In the middle of the night, the wind suddenly picked up. Mikhail's window opened with a soft thud, the wood vibrating slightly, while the thin curtains lifted and danced wildly in the dark. Right in front of the table, the Scriptura Caelestis, which had been closed, slowly opened by itself. Its pages were turned by the wind, waving like grass swept by a natural breeze, opening from front to back and then from back to front, as if the book were breathing.
Cold air seeped through the plain cloth covering Mikhail's body. He remained asleep with a blank expression and calm breathing. However, his forehead slowly furrowed.
His consciousness entered something.
Not an ordinary dream.
Not an image.
Not a sound.
Darkness came first.
Then white appeared softly, faintly, like mist painted by light without a source. The white did not remain still, it moved slowly, flowing without direction.
Around it, blue appeared.
Small dots like stars, but not stationary. They moved, passing each other, then forming thin lines that stretched without limits.
The lines resemble threads.
Threads from all directions.
Threads that are not tied to anything, yet connected by their shared existence.
Then water appears.
Not dripping.
Not flowing from above.
The water simply appears between the intertwined threads of light. It stretches out, forming a stream.
The stream becomes a river.
An endless river.
It flows through the darkness, through the white mist, through the blue stars that keep moving as if the river is the path, and the universe is merely the backdrop around it.
And Mikhail stands there, without a body, only consciousness observing.
But the flow changes. The river bends, heading toward him.
His consciousness catches one thing: danger.
He ran. The hard, cold ground beneath his feet was immediately covered with grass that grew too fast, spreading like thin hands trying to hold him back. He ran faster, but the river chased him silently, without splashes, without anger. When he was trapped, the water touched him and swallowed him.
His body was swept away by the current. He tried to rise, pushing himself toward the surface. When he managed to look up, the landscape changed to land with hills stretching in all directions. But among the land, the threads appeared again, growing from the ground like light plants, forming random lines.
The thread tried to hold him back. Every impact felt like being slapped against hard ground, and the pain spread not only to his body but also to his soul, merging without boundaries, making it difficult to tell what was physical and what was not. Impact after impact hit him without pause, without breathing space, until finally he screamed.
And suddenly
everything stopped.
The water froze.
The thread froze.
The fog, the stars, the current, everything stood still.
As if time had completely stopped.
The pain slowly faded away.
Silence lingered.
He opened his eyes, certain that everything was over.
But he wasn't in his room.
He was in a dark blue room.
Not a room.
Not emptiness.
Something in between.
White and black appeared like ink poured into darkness, mixing to form a mist. From that mist something took shape, a deep blue-black darker than darkness itself.
It shaped a cloak.
A large cloak.
As if worn by darkness itself.
Then a voice was heard.
Not in his ears.
Inside his mind.
"He is the beginning."
Pain pierced his head like thousands of needles. His body curled up, a silent scream breaking out.
And he woke up.
His breath came out rough, like someone who had just come up from underwater. The room was dark and quiet, too quiet, with the window still open and the curtains now still without wind. He sat up slowly, his head throbbing, leaving an echo of something too big to understand, then his hand unconsciously touched his forehead.
Cold. Not the temperature of his skin, but a coldness that came from within.
Mikhail's gaze fell to the table, to the Scriptura Caelestis lying closed but slightly tilted, as if it had just been touched. He opened it, and the page opened to the part he had read that afternoon.
"God created kings from His own substance..."
Below that sentence was a blank space, a void that felt like it was waiting. A sentence popped into his head without him thinking about it, and his heartbeat immediately changed.
He is the beginning.
Outside, the night sky looked the same, but its arrangement felt shifted, as if an invisible line had changed and the entire sky had adjusted itself. The world still looked like the same world, but it no longer stood in the same place, and for the first time Mikhail realized something more frightening than his dreams: this was not the end of something. This was the beginning.
He lay back down, forcing his body to touch the mattress as before. He positioned himself in the same way, closing his eyes tightly, as if by imitating his state before falling asleep, everything could return to normal. But sleep did not come. His mind was too noisy, and even though his heart was no longer racing, a slight tension hung in his chest like something unfinished.
He opened his eyes again. The ceiling of the room looked the same, the shadow of the wardrobe in the corner of the room was the same, the sounds of the night outside were the same.
Everything was the same.
That was precisely what made him uneasy.
He swallowed slowly, his throat dry. "What just happened..." he murmured softly, and his own voice sounded foreign to his ears. He closed his eyes again, trying to recall the memory, but every time the images of fog, threads, rivers, and dark robes appeared, his chest felt pressed by something invisible. "Just a dream…" he whispered, trying to convince himself, but he knew one thing: ordinary dreams fade away. This one didn't. The details were still intact, the feeling still lingered on his skin, and even the coldness on his forehead hadn't completely disappeared.
His hand touched his forehead again. It still felt different, not painful, not feverish, but like the trace of something that had no temperature.
Mikhail's gaze shifted to the table. Scriptura Caelestis was still there, silent, but its presence now felt waiting. His breath shortened without him realizing it. He quickly turned his face away.
"What does this dream mean?" he thought, and the most honest part of him feared the possible answer.
He closed his eyes again, this time not to sleep, but to escape his own thoughts. But the more he resisted, the clearer the echo returned.
He is the beginning.
Not like a memory.
More like something planted.
His body shivered slightly. He took a deep breath, held it, then exhaled slowly, trying to calm something inside him that had no name. But deep down, a small awareness began to form: he wasn't afraid of the dream, nor of the darkness.
He was afraid that it was real.
And even more frighteningwas that it wasn't over yet.
He sat down.
For a few seconds, he just stared at the blank page.
Then he began to write.
His handwriting was a little shaky at first, but gradually stabilized.
The first night after Lumina. I woke up from something that wasn't an ordinary dream. There were no clear images, but there was space, threads of light, and something like a living river. I had no body, but I still felt pain. The feeling was real, not like a dream. There was another presence. Large. No clear shape. I didn't see its face. But it saw me.
The pen paused for a moment. His breathing could be heard in the silent room.
He continued.
There was a sentence that I heard, not with my ears, but inside my head: 'He is the beginning.' I don't know who 'He' is. I don't know if this is just a nightmare or something else. But it doesn't feel like imagination. It feels like... a call. Or a warning.
His hand stopped again.
Underneath the note, almost without realizing it, he rewrote one line:
He is the beginning.
He stared at the writing for a long time. Its meaning was unclear, but strangely, his chest felt a little lighter, as if some of the burden had been transferred to the paper.
He slowly closed the notebook, the sound of the paper meeting each other small but real, enough to confirm that this world could still be touched.
Mikhail returned to the bed and lay down. The darkness of the room no longer felt the same, but his body was too tired to fight anymore. His breathing slowly became regular. His mind was still moving, but no longer spinning wildly, more like a calm current flowing beneath the surface.
His eyes felt heavy.
His body finally gave in.
And this time, without him realizing exactly when, sleep came.
Not because of calmness.
But because of exhaustion.