Elias Ward had always thought nightmares belonged to the night, fragile things that dissolved with the coming of dawn. But this—this city of ruins and blood-colored skies—did not dissolve. He was awake, wide-eyed, lungs burning with smoke, and every step reminded him he had crossed some invisible border into a place that was not supposed to exist.
The city stretched around him like a corpse, magnificent even in death. White towers cracked and slanted like broken teeth, bridges of marble had fallen into canals choked with ash, and banners that might once have carried symbols of pride now hung in tatters, whispering against the firelight. The air was thick, heavy, and every sound seemed too sharp, too fragile, as if the world itself were crumbling with each passing breath.
And always, there was the silence behind them—the moving silence, devouring everything it touched. The survivors had called it the Unmaking. Elias could feel it creeping closer, not like a predator in the shadows but like an inevitable tide.
He still held the boy's hand, the one he had dragged from the rubble. The child's palm was hot and slick with sweat, fingers tightening desperately around his own as if Elias were the only solid thing left in this collapsing reality. The boy's wide eyes darted constantly toward the horizon where the black smoke writhed, swallowing buildings whole.
"Stay close," Elias whispered. His voice cracked, too loud in the ruined square. "Don't let go."
The boy nodded but said nothing. His lips trembled, his small body shivering as if even breathing was an effort.
The group of survivors had gathered in the plaza—no more than a dozen souls, faces gaunt with hunger, streaked with soot and exhaustion. They stared at Elias as though he were a ghost pulled from the book's pages.
The silver-haired woman who had spoken before stepped forward. Her eyes, sharp and unyielding, glinted with a kind of fatal knowledge. She carried a spear fashioned from broken marble, bound with strips of cloth. Every line of her posture said she was someone who had fought too long, seen too much.
"You are the one the book sent," she said, her tone flat, more statement than question.
Elias shook his head, desperate to deny it. "I—I don't even know where I am. I'm not supposed to be here. I'm nobody."
Her gaze did not soften. "The Archivist is never nobody."
The words struck him like a weight. Archivist. That voice from the library, echoing in his bones, had named him the same. The word was becoming a noose tightening around his neck.
"I don't even know what that means," Elias muttered. "Archivist, book, whatever you think I am—I can't stop… that." He gestured at the horizon, where the Unmaking consumed another tower, leaving nothing but air where stone had stood.
The woman's lips pressed thin. "No one can stop it. That is not your task."
"Then what the hell is my task?" Elias snapped, louder than he intended. His voice echoed against broken walls, startling even himself.
She did not flinch. "To remember."
The silence that followed was heavier than the smoke. Elias stared at her, his stomach knotting. "Remember? That's it? While everything burns, while people—" He broke off, looking at the boy at his side. "You want me to just… watch?"
The woman tilted her head, as though studying him like one would a strange animal. "The Archivist records. He does not intervene. That is the law of the library."
"I didn't agree to any damn law," Elias said.
A low chuckle rippled through the survivors, not with humor but with despair. One of the men spat on the ground, muttering, "They never do."
Elias's skin prickled. "What do you mean, 'they never do'?"
The silver-haired woman looked away, toward the firelit skyline. "You are not the first. There have been others. Archivists before you. Each thought they could defy the Unmaking. Each vanished into it."
The boy's hand squeezed tighter around Elias's. His small voice finally broke the silence. "Please… don't leave us."
Elias crouched instinctively, meeting the child's wide, frightened eyes. His chest ached. How can I tell him I'm not supposed to help? That I'm just here to… remember? The thought sickened him.
He swallowed hard, forcing steadiness into his voice. "I won't."
The woman heard him, her expression hardening. "Then you will die."
Elias rose, anger simmering beneath his fear. "Maybe. But if I'm supposed to just let this happen, then what's the point of sending me here at all? What's the point of remembering if no one survives to tell the story?"
The woman said nothing. The fire crackled in the distance, and behind them, the creeping silence grew closer.
They moved as a group, following broken streets through the city's husk. The survivors carried what little they had—torches, scraps of food, a few blades dulled with use. The boy clung to Elias's side, silent now, but his eyes darted to every shadow.
Elias tried to take it all in. He didn't know why, but the library seemed to tug at his memory, urging him to absorb every detail—the faded murals on crumbling walls, the statues half-buried in rubble, the fragments of a history about to be erased. As if the library itself demanded he commit this world to record, not with ink and parchment but with his very soul.
They reached the remnants of what must once have been a temple. Its vast dome was shattered, half collapsed, yet inside, tall pillars still rose like broken ribs. Here the survivors paused, laying down their burdens.
The silver-haired woman spoke again. "We cannot stay long. The Unmaking grows faster each night. But we must rest." She turned her gaze to Elias. "If you are truly Archivist, then watch. See what remains of us. Carry it when we are gone."
Elias wanted to argue, but exhaustion pressed into his bones. He lowered himself against a cracked pillar, the boy curling close beside him.
For a moment, silence held them. A heavy, fragile peace. Then one of the men began to hum—a low, mournful tune that echoed in the hollow temple. Another joined, then another, until the sound became a chorus, a ritual of grief.
Elias closed his eyes. The melody was strange, alien, yet something inside him stirred. The words were lost to him, but the emotion was not. Loss. Defiance. A plea to be remembered.
He realized then what the library wanted: not just to collect facts, but the weight of memory, the essence of a world's soul.
And he realized something else.
He could not just watch.
The boy fell asleep against his shoulder, small breaths rising and falling. Elias stared into the shadows beyond the pillars. The Unmaking was out there, always moving closer. He could almost feel it breathing, a vacuum pulling at the edges of his mind.
He whispered to himself, a vow only the ruined temple could hear:
"I don't care what the library wants. I'm not going to let them vanish without a fight."
The air trembled, as if the world itself had heard him.
Somewhere deep inside the temple, a book shifted. Elias's head snapped up. From the rubble, faint light spilled, like the glow of the library itself.
He rose, stepping carefully, leaving the boy asleep. Dust crunched beneath his boots as he followed the glow. There, half-buried beneath fallen stone, lay a smaller volume—bound in the same strange leather as the one he had touched in the library. Its cover pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat.
Elias reached for it, and the silver-haired woman's voice rang sharply across the temple.
"Do not touch it."
He froze. "Why?"
Her face was pale, eyes wide with something close to fear. "Because that is how it begins. Every Archivist thinks they can wield the books. Every Archivist is wrong."
Elias looked down at the glowing cover, at the way it seemed to pulse in rhythm with his own chest.
But his hand did not stop.
To be continued…