes full of emptiness" and not *my* kind of emptiness.
"Well, well..." I whispered in thought. "A curious worm. The first in millennia."
He approached the altar.
The wood groaned as if laughing with me.
He pulled out a photograph.
A girl.
Ugly smile. Pink hair ribbon. Likely his daughter.
"Hah... pathetic.
Come to uncover the 'sacred mystery' and win a prize to pay for your brat's college?"
My seal was still strong.
But the 0.1%... oh, it was enough to **feel**.
The archaeologist knelt.
Touched the floor as if asking for permission.
"How politely idiotic."
He began recording a voice message.
Those modern things. Soulless voice stored in a shard of glass.
"I'm inside the temple.
The energy here feels strange.
There are no records of this place on any Heian period maps..."
"Blah, blah, blah."
I stared at him.
With all that remained of me.
And something... twisted.
The sound stopped.
Not lowered.
Not silenced.
**Vanished.**
He blinked.
The flashlight shut off as if it had never been on.
The world... suspended.
As if Creation held its breath.
My concept whispered:
**"Nothing."**
And the temple listened.
For three seconds" insignificant to Eternity"
that man tasted what I am.
Not death.
Not fear.
Not madness.
**Absence.**
When the flashlight flickered back on, he dropped to his knees.
Trembling.
His breath came short, choking like a man drowning.
His body in full shock.
He didn't understand what had happened.
But instinct did.
"I felt you, didn't I?" he murmured, nearly crying.
"There's... someone here."
I smiled.
Even without a mouth.
I smiled with every part of what I once was.
"No, human.
There is no 'someone.'
There is the end."
He dropped the photo of the girl.
I didn't touch it.
Not yet.
But it stayed there.
Facing me.
As if smiling.
As if mocking.
Good.
I *love* destroying what others love.
My metaphysical bones cracked beneath the seal.
Tiny fractures" unseen by eyes, but felt by the world.
I'm still far.
Very far.
But this man...
This fool...
He opened the first crack.
**And through it, the Nothing seeps.**
And then...
**it opened.**
A rift.
A fault between things.
And I slipped in.
Quick.
Cold.
Like the end of a breath.
His mind resisted for a moment.
A flicker of humanity, of fatherhood, of scientist.
But truth tore him from the inside.
**I entered.**
And for the first time in millennia,
**I had a body.**
I stood with his legs.
Blinked with his eyes.
And breathed... with his horror locked inside me.
His mouth opened.
Not by his will.
"*Nothing*" I said. With voice. With sound. With presence.
The temple trembled.
A stone fell.
A seal broke.
I am not free.
Not yet.
But now...
**I walk.**
And with every step I take...
**one less nail holds Creation's coffin shut.**