(Error! Failed to terminate.
Error! The subject is resisting termination.
Voting Protocol will now commence.)
A vast, boundless emptiness unfolded before what could be called "space." It was neither light nor darkness, but something existing beyond both — a place where the mind could not fully take root, where concepts of distance, time, and identity themselves seemed irrelevant.
Within this void, 217 Entities gathered.
They had no fixed forms. Each appeared as a shifting blur of color and distortion, a ripple of perception that refused definition. To look directly upon them was to feel the mind unravel. Shapes that should not exist flickered and warped in the corner of vision; colors that could not exist in any physical spectrum bled and collided. To perceive them was to lose the concept of self entirely, to feel your thoughts evaporate as if they had never existed.
They were known collectively as "The Nameless Convocation."
A deep, ancient voice, layered and vast as if it were both everywhere and nowhere, reverberated through the void. It carried the weight of untold eras, the kind of sound that could crush lesser awareness into dust while speaking no single word.
"So… the Anomaly has resurfaced once again," it said. Each syllable reverberated against thoughts like heavy stones thrown into a silent ocean. "From a low-tier world, no less. After two eons of silence."
Another presence stirred. Its tone was sharp, jagged — cold, like frost scraping across steel. "An anomaly that survives a termination protocol is no longer a mere irregularity. It is a threat to the structure itself."
A third Entity pulsed faintly, its voice layered and distant, as if speaking through the memory of wind across stone. "Threat or not, it cannot be destroyed through conventional means. Termination has already failed. That much is clear."
A low ripple of distortion passed through the Council, like waves of tension vibrating in the very substance of existence.
"Then what do you propose?" one demanded, its presence slicing the void like a knife through shadow.
"Allow it to exist freely? To grow beyond our reach?"
"That would be reckless," replied another, its voice tight with authority, but beneath it, a flicker of unease could be felt.
"Yet destruction is equally meaningless if it cannot be enforced," a fourth intoned, the words heavy with centuries of observation and calculation.
Silence followed — not empty, but heavy with the weight of consideration. Not a single thought was wasted; every fraction of awareness was devoted to the calculus of reality itself.
Then a calmer, measured voice emerged, layered in patience and inevitability. "There remains one option that preserves balance: Resurrection. Let it return, bound by causality, confined within progression once more. If it is truly an anomaly… then let the Record itself test it."
Murmurs echoed across the void, twisting and folding upon themselves like smoke caught in a vacuum.
"To revive it is to gamble with order," one objected, a ripple of dread passing through the assembly.
"To erase it is to admit failure," another countered, sharper, insistent, as if the very notion of incompleteness were unbearable.
The debate intensified. Waves of pressure and thought collided without sound or motion. Agreements formed and dissolved like sandcastles in a tidal wave; objections clashed like shards of obsidian against invisible armor. Concepts older than time itself — notions of existence, void, law, and entropy — were weighed against necessity and chance.
At last, the void fell still. Not empty, but resolved.
A final declaration resonated through the emptiness, echoing with the authority of aeons.
Voting Results:
Resurrection — 107
Destruction — 105
Neutral — 5
A narrow margin, barely tipping the scales of cosmic decision.
"So be it," the ancient voice declared, carrying the weight of inevitability. "By majority will… Resurrection is approved."
The space itself seemed to shift, as if reality itself acknowledged the verdict. Waves of unseen energy rippled through the void, twisting perception, and subtly rewriting the foundations of being.
"Let the Anomaly return," the voice continued. "Not as an error… but as a trial. Let the Records decide whether it will become salvation… or calamity."
Germany — 12/3/2990
I woke to the sound of dripping water.
Cold porcelain pressed against my back. My fingers were half-submerged in a bathtub that hadn't been used in years, the surface pitted and rust-stained. Tiny rivulets snaked across the tiles, echoing softly through the otherwise silent apartment.
The mirror above the sink was cracked, reflecting my face in fractured fragments — pale, alert, unmistakably alive. My eyes stared back at me, alert, suspicious, and yet uncertain. For a moment, I did not move.
Not long ago — or perhaps very long ago — I had no body at all. I had no sense of form, no skin to anchor my awareness. Only consciousness remained, a drifting, unmoored fragment of thought that had felt the weight of the universe pressing down like an invisible tide.
Voices that were not voices. Presences that debated my existence like an error in some cosmic ledger. Judgments delivered in the language of entropy and inevitability. Words I could not fully remember — yet whose echoes persisted in the hidden corners of my mind: Resurrection… Trial… Anomaly…
I rose slowly from the tub, the water clinging to my arms in tiny droplets, sending a shiver down my spine. My phone lay on the sink. The screen glowed softly, the date crawling across it like a whisper: Three days before the Trial begins.
A breath escaped me, halfway between a laugh and a sigh. I touched the edge of the cracked mirror, tracing the fractures with a fingertip, almost expecting them to shift under my touch, as if my reflection were alive.
"So this is how you play it," I murmured.
No. Not a game. Not play. A trial.
I washed my face, steadying my thoughts. The apartment no longer felt like home; the walls, the furniture, even the air — all of it had become irrelevant. The board had reset. But I had not.
I booked the earliest flight I could find. Anywhere that might put me closer to what was coming.
Egypt — Two Days Later
The heat struck me like a living thing as soon as I stepped into the open air. Dry, ancient, unforgiving. The land itself seemed to remember things that the rest of the world had long forgotten. Whispers of memory, of past civilizations, brushed past my consciousness like the edges of a dream.
I did not head for the cities. They were too recent, too shallow to contain the weight I sought. Instead, I followed fragments of memory and instinct southward. Past crumbling villages. Past ruins half-buried in sand and time. Past lands that seemed to hum with the resonance of history so old it predated anything human could name.
By the time the sun dipped low, painting the desert in shades of copper and shadow, I stood before the remains of an ancient structure.
Barely standing. Stone pillars fractured, worn smooth by centuries of wind and storm. Hieroglyphs, half-erased, clung stubbornly to walls like ghosts refusing to fade. It might once have been a temple, or a court, or something built before either word had meaning. The weight of its history pressed on me.
The air was heavy. Not with heat, not with sand, but with judgment. A stillness that felt as though the world itself were holding its breath.
Deep inside, past collapsed corridors and shattered carvings, I found it.
On a stone altar, worn smooth by centuries of neglect, rested a small statue. Black stone. Perfectly preserved.
Anubis.
The jackal-headed god stood in silent judgment. One hand held a curved scythe; the other, the scales of balance. Death and order fused into a single, merciless calm. The eyes of the statue seemed almost alive, reflecting neither light nor shadow, but a certainty that chilled the air around me.
I did not reach for it. I could not. I simply stood there, breathing in the stillness, feeling the weight of inevitability settle around me.
The voices that had once argued over my fate had fallen silent. But here… here, I could feel something different. Something like the beginning of their verdict taking form. A slow, grinding inevitability.
"…So this is where it begins," I murmured.
Not with power. Not with glory. Not with the chaos I had once imagined.
But with inevitability.