The First Whisper
"Power never arrives quietly. It devours the silence, then waits… to see who screams first."
---
EXIN hadn't slept in two days.
Not because he couldn't.
But because he feared what would happen if he did.
The moment his eyes closed, the dreams came—if they were dreams at all.
Visions of a place outside reality.
A void of writhing shapes and whispering stars.
