Night pressed against the city windows like a held breath.
Rain slicked the rooftops, and neon bled across puddles in fractured color.
Inside a cramped apartment, the faint glow of a computer monitor flickered over scattered pages and symbols drawn in chalk.
Elias Varin hadn't slept in three days.
He'd found the book online—a weathered grimoire scanned and uploaded by someone claiming it was a "mirror of hidden arts." Half of it was laughable: fake incantations, broken Latin, mismatched circles. But the other half… something felt real.
The sigils resonated. The words hummed under his skin.
He didn't understand it, not fully, but obsession had replaced reason.
On the floor before him, four objects rested at the points of a chalk-drawn circle:
A silver ring, dull and ancient-looking.
A leather-bound book, blank but heavy.
A small carved totem, shaped like a twisting human figure.
A crystal gem, faintly iridescent, pulsing with the reflection of the candlelight.
He knelt in the center, hands trembling, heart hammering in his chest.
The air buzzed with a static tension—an invisible thrum that made the candles waver.
"Spiritum dividere, corpus transcendere…"
The words came haltingly, pieces of phrases stitched from half-truths and myth.
The symbols on the floor began to shimmer, light crawling across the chalk like liquid mercury. The crystal's glow deepened from pale blue to a color that didn't belong to the spectrum—something between violet and void.
Elias' breath hitched. "It's… working."
Then came the pain.
It wasn't physical—it was soul-deep, a tearing sensation that clawed at the inside of his being.
His vision fractured; the world around him split into colors and sounds he couldn't name.
His heartbeat echoed from every direction at once.
"W–wait… stop—!"
But the ritual didn't stop. The words had been spoken. The circle had awakened.
Light burst from the crystal, swallowing the room in radiance. His body convulsed. The ring vibrated violently. The book's pages fluttered as if caught in an unseen storm. The totem cracked down the center and screamed—a sound like a dozen voices whispering in reverse.
Then everything imploded.
A single heartbeat of silence—
—and his body detonated into a mist of blood and light.
The crimson vapor whirled through the room, drawn toward the four objects like hungry lungs taking their first breath. The circle burned white-hot, then fell dark. The sound of the storm outside faded into stillness.
Only the relics remained.
The ring lay still for a moment… then pulsed, faintly, as if something within it had begun to dream.
The book's cover shifted; words began to appear on its blank pages in glowing script.
The totem's carved face moved, subtly changing expression.
The crystal flickered with images—Elias's reflection, flickering in and out of shape.
The apartment was silent except for the dripping of blood onto the chalked floor.
Outside, lightning flashed—
—and for an instant, the shadows cast by the relics looked almost human.
They lingered there, breathing faintly, absorbing the unseen magic that rippled through the air, growing aware.
And somewhere deep within their cores, a voice whispered—not from one, but from all four at once:
"We are not gone… only divided."
Then the light inside them went still.
Hours later, the authorities would find nothing but an empty room—
no body, no sign of struggle, no trace of Elias Varin—
only the lingering scent of ozone, and the faint outline of a burned circle etched into the floor.
Night pressed against the city windows like a held breath.
Rain slicked the rooftops, and neon bled across puddles in fractured color.
Inside a cramped apartment, the faint glow of a computer monitor flickered over scattered pages and symbols drawn in chalk.
Elias Varin hadn't slept in three days.
He'd found the book online—a weathered grimoire scanned and uploaded by someone claiming it was a "mirror of hidden arts." Half of it was laughable: fake incantations, broken Latin, mismatched circles. But the other half… something felt real.
The sigils resonated. The words hummed under his skin.
He didn't understand it, not fully, but obsession had replaced reason.
On the floor before him, four objects rested at the points of a chalk-drawn circle:
A silver ring, dull and ancient-looking.
A leather-bound book, blank but heavy.
A small carved totem, shaped like a twisting human figure.
A crystal gem, faintly iridescent, pulsing with the reflection of the candlelight.
He knelt in the center, hands trembling, heart hammering in his chest.
The air buzzed with a static tension—an invisible thrum that made the candles waver.
"Spiritum dividere, corpus transcendere…"
The words came haltingly, pieces of phrases stitched from half-truths and myth.
The symbols on the floor began to shimmer, light crawling across the chalk like liquid mercury. The crystal's glow deepened from pale blue to a color that didn't belong to the spectrum—something between violet and void.
Elias' breath hitched. "It's… working."
Then came the pain.
It wasn't physical—it was soul-deep, a tearing sensation that clawed at the inside of his being.
His vision fractured; the world around him split into colors and sounds he couldn't name.
His heartbeat echoed from every direction at once.
"W–wait… stop—!"
But the ritual didn't stop. The words had been spoken. The circle had awakened.
Light burst from the crystal, swallowing the room in radiance. His body convulsed. The ring vibrated violently. The book's pages fluttered as if caught in an unseen storm. The totem cracked down the center and screamed—a sound like a dozen voices whispering in reverse.
Then everything imploded.
A single heartbeat of silence—
—and his body detonated into a mist of blood and light.
The crimson vapor whirled through the room, drawn toward the four objects like hungry lungs taking their first breath. The circle burned white-hot, then fell dark. The sound of the storm outside faded into stillness.
Only the relics remained.
The ring lay still for a moment… then pulsed, faintly, as if something within it had begun to dream.
The book's cover shifted; words began to appear on its blank pages in glowing script.
The totem's carved face moved, subtly changing expression.
The crystal flickered with images—Elias's reflection, flickering in and out of shape.
The apartment was silent except for the dripping of blood onto the chalked floor.
Outside, lightning flashed—
—and for an instant, the shadows cast by the relics looked almost human.
They lingered there, breathing faintly, absorbing the unseen magic that rippled through the air, growing aware.
And somewhere deep within their cores, a voice whispered—not from one, but from all four at once:
"We are not gone… only divided."
Then the light inside them went still.
Hours later, the authorities would find nothing but an empty room—
no body, no sign of struggle, no trace of Elias Varin—
only the lingering scent of ozone, and the faint outline of a burned circle etched into the floor.