1 0. Inititiation

 In a sudden flash of eternity, where even light fades into a whisper, he found himself abruptly torn from the void, awakening in the heart of impenetrable darkness.

A silence so densely woven, that seemed it could halt time itself in its endless tracks, enveloped him with an almost tangible presence.

At first, it was merely the cold touch of the ground beneath his feet that granted him the bittersweet assurance of his existence. Yet gradually, as if his senses were delicately untangling themselves from the thick fog of uncertainty, he began to perceive the moisture in the air, to hear the faint echo of a droplet hitting hard stone.

Slowly, as though he had to fight with every fiber of his being through the crushing weight of this all-encompassing silence, the stranger started to discern his surroundings.

The darkness that enveloped him so completely was not merely an absence of light; it pulsed with its own eerie life, almost breathing heavily in the depths of a time long forgotten.

These first nervous glances to either side, fleeting yet imbued with immense intensity, were like sparks in the all-consuming darkness, in which suddenly a faint green glow ignited.

The absolute void that permeated the space began slowly to reveal itself in initial contours, as if the shadows themselves started to whisper the history of this place to him.

He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the darkness that surrounded him. Then he took a step. A faint echo sounded, seemingly coming from all directions. He ventured further and soon after, he caught sight of a wall before him, adorned with unknown yet seemingly significant symbols.

As he endeavored to decipher these symbols, he noticed that a green shimmer seemed to follow the focus of his eyes. The source of this faint light, enabling him to discern outlines, appeared to be his own eyes - glowing in a dark green. Yet, the light was not strong enough to unveil the deep meanings hidden within the enigmatic symbols.

Before he could delve deeper into the mystery before him, his attention was abruptly seized by a sound that, in the all-encompassing silence, seemed all the more menacing:

Breathing, deep and heavy, echoed through the darkness, sending his blood to freeze in his veins. With a sudden, almost reflexive motion, he turned around, but the mysterious green shimmer surrounding him was insufficient to combat this blackness and reveal the source of that ominous breathing.

A thought flashed through his mind—had this entity noticed his presence before he detected it?

Overcome by inner trembling and shivering, yet he dared to step forward again, moving slowly but with determination toward the source of the sound.

Each beat of his heart seemed to find an echo in the darkness, as if the world itself vibrated with his racing pulse. A thunder in his ears, so loud he feared it might give away his position—for whatever lurked in the darkness was now only a few steps away.

Suddenly - a misstep - an unexpected obstacle that sent him stumbling. A step!? A fleeting moment of panic seized him as he teetered, caught in the whirl of uncertainty. Yet, in a movement as much born of desperation as of a deeply rooted survival instinct, he found solid ground again. His breath quickened as he tried to suppress the rising fear and calm his pounding heart.

Before him, barely discernible in the weak shimmer of the green light that seemed to penetrate the darkness reluctantly, a structure revealed itself, initially resembling a waist-high wall. Yet, upon closer inspection, as he cautiously took another step, the obstacle proved to be something far more complex—a vessel of uncertain depth and purpose, casting mysterious shadows and creating a labyrinth of reflections in the flickering light.

The sparse green glow was filled with an incomprehensible aura, making the vessel shine with a spectral brilliance, as if it were a relic from a long-forgotten era, a guardian of ancient secrets. The sight drew him in magnetically, awakening a mix of fascination and a deep, inexplicable discomfort.

In this suffocating darkness, which seemed to steal every breath and freeze every clear thought, only the ghostly shimmer of a black monolith broke the omnipresence of the dark. It stood in the center of an invisible sea of shadows, a softly glowing island in an ocean of blackness. This fragile light, so delicate and yet with an unyielding presence, did not reveal the secrets hidden within the space, but bathed everything in a light that seemed both an invitation and a warning.

In this moment of abrupt awakening, so inexplicable and full of mysteries, he found himself caught between the curiosity bubbling deep within him and an ancient, instinctive fear that sharpened his senses.

Every muscle in his body tensed, ready for the next step, yet his mind wandered through the complexities of the metaphor of this encounter—a dance with a mystery that revealed as much about himself as it did about the world he was in. The green light playing around the vessel almost seemed like an invitation to delve deeper into the secrets that lay beyond visible boundaries.

With each of his cautious steps, a whisper, the soft murmuring of the walls, seemed to grow louder—a sound that appeared to originate from everywhere and nowhere at once.

When he finally reached the monolith, an icy silence fell over the space, so deep and absolute, that even the sound of his own breathing seemed to vanish within it.

He dared to look into the interior of this structure and for a moment, his breath halted: It appeared bottomless. Yet, as his hand touched the cold, impenetrable stone and felt artistically crafted reliefs, something stirred within him—a vague feeling, as if something unfathomable was moving in the darkness of the monolith.

He leaned forward slightly, daring to peer into this abyss that seemed to return his gaze. In the weak shimmer that reluctantly broke through the darkness, the vague outlines of a figure began to take shape before his eyes. Was this a tomb? A sarcophagus?

Yet, he had to immediately dismiss this thought - utterly astonished, he watched as the chest of the being rose and fell in a quiet, yet unmistakable rhythm.

Questions swirled through his mind: How was it possible that life existed here? How could it survive in this oppressive blackness? Would the same mysterious fate befall him? Or was he being... watched? Panicked by this thought, he turned around. But this mist of pure darkness offered no comfort.

With a mix of caution and inevitable curiosity, he still extended his hand, and his fingers touched cool skin, wrapped in a thin fabric. His finger found another—stiff, cold, an undeniable sign of death!

And yet, defying all logic, this being resisted the knowledge of its own death, breathing against all odds.

He recoiled as his gaze fell upon two weathered hands that seemed to have clung with their last strength to something. A rectangular object that, against all reason, seemed to pulse with a rhythm carrying the echo of a distant heartbeat within it.

Something unfathomable, a force that could neither be named nor understood, seemed to emanate from this mysterious object, drawing him closer as if invisible threads connected him to it. With a hand that paused briefly in the cold air, as if he feared the slightest touch might tear the fragile boundary between the possible and the impossible, he finally reached out for the pulsating object.

In that fleeting moment, as his skin touched the rough, cold surface, a moment that felt as if centuries were drawing breath, it happened:

Suddenly, without a sound to break the silence, two pairs of eyes flickered from the darkness beside him—wide open, glowing with an eerie, supernatural intensity. The air around him seemed to freeze. Time itself held its breath as these gazing abysses fixed him with an intensity that froze the blood.

These eyes, ancient yet filled with an intensity that outlasted flesh, stared at him, piercing him with a gaze fed by both deepest agony and the resignation of countless millennia. They seared into his mind.

These eyes... Full of suffering and agony. Full of knowledge and sorrow. Experienced and old.

TO BE CONTINUED

Every Sunday 12:00 PM

Question of the day:

I have never tried to write in literary English. 

Is this readable for you, language-wise?

Welcome to my debut work! 

Your feedback would be incredibly important and valuable to me. Since I am not a native speaker, I would be incredibly grateful if you could point out any grammatical mistakes or provide general feedback on the language level.

After the story is fully told, I plan to transform it into a graphic novel. I have already been able to celebrate some successes with this, but my goal is to first complete the narrative in its entirety.

However, I will start experimenting with different formats from the weekly release. So don't be surprised if not every chapter has pictures. The narrative takes precedence for now!

I look forward to embarking on this exciting journey together with you.

Your opinions and suggestions are warmly welcome!