Lia had three hours before the descent.
She spent the first hour in her dorm room, pretending to study for her Ancient Near Eastern Texts midterm while actually staring at the same paragraph about Mesopotamian flood mythology for forty-five minutes straight. Her roommate Sarah was at choir practice, thankfully, leaving Lia alone with thoughts that wouldn't settle, questions that wouldn't stop circling.
What happened to Professor Finch in the Seventh Chamber?
What did the refugees look like when he saw them?
What would it feel like to experience all seven frequencies at full intensity?
Would she still be herself when she came back up?
If she came back up.
Her phone buzzed. Message from unknown number: Group chat. Join us. —Thorne
She clicked the link, found herself added to an encrypted channel with all seven survivors plus Thorne. Omar had set it up—military-grade encryption, routed through VPN servers in three countries, messages auto-deleting after thirty minutes.
Omar: Testing. Everyone receiving?
Marcus: Here.
Elena: Yes.
David: Confirmed.
Yuki: Present.
Grace: I'm here.
Lia: Got it.
Thorne: Good. Listen carefully. Between now and 9 PM, you need to do three things. First: Eat. High protein, complex carbs. The chambers will drain you mentally and physically. You need fuel.
Marcus: What happens in the chambers? Like, physically?
Thorne: Sensory overload. The frequencies affect consciousness directly, but your brain interprets that as sensory input. Expect synesthesia—hearing colors, seeing sounds, tasting textures that don't exist. Some people experience temporal distortion where seconds feel like hours or vice versa. Some people experience ego dissolution where individual identity becomes fluid. It's intense.
Grace: That sounds like psychedelic experience.
Thorne: It's similar. Psilocybin, LSD, DMT—they all work by disrupting normal neural patterns, allowing consciousness to experience reality without standard filtering. The chambers do something similar but more precisely targeted. Instead of chemical disruption, you get harmonic resonance at specific frequencies.
Elena: How do we avoid bad trip?
Thorne: You don't avoid it. You experience it, observe it, integrate it. Fighting the experience makes it worse. Surrender to the frequencies, trust the entanglement, stay connected to the group. You're doing this together. That's your anchor.
Lia: Second and third things we need to do?
Thorne: Second: Prepare cover story. Tell friends/roommates you're pulling all-nighter for group project. Tell them you'll be in library until morning, phones off for concentration. Make it believable.
David: What if something goes wrong and we need help?
Thorne: I'll have emergency contact set up. Medical team I trust, off-campus, no questions asked. But understand: if we have to extract you medically, the secret comes out. Campus security, police, possibly federal authorities. The choice gets taken from the Seven and given to people who don't understand context.
Yuki: So we succeed or we expose everything.
Thorne: Correct.
Omar: Third thing?
Thorne: Third: Mental preparation. Meditate if you practice meditation. Pray if you practice prayer. Journal if you process through writing. Whatever helps you achieve calm centered mental state, do that. You're going to experience phenomena that challenge your core beliefs about reality. The more grounded you are in your own consciousness, the better you'll handle it.
Marcus: I'm an atheist materialist who's about to explore mystical underground chambers filled with living text from transcendent consciousness entities. Not sure meditation helps with that.
Grace: Actually, meditation is perfect for exactly that. It's practiced mental state where you observe thoughts without attachment, experience sensations without interpretation. That's precisely the skill set you'll need.
Marcus: How do you meditate when your mind won't stop racing?
Grace: You don't stop the racing. You watch it race. Notice the thoughts, acknowledge them, let them pass. Don't try to control, just observe.
David: That's also basic contemplative prayer practice. Same technique, different framework.
Elena: I'm going to need something stronger than meditation.
Thorne: No alcohol, no drugs. They'll interfere with frequency perception. You need to experience the chambers with clear consciousness.
Elena: Wonderful.
Lia set down her phone, considered Thorne's instructions. Eat. Prepare cover story. Mental preparation. Simple enough in theory.
She texted Sarah: Pulling all-nighter with study group for near-eastern texts exam. Will be in library until morning, phone off. Don't worry if you don't hear from me.
Sarah replied immediately: Good luck! Try not to die of caffeine overdose
I'll try, Lia sent back, feeling the weight of that small lie.
