Andrew couldn't see the world around him with any clarity. The dark gloom pressed against his eyes, turning shapes into shifting blurs as though the very air were draped in ash. His ears strained against the thickness of silence and caught only fragments–muffled croaks that seeped from damp corners, the dry chattering of something unseen gnawing at wood or bone, the sudden crack of solid things colliding, and, worst of all, the uneven shuffle of footsteps dragging through the black. Each sound carried weight, not merely noise but the suggestion of something moving just beyond sight, close enough to breathe the same suffocating air.
Then came the smell.
It wasn't merely a scent; it was an assault. The instant he drew breath, a wall of rot pressed into his face and chest. The air itself seemed spoiled. First came the sweetness of decay–cloying, syrupy, the reek of flesh surrendering to time–but it did not linger alone.
Dust drifted through it, dry and chalky, as if the atmosphere had been trapped too long in forgotten rooms, thick with mildew and the brittle tang of old paper. The two odors mingled with a deliberate cruelty: the wet, living stench of death braided with the stale mustiness of things long neglected.
Nausea surged fast, curling his stomach before he could brace. His body rebelled, trying to purge what it had not yet consumed. Eyes watered, throat burned, as though the odor itself were abrasive. And beneath the gagging, the dizziness, lay a deeper certainty–that what he smelled had once been alive, and was no longer.
Andrew was sure the cathedral, if "cathedral" it was, overflowed with corpses. Not a handful, but many. No small collection of bodies could steep the air with such oppressive decay. What is this place?
Mira.
The thought struck like a blade. He swept the darkness with his senses, searching for the faint thread of the child's presence… and found nothing.
Fear cracked through him. He had known her for less than half a day, yet it was enough to feel the pull of attachment. She was a pitiful child who had survived horrors he could only guess at. He knew why she clung to him: a desperate attempt to smother memories too cruel to name. Even asleep she refused to release him, seeing in Andrew a guardian, perhaps a last fragile replacement for those she had lost.
He wanted to call her name, to scream it into the dark, but the stench threatened to rip his stomach inside out. The first syllable would come out as vomit.
Then he realized… he wasn't standing. There was ground beneath him but he didn't stand on it. Some unseen force held him suspended in mid-air. No ropes, no shackles, only a paralysis that gripped his entire body, as though the air itself had hardened around him.
A voice, calm and measured, slid through the obscurity.
"The Visionary. It is my greatest honor to finally gaze upon your magnificent visage. Forgive my inhospitality… this was done in urgency. You understand."
Andrew's chest tightened. "Who are you? Where am I? What do you want? Did you see a child–a girl of seven?"
He already guessed the owner of that voice, but it scarcely mattered. Mira's safety eclipsed everything.
She had chosen to trust him–to trust them–to keep her safe. He could picture the countless times she must have approached those who looked like adults, like protectors, only to watch them twist into grotesque parodies of humanity. How many times had she run, when all she wanted was to be cared for like any child? How many nights had she slept under open sky while horrors prowled? How many days had she gone without food?
Poor, stubborn child.
"Who am I?" The calm voice repeated with a soft chuckle that seemed to travel the length of the unseen hall. "You jest, Visionary. You certainly know who I am. My name need not be mentioned when you know it all. The Flow is within your changing grasp; the tapestry of Fate is your own weaving. As for where you are… a shadow of what remained of the Sovereign's creation. A cathedral that holds still even against the eroding force of time."
The voice drew closer, or perhaps Andrew was the one being drawn. The obscurity thinned like mist retreating from a storm, and before him the colossal interior of a cathedral emerged in aching clarity.
It loomed like a hollow mountain, a monument to something older than devotion itself. The vaults soared upward until they disappeared into an unlit abyss. Candles sputtered weakly against the dark, their wan flames barely touching the vast pillars, each as thick as a tower. Saints and gargoyles clung to the upper shadows, their stone faces warped by time and gloom into half-seen menace. The air itself tasted of cold iron and forgotten prayers.
At the center of this abyss stood a slightly tall silhouette–a young man, or something wearing that shape. His stance was still, his head tilted as though he had been waiting. With every heartbeat the distance between them collapsed, and the rancid odor of poorly preserved corpse receded as if bowing before him.
Andrew remained paralyzed, his body seized by an invisible will. He could do nothing but drift nearer, a moth dragged toward a shape the darkness refused to yield.
"Did you see a young girl? I don't know what you want, Alex Warren but—" His words strangled into silence. A sudden, invisible grip cinched around his throat, squeezing until his breath stuttered.
"Morgur. That is my name. Not Alexander, not Alex, not whatever you desire to call me. Morgur is the name I bear–call me that or call me nothing else, Visionary." The calm voice reverberated through the cathedral like the toll of an iron bell. "Speak."
"I give no fucks as to what you desire to call yourself, you son of a pig! What I want to know is where that child I was with is! I have no business with you! Just give me the child and we'll be on our way!" Andrew forced the words out in a rush, hoping speed might outpace the thing's anger… if it had any.
Andrew, you're asking the most cliché questions. The thought slithered through his skull like an echo from a deeper chamber. You know with absolute certainty this fiend, this heartless husk, won't let you or the little one go. He calls you a Visionary for a reason. My question is… what's your plan? How do we get out of this, Andrew?
The voices were returning. Not the faint, damning whispers of madness, but clear and articulate, each syllable threaded with cold logic. They weren't here to haunt him; they reasoned with him, sharpened him. They had always been part of him-until two days ago, when he met Isabella.
Fool, another voice hissed. Stop pretending she doesn't bind us. You know exactly what she does. Always the pretense. We are you, for fuck's sake. You won't trick us the way you trick the mediocre.
"You ask for a child, O Visionary?" Morgur's tone was disarmingly gentle, almost conversational. "Indeed, I've seen such a thing. But I saw its error and made some corrections. How did such a little thing escape my sight for so long? But worry not, Visionary… her flaws have been mended."
Andrew's mind went suddenly, dangerously still.
"What? Correct what? Mend what?" He demanded, though he already knew. He was no fool. Never had been. He understood exactly what those words implied. Yet some desperate instinct urged him to feign ignorance.
"Of course it's exactly what I meant," Morgur replied, voice calm, each word sliding into the next with unnerving normalcy. "You, the Visionary, should be the one most aware of the flaws and shallowness of us humans."
Was anything he said truly wrong? Weren't humans, by nature, riddled with flaws? Didn't they squander themselves on matters of no consequence, granting them value far beyond their worth? Perhaps… Perhaps humanity did need mending. Perhaps they all needed to be fixed.