In a room far from the void, a place beyond the eyes and presence of time.
It looked much like the inside of a cathedral, long and stretching too far in one direction, while too narrow in another.
Hanging above the long obsidian table were orbs that pulsed with a cold, faint light.
In the middle was a table carved from a single piece of some material that looked like polished stone. It groaned every so often.
There, they gathered. A group that did not seem right for this place, or this world.
First, to the far left, sat a bloated creature. His skin was raw and oily with pale pink like old meat. Fat hung from his neck in uneven folds, and tufts of greasy black hair sprouted from patches across its scalp.
His eyes too small, nose upturned like a pig's, tusks curling out from a split lip. It snorted, inhaling the scent of whatever dripped from the long glass beside him. It was a drink, or a fluid that seemed to move as if something inside it was alive.
Second, beside the gluttonous thing, was a woman.
Slenderly poised and cruel in her stillness. She wore a second skin of sheer silk, dyed the color of drowned roses. Her gloves were forged from flexible yransculsent glass that shimmered with every move.
Her eyes, when she opened them, seemed like they were also made of glass. The orbs didn't seem right, as if it was impossible to fit such shiny orbs into one's skull.
Her lips were violet, and they didn't smile, she just stared at the boy who say infront of her.
Fourth, a boy, no more than nine or ten in appearance. Dressed in simple shorts, socks folded up, and a bow-tie far too large for his frame. In his lap he cradled a classic jukebox, out of place, and somehow functional.
Music played from it. Something between a carnival march and a funeral waltz, sometimes it would pause itself and play in reverse.
He was tapping his foot, and whatever sat next to him didn't like that.
Forth, hunching over his seat like he was too tall to fit in it properly, was a man one with many arms.
His body was gaunt, but overgrown, with Insect-like limbs folded against his back.
Skin stretched too tightly over his hunched frame, revealing wiry muscles and strange scars. His fingers were too long, as each hand had at least seven, and each made a clicking sound when they moved.
His head was partially bald, with thin white hair slicked back across a skull-like scalp.
From his face protruded many mouths. Some sewn shut, some half open, some whispering nonsense as if they were speaking to each other.
But only one eye sat in the middle of his forehead, unblinking, and yellowed like rotted ivory.
Fifth, sitting further down the table, cloaked in white so pure it nearly hummed, was a woman of impossible serenity. Her gown draped down the side of her chair like flowing milk.
Her hair was also white and fanned behind her like an albino peacock's tail. But what truly stood out were the wings.
Tiny, delicate wings sprouted from her scalp where eyes should've been. Not decorative, but real, especially how they would move. Behind the wings was what seemed like a trail of blood that rained some of the feathers, seemingly from her concealed eyes.
Sixth, at the far end was empty, for now.
The other four seats were occupied by shadowy figures that were too hard to be seen, similar to holograms of others that should have also been at this gathering. They twitched as they waited.
The music continued. Breaking the silence of the room.
The child giggled, pressing a dial on the jukebox.
That was when the insectile man leaned forward.
His body creaked, as his mouths twitched. Two of them laughed. One of them hissed.
And he spoke, not from his main mouth, but from one embedded into his collarbone.
"Hey... if you don't shut that toy of yours, I might have to make you into one."
The child didn't stop the music, his laughter was paused for a moment… then he looked.
Just one glance.
Eyes that should've belonged to a human boy.
They weren't.
They weren't.
The insect-man recoiled a fraction. One of his mouths stammered. Another bit down on his own lip.
Then came a femenine voice.
"Look who was going to lose a limb…"
The woman in the glass gloves stretched one long finger down the table.
The pig-creature snorted, sloshing his drink onto his own belly.
The white lady did not stir, but smiled at the boy.
The boy tapped another button on the jukebox, and now it played something slow. A lullaby in reverse.
Then… the door opened, and he entered...
Atall man, clothed in a black tailcoat that didn't have a single wrinkle, and shoes that didn't make noise.
His head… was not his head. It was a goat's. Or something similar. A mask, perhaps. Ornate, with curled horns that twisted like branches. Atop, was a top hat which was perfectly perched.
He said nothing, but walked the length of the table, and everything went still.
The boy turned down the volume. The insect-man folded in. The pig licked his tusk while looking away. All, as the man in the goat-head mask sat down at the far end of the table.
The man in the goat-head mask raised both arms with slow professionality, his gloved palms open, as though presenting a subtle threat woven in hospitality.
"I thank you all for attending the gathering," he said.
His voice echoed from behind the goat mask in a calm, measured voice, and too soft for how clearly it reached them all.
The gluttonous pig-thing belched wetly, shifting in his seat like it didn't care whether or not that was sarcastic.
At the center of the table, the woman in white spoke next. Her voice was breathy, barely audible, as if borrowed from the feathers twitching gently over her eyes.
"I think it's time we know why we're here."
As she said it, her head tilted just slightly, and the tiny wings shielding her vision fanned outward once, but still concealing her eyes.
The goat-headed man nodded once. Slowly.
He leaned back into his seat. The light caught his gloves as they folded in front of him, and then, without lifting his tone even a fraction, he said:
❝It stopped watching.❞
The room did not move. But it felt like it held its breath.
The woman in glass gloves cocked her head to the side, as ruby lips curled upward slightly in disbelief.
"How long has it been since that ever happened..?"
The insect-man hissed through a mouth sewn halfway shut. Another of his mouths chuckled nervously, while the other muttered.
"Are you suggesting," he said from the fourth mouth in his cheek, "that the void blinked?"
The child leaned back in his chair, turning the knob on the jukebox lazily until it let out a low, static-laced hum.
"The void doesn't blink," he said flatly, as if announcing a reminder. "But it could."
The pig gurgled with a laugh that made something on his chin jiggle grotesquely.
❝Ohhh… now that is interesting. Ain't had a good distraction since my last farmhouse!❞
The goat-headed man did not respond to any of them at first.
He exhaled.
Then he finally answered.
"It has… become invested."
His words fell like pins.
The wings on the white lady's face fluttered twice, slower this time. She turned her head an inch toward the speaker.
"In what?"
The goat-masked man tilted his head, like he was mimicking confusion without feeling it.
"Sonething that doesn't make her blink this long."
A long silence.
The insect-man's eye narrowed. His limbs shifted slightly.
"How did you find out?"
"Look around you and you will see," the goat-man replied, folding one leg neatly over the other. "Do you feel it watching? Do you not feel more… liberated?"
Even the boy stopped turning the knob on his jukebox.
A faint smile tugged at the woman in glass gloves.
"You may be right," she paused as she trailed the edge of the table. "but it seems that you know more than we should, and that is… dangerous, architect."
The word echoed strangely and ugly in the room.
The pig-thing wheezed out a cough.
"Pardon me—choked on bile, but Ayla makes so much sense now. Surprisingly."
They stared at him. Not with rage, nor curiosity, but with that tight-lipped silence that follows suspicion.
Their eyes were the only things visible. Wide and too perfect in shape to be natural.
They leaned in, though not physically, but perceptually. The world around him tilted slightly, and suddenly he was at the center of a narrowing lens.
They knew he knew something.
For the first time, one of the shadowed figures at the end of the table shifted.
Not audibly.
It began to write on a piece of paper, with a language that was too hard to read, definitely not a human known one, then passed it to the goat headed man, or as Ayla referred to him. The architect.
He read it, as the goat's eyes didn't move. They just got directed where the head moved.
The goat-headed figure leaned slightly forward, placing his gloved hands flat against the obsidian table. The light made the horns of his mask gleam like bone.
"If the void has turned toward something… it means the rest of us have been left… unlit." He said.
The boy smirked.
The woman in white inhaled softly.
Even the glutton straightened, barely.
"You all now have your own void to act in. So, the choice is yours. Will you indulge or crawl back to your pitty corners?"
Everyone looked at him, one last time, knowing too well that, if there was a chance to crawl out, it was now.
Back in the void…
Rowel was sprawled on his stomach, with his legs kicking in the air.
His coat bunched beneath him. He carefully examined the cards in his hand.
Directly across from him, perched a black rabbit.
Sleek fur with upright ears, and two impossibly glossy eyes. It held its own hand of cards.
Somehow.
The rabbit didn't blink. It didn't breathe. It slapped down a card on the ground.
Rowel squinted at the cards. Then at the rabbit.
"Okay," he said slowly, voice soaked in suspicion, "I'm just gonna say this again…" the rabbit remained motionless. as Rowel spoke again. "You're cheating."
Still no reaction.
Rowel turned toward Ravenne, throwing one hand into the air like a lawyer resting his case.
"Did you see that!?"
From her throne made from the same surface as the ground beneath her, she watched.
She sat high above, back impossibly straight, one leg crossed over the other.
Her eyes were narrowed in disappointment.
Like she'd brought a child into her ancient cathedral of madness and he started drawing on the walls with crayons.
Rowel laid down on his side now, his voice still directed at the rabbit.
"You know," he mumbled, shuffling his cards like they'd wronged him, "You're such a sore loser.."
The rabbit flicked an ear, that's all.
The throne behind him creaked, not because Ravenne moved, but because reality was adjusting around her posture.
She finally spoke.
Her voice drifted down like silk soaked in cold water.
❝You do realize… it cannot respond.❞
Rowel blinked.
He stared at the rabbit.
Then back at her.
"Wait—he can't talk?"
❝No.❞
"Then who the hell's been talking trash for the last fifteen minutes?!"
The rabbit slowly slid a card across the playing field between them.
A joker.
It had Rowel's face on it. Rowel sat upright before speaking again.
"Okay, that's just personal."
Ravenne exhaled softly. Not quite a sigh. Just enough to let the moment know it was being tolerated.
She didn't stop watching him. It was as if the entire void was watching him, reviewing him, and inspecting his every move. The longer he stayed there, the more ridiculous she found him to be.
However, something just beneath the moment wasn't right… something in him didn't seem readable.
❝Get up Rowel.❞
She said, before moving off her throne, as she walked towards him, now standing right above.