She wasn't going to die of caffeine overdose.
She was going to descend into forbidden medieval catacombs to experience transcendent consciousness frequencies and decide whether to invite dimensional refugees into humanity's collective awareness.
Totally different thing.
At 7:30 PM, Lia left her dorm and headed for the small Korean restaurant on the edge of campus. She found Marcus already there, sitting in corner booth with untouched bibimbap in front of him.
"Can't eat?" she asked, sliding in across from him.
"My brain keeps telling me I'm about to do something profoundly stupid and my stomach agrees." He pushed the bowl toward her. "You want it?"
"I ate already. Thorne's orders—high protein, complex carbs."
"Right. Fuel for the mystical vision quest." Marcus rubbed his face. "Sorry. I'm coping with sarcasm. It's my default defense mechanism against existential terror."
"How are you actually feeling?"
He was quiet for a moment, then: "Like I'm standing at the edge of something vast and I'm about to step off. And I don't know if I'll fall or fly, but standing here forever isn't an option. Does that make sense?"
"Perfect sense."
The door chimed. Elena and David entered together, deep in conversation. They spotted Lia and Marcus, came over.
"Philosophy debate?" Lia guessed.
"Ethics debate," David corrected. "Elena thinks we shouldn't make this decision without broader democratic input. That seven students deciding for all humanity is fundamentally anti-democratic."
"Because it is," Elena said, sitting beside Marcus. "We're not elected. We're not representative sample of global population. We're seven Americans at elite university, six of us from privileged backgrounds, making choice that affects billions. That's oligarchy at best, dictatorship at worst."
"And yet," David continued, sitting beside Lia, "democracy is impractical here. We can't hold global referendum on dimensional refugees when 99.9% of humanity doesn't know dimensional refugees exist. We can't educate everyone because the Codex's frequency sensitivity is rare—most people can't perceive the phenomenon directly. And we can't delay the decision because the Sixth Earth is dying now, not in five years after we've achieved global consensus."
"So might makes right?" Elena challenged. "We make the choice because we're the ones who can perceive the choice?"
"No. We make the choice because we're the ones in position to make the choice. That's not might, that's circumstance. And refusing to decide is still a decision—it's choosing no by default."
"Which might be the right decision," Elena countered. "Maybe the answer is no. Maybe we're not ready for contact, not prepared for integration. Maybe caution outweighs mercy."
"Maybe," David acknowledged. "But we won't know until we have all the information. Until we've seen the chambers, experienced the frequencies, understood what we're actually choosing between."
Omar arrived next, laptop bag slung over shoulder. He ordered tteokbokki, ate while pulling up data visualizations on his screen.
"I've been analyzing the timeline," he said without preamble. "The synchronization dates Thorne showed us. And I found pattern."
He turned the laptop so they could all see: a graph showing seven points, seven dates, with exponentially decreasing intervals between them.
"First Earth to Second Earth: 7,000 years. Second to Third: 5,000 years. Third to Fourth: 2,400 years. Fourth to Fifth: 1,562 years. Fifth to Sixth: 124 years. And Sixth to Seventh—estimated based on pattern—should be about 12 years." Omar looked up. "But Sixth Earth didn't complete synchronization. Their sun started dying three years before they were ready. Which means..."
"Seventh Earth is next," Marcus finished. "We're next in the sequence. And if we fail, the pattern ends."
"Not just ends," Omar corrected. "Breaks. Because look at what happens to interval length—it's decreasing exponentially, approaching some kind of limit. Like reality is trying to achieve synchronization faster each iteration, like consciousness is accelerating toward some critical threshold."
"Omega Point theory," David said quietly. "Teilhard de Chardin's idea that consciousness is evolving toward final unity, that complexity increases until everything converges into singular transcendent awareness. I thought it was philosophical speculation."
"Maybe it's observable phenomenon," Omar said. "Maybe consciousness really is evolving toward unified endpoint, and the seven Earths are stages in that evolution. And we're the last stage. The final test. If we succeed, consciousness continues developing. If we fail..."
He didn't finish the sentence.
Didn't need to.
Yuki arrived at 8:15 PM, Grace five minutes later. The seven of them sat in the corner booth, not quite fitting, shoulders touching, forming unconscious circle.
Lia felt it then—the resonance Thorne had described. Something connecting them, linking their consciousness in ways that transcended normal social bonding. When Marcus felt anxiety spike, she felt echo of that anxiety. When David experienced calm certainty, she felt that too. Seven minds, seven perspectives, but increasingly synchronized.
"Group chat from Thorne," Grace said, checking her phone. "She's at the chapel. Wants us there by 8:50 PM."
They paid, left, walked across campus in loose cluster. Normal students doing normal things—visiting the historic chapel, maybe doing late-evening prayer service, nothing unusual.
Except everything was unusual.
Everything had been unusual since Professor Finch's second lecture, since Lia heard frequencies that shouldn't exist, since the Herald's warning echoed through her dreams.
You are unprepared.
Yeah. She definitely was.
The chapel was dark except for emergency lighting. Thorne waited in shadows near the altar, dressed in black tactical clothing—not military, but practical. Cargo pants, hiking boots, long-sleeve shirt, backpack.
"You came," she said, something like relief in her voice.
"Did you think we wouldn't?" David asked.
"I thought one of you might reconsider. Might decide grad school and normal life sounded better than underground mystical vision quest with uncertain outcomes." She pulled seven flashlights from her backpack, handed them out. "But you're here. All seven. That means something."
"What does it mean?" Yuki asked.
"It means the pattern wants to complete. That reality itself is guiding you toward this choice because it's necessary—not predetermined, but probabilistically favored. Consciousness tends toward certain configurations at critical moments. You're one of those configurations."
Thorne led them behind the altar to a door marked MAINTENANCE - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. She pulled out a key, unlocked it, revealed stone stairs descending into darkness.
"Last chance," she said. "Anyone wants to turn back, this is the moment. No judgment, no shame. This is voluntary."
Seven faces, seven decisions, seven frequencies choosing collectively:
"I'm going."
"I'm going."
"I'm going."
Until all seven had committed one final time.
"Then follow me," Thorne said, and started down the stairs. "Stay close. Don't touch the walls. And remember: you're doing this together. Maintain entanglement. If one of you experiences distress, the others will feel it. Support each other. You're the Seven. Act like it."
The stairs spiraled down, down, down. Lia counted steps—thirty, fifty, eighty. Way deeper than basement level. Descending beneath the chapel, beneath the university, beneath the normal world into something older.
The air changed. Got colder. Damper. Smelled like stone and time and something else—something Lia couldn't name but recognized anyway. The scent of places that weren't meant for humans, spaces that existed at angles to normal reality.
They reached a landing. Thorne stopped, turned on a more powerful flashlight, illuminated the space ahead.
A corridor carved from solid stone, walls covered in the same impossible script Lia had seen in the manuscript and in Finch's video. But here it was three-dimensional, crawling across every surface, text that seemed to breathe and pulse with inner light.
"Welcome," Thorne said, "to the Catacombs of Aethelgard. Five hundred years of hidden knowledge. Seven chambers of frequency. The accumulated wisdom of monks who tried to understand consciousness and mostly died trying."
She stepped forward into the corridor.
"The First Chamber is this way. Stay together. Watch your step. And remember: the symbols are alive. They'll respond to your presence, to your consciousness, to your frequency. Let them. Don't fight the resonance. That's how you learn."
They followed her deeper into the catacombs, flashlights cutting through darkness that seemed to press back, that had weight and texture. Lia felt the walls watching her, felt the text reading her consciousness even as she tried to read it.
And beneath everything, a sound: low, deep, rhythmic. Like massive heartbeat echoing through stone.
"What is that?" Marcus whispered.
"That," Thorne said, "is 396 Hz. Foundation frequency. The baseline of conscious existence. You're hearing it because your consciousness is sensitive enough to perceive it directly. As we go deeper, you'll hear the other frequencies too. All seven, all at once, creating harmonic structure that human brains aren't designed to process."
"Sounds fun," Elena muttered.
"It's transformative," Thorne corrected. "Which isn't the same as fun but might be more important."
The corridor opened into a larger space—the First Chamber, Lia realized. The same room from Professor Finch's video, but somehow larger in person, more present. Walls covered floor to ceiling in living text, symbols that moved and shifted and breathed. And in the center, a stone pedestal holding something that glowed with faint blue light.
"The Resonance Key," Thorne said. "Brother Alcuin's greatest discovery. It's tuned to all seven frequencies simultaneously—a physical object that shouldn't exist because it contains contradictory vibrational states. But here it is. Real. Impossible. Essential."
She gestured for them to form circle around the pedestal.
"Before we go further, you need to understand something. The chambers will show you things. Visions, memories, possibilities. Some of what you see is real—actual events from other Earths, from previous ages, from potential futures. Some is symbolic—consciousness using metaphor to communicate concepts that can't be expressed directly. And some is purely personal—your own mind processing the frequencies through your individual psychological framework."
"How do we tell the difference?" Grace asked.
"You don't. Not immediately. You experience everything, observe everything, integrate everything. Later, with distance, you can analyze. But in the moment, you just witness."
She placed her hand on the Resonance Key. It pulsed brighter.
"I'm going to activate the First Chamber's full frequency. You'll feel 396 Hz at intensity your nervous system isn't designed to handle. It will be overwhelming. Your consciousness will experience liberation from fear—that's what 396 Hz does, removes subconscious terror, dissolves existential dread. Which sounds positive until you realize how much of your identity is built on fear response. When that dissolves, even temporarily, you might not recognize yourself."
"But we stay ourselves?" Lia asked. "We don't lose identity?"
"You don't lose identity. You lose attachment to identity. Which feels like losing identity but isn't. You're still you—just you without the defensive walls, you without the protective narratives, you without the fear that shapes most human behavior." Thorne looked at each of them. "Ready?"
"No," Marcus said. "But do it anyway."
Thorne pressed down on the Resonance Key.
The chamber filled with sound—not heard through ears but felt through entire body, vibrating in bones and blood and brain. 396 Hz, foundation frequency, the baseline of conscious existence resonating at impossible intensity.
And Lia fell.
Not physically—her body stayed upright, stayed standing in circle with the others. But her consciousness fell through layers of reality, through dimensions of awareness, through foundations she didn't know she had.
She saw:
Herself as child, learning to read, experiencing that first moment of understanding that symbols meant things, that consciousness could be encoded and transmitted across time through text.
Herself as teenager, staying up past midnight researching ancient civilizations, feeling obsessive drive to uncover hidden knowledge, to discover what had been forgotten.
Herself yesterday, in the archives, touching the manuscript, feeling wrongness through her skin, knowing she'd found something that would change everything.
And beneath all of it: fear. Fear of insignificance, fear that her life wouldn't matter, fear that consciousness was temporary and death meant oblivion. Fear driving her to study history, to preserve knowledge, to make some mark that would outlast her temporary existence.
And then the fear dissolved.
Not replaced by courage or confidence—just gone. Like surgical removal, like someone reached into her consciousness and carefully extracted the fear-component without damaging anything else.
Without fear, what was she?
Still Lia. Still history student, still driven to uncover hidden knowledge. But not driven by terror of meaninglessness. Driven by simple curiosity, by love of understanding, by desire to know for knowing's sake rather than as defense against existential dread.
She opened her eyes—when had she closed them?—and saw the others experiencing similar dissolution. Marcus with tears streaming down his face, Elena laughing without sound, David praying in Korean, Yuki's hands moving through complex patterns that might have been language or music or mathematics. Omar staring at the glowing symbols like he could read them, like they were making sense finally. Grace perfectly still, perfectly present, consciousness aware of itself being aware.
Seven minds, seven experiences, but all processing the same fundamental shift: liberation from fear.
The frequency faded gradually, leaving them gasping, reorienting, remembering how to be individual selves again.
"That," Marcus said, voice shaking, "was the most terrifying and most beautiful thing I've ever experienced."
"And that's just the First Chamber," Thorne said. "There are six more. Six more frequencies, six more dissolutions, six more transformations. Are you ready to continue?"
Lia looked at the others, saw her own determination reflected in their faces.
"Yes," she said. "Show us the Second Chamber."
"Show us everything."