Aftermath

The weight of the memories crashed into Aether like a physical force, driving him to his knees. His mind reeled, trying to process the cascade of images flooding his consciousness—fragments of a past both familiar and foreign.

The darkness beneath him transformed. Its pitch-black surface rippled, morphing into something else entirely. Liquid mercury seeped upward, gleaming with an otherworldly luminescence.

It moved with predatory intent, wrapping around his legs like living chains. Aether watched, transfixed, as his lower limbs slowly sank into the quicksilver.

"Is that all?" he stammered, his voice fracturing under the strain. There was a hollow space in his memories now—a void where something important had once resided.

The exchange had been made: one memory given, countless others received. But something was wrong. It didn't feel like just one.

The origin of the First Ancestor now burned with crystal clarity in his mind, yet the price of that knowledge left him oddly incomplete.

He knew the ancestor's name—but his mother's voice? Gone.

Her lullaby, the way she tucked his collar, the smell of her skin in springtime—all vanished. Only her cries remained:

"Dig 'nard. Dig or we die."

"He really is a monster at heart, though he has his reasons," Aether whispered, awe creeping into his voice.

The mercury pulsed, as if in response. Without realizing it, he slid deeper into the metallic pool, surrendering to its pull.

The dimension warped. Reality bent like light through a prism.

Colors without names spilled across his vision. Space folded and unfolded in impossible patterns.

Panic seized him as the liquid rose past his chest. He thrashed, broke the surface with a desperate gasp. His lungs burned as he inhaled whatever passed for air in this place.

"Not yet!" he cried, voice echoing strangely. "What happens after the war? Whisper—come back!"

His words turned frantic as the mercury dragged at him. "I still have a number of—"

The liquid claimed him again, silencing his protest.

Only bubbles remained, each carrying fragments of his voice to the surface.

"I still have memories."

Each bubble broke like a dying star. The mercury stilled into perfect mirror-smoothness, reflecting nothing but the darkness above—a metallic shroud over secrets untold.

Aether erupted from the surface of the mirror, convulsing like something being born. He clawed at the smooth floor, dragging himself into reality, trailing silvery residue behind.

His chest heaved with ragged breaths. Every inhale burned like glass shards. His normally amber eyes blazed crimson—bloodshot, wild.

Veins throbbed at his temples with each frantic heartbeat.

"No, no, no," he rasped, voice raw and broken. Trembling fingers reached for the mirror's surface.

Each attempt met unyielding glass. The surface rippled tauntingly, just beyond his reach.

Aether pounded his fists against the barrier. Pain shot up his arms with every strike. Dull thuds echoed through the chamber like distant war drums.

"I still need—"

His words choked off, smothered by frustration.

His knuckles smeared blood across the glass, but he felt nothing. The need to return consumed him.

The Whisper watched, that twisted smile still too wide. Its jaws split like fractured mirrors. A shimmer crawled across its skin like living script.

Its presence mocked Aether's desperation.

He thrashed harder. Nails scraped the mirror, screeching like screaming metal. Curved scratches formed, then healed in moments.

"I guess that's all the public information," he growled through clenched teeth, speaking more to the void than to any listener.

He pressed his palm flat against the mirror—resignation in the gesture.

"Yes," the Whisper said, emotionless but tinged with sadistic satisfaction.

"If you'd like, you can exchange more memories. See different points of view of the same story?"

Its voice oozed through the air like poisoned honey, bypassing reason and speaking directly to that scholar's hunger inside him.

"It surely will give you newfound understanding."

Aether smiled bitterly. Something dark bloomed in his gaze. "It's an addiction," he said, the weight of realization thick in every word.

"What's one more memory?" the Whisper coaxed, circling like smoke. "You've already given so much… what's a little more?"

"Just one more, then I'll stop. Just one more. Just…"

His voice slowed, each word like a puzzle piece in a terrible truth. "That's why there are so many memories here. You lure people with knowledge, with the fact that this place has existed for sages knows how long."

His words gained momentum, each one striking like a hammer on anvil. "It's enough proof for people to give away their most precious knowledge—something so delicate—for something they think to be better: the experience of someone else."

He paused. Breathed in.

The air was thick with the ghosts of others who'd stood where he stood. Scholars. Curious minds. Tragic fools.

He laughed bitterly.

"So many of us think truth is just another thing to archive. Something to own. As if reading horror makes you immune to it.

But truth isn't something you shelve—it's something you survive. It clings to you like ash after a fire.

You can't catalog a wound and pretend it never hurt."

Silence settled.

Then, with the weight of a tombstone, Aether said:

"I'm done. Lead me back to the entrance."

"Entrance—" the Whisper began, voice silk-smooth, ready to draw him in again.

But Aether cut through it like a blade. "The one and only entrance of the grand Bibliotheca," he said. Each word exact, deliberate.

"The one in the current time period. During the event of me speaking now.

The entrance to the memories of the beings encased beneath. The entrance to the past."

The words clicked into place like the tumblers of a lock—airtight and unyielding.

The truth settled between them:

This was no mere library.

It was a trap.

A cycle.

A seduction of knowledge paid for in selfhood.

And Aether had seen through it.

The Whisper, stripped bare by truth, could only comply. It turned and led the way, a reluctant guide.

As they walked, other Whispers drifted through the space like shards of forgotten speech.

Some spiraled lazily upward. Others paced the mirror's ledges with graceful familiarity.

"Can I ask your title skill?" the Whisper leading him inquired. "Just the title should be good."

It stopped. Ripples shimmered in the air, as though reality itself hesitated.

"Why should I tell you that—" Aether began, defenses rising.

But the Whisper's next words slipped through like a blade.

"Ah, there you are," it said, fascinated. "You seem to pop in and out of existence."

It couldn't remember if he'd ever had a body… or if he'd always been the observer. The echo. The reader.

A chill ran down Aether's spine.

"Yeah… I'm used to that," he murmured.

He glanced at his gloved hands as if seeing them anew. "I can do that," he whispered—less a declaration, more a question. He flexed his fingers once. Somewhere deep inside, he swore he heard the faintest echo: 'Dig, 'nard.'

"You think you left.

But some never make it back.

Tell me, Aether… how long do you think you will last?"