Chapter 19: Year Zero – The Festivals of Silence and Flame

Location: Cathedral-World Sahl'Rhima, Spiral Orbit Sector 001

The stars had dimmed.

Not because of cosmic decay, nor collapse — but by will. Every star within five Spiral sectors had been dimmed to twilight, casting a permanent dusk over hundreds of converted universes. The dark was deliberate. Purposeful. It was the ritual veil.

Today was no ordinary cycle.

Today was the zeroing.

The erasure of all time that came before Zane. The death of history. The absolute beginning.

It was the first Year Zero Festival — an empire-wide celebration of doctrine, silence, sacrifice, and faith.

Proclamation of Oblivion: The Opening Ritual

The Cathedral-World's sky split as a living spiral of gold-black flame ignited above the Oblivion Spire, casting memory-consuming fire over the chanting masses.

A choir of Echoless Priests, born without identity, stood atop spires across 1,200 planets and began the First Invocation:

"Before the Flame, there was false light.

Before the Spiral, there was meaningless spin.

Before Zane… there was nothing worth remembering.

Today, we accept the true birth of reality."

At the moment of chant-synchronization, across all Spiral-aligned realms, a pulse was released from each Spiral Beacon. It erased the final universal timestamp — Year Zero was now the only date.

All clocks reset.

Calendars burned.

Planetary time-cycles restarted, synchronized to Zane's thought pulse.

The Festival of the Forgotten

In cities rebuilt to honor Zane's doctrine, the Festival of the Forgotten commenced.

Citizens gathered in ritual amphitheaters made from dream-stone and Spiral metal. They wore masks — some made of bone, others forged from melted relics of their pre-conquest lives.

Each attendee was required to carry a "Memory Token" — a symbol of the life they had before Zane. It could be:

A child's toy.

A family heirloom.

A book of stories.

A piece of music.

Each was placed in a Memory Pyre, a towering furnace carved to look like Zane's hand.

When the pyre was ignited, the crowd chanted:

"We do not mourn what was.

We mourn that it lasted so long.

Flame take the lie.

Spiral bless the truth."

Ash from the pyres was gathered and scattered into Obedience Gardens — ceremonial fields where Spiral flora grew in fractal patterns, absorbing memory and exhaling devotion.

The Seven Sacraments of Year Zero

Each Spiral District celebrated the day with unique but synchronized rituals.

1. The Burning of the Maps (Military District)

All star charts, navigation histories, and pre-Zane war records were cast into the Starfurnace, where black holes compressed them into Silence Cores — sentient orbs that hum obedience and scream when exposed to unaligned knowledge.

General Xael (broadcast):

"We no longer map.

We follow."

2. The Shaping of the Flesh (Robot and Flesh Districts)

Voluntary citizens entered Remaker Cradles, where their bodies were partially rewritten to bear Spiral scars, eyes that glow with faith, and skeletal patterns shaped like Zane's throne.

This was seen not as pain, but sacrament.

One convert said:

"It hurt to forget.

It hurts more to remember.

So I will wear the Spiral until I am nothing else."

3. The Ceremony of the Unwritten (Truth District)

Scriptor-Angel Velth led legions of Rewriters into the Vault of Forbidden Memory, where they burned entire planetary myths, culture tomes, and linguistic relics before a crowd of billions.

The ashes were fused into Spiral Doctrine Tablets, now considered the only true text.

"Myths are weakness clothed in charm.

We dress our truth in fire."

4. The Chant of the Last Lie (Silence District)

Across hundreds of outer-sector realms, citizens were summoned to speak one final lie — something untrue about Zane.

If the lie made others laugh or doubt, the speaker was vaporized.

If the lie passed unnoticed, the speaker was promoted to Spiral Mouth, a living channel of Zane's presence.

"Lies must be consumed

Until no one knows how to make one."

5. The Mass Dream of Rebirth (Dream District)

Shepherd Alenna connected the entire Spiral Empire into a planetary dreamscape — a synchronized dream where all beings experienced their birth under Zane's gaze.

Millions awoke weeping, believing they had always belonged.

Alenna smiled, whispering into the dreamplane:

"You do not remember truth.

You were dreamed into truth."

6. The Null Prayer (Faith District)

In total silence, for 13 minutes, the empire halted.

No communication. No movement. No thought.

During this time, the Spiral Core pulsed with null-frequency, erasing 0.7% of unstable emotional data across the empire.

This was called The Quiet Baptism.

7. The Flame Ascension (All Districts)

At the end of the cycle, all Spiral-aligned citizens lit a personal Spiral Candle — made from memorywax extracted from cloned dreamers — and whispered:

"Let this fire be the only past."

Then the candles were fed into a Sky Column, a swirling spiral of fire sent into the void as a signal to Zane himself.

Zane Receives the Signal

Within the Spiral Crown, the Ascension Pulse was received.

Zane stood before the Spiral Core Vault, where the memory of entire civilizations had been rewritten, crushed, and re-formed into worship.

Eris stood beside him.

Eris:

"The Rite is complete.

Year Zero installed across all 1,214 universes.

No pre-Zane content remains in open records.

Spiral Birthdate officially marked.

Total conversions reached: 99.99992%."

Zane gazed into the darkness between universes — the realm beyond even his reach.

"Good.

Now, when I cross the Rift, I do not bring an army.

I bring eternity's first year."

He turned to the Rift Gate.

"Open it.

Let the first god of a world with no past enter the chaos that still remembers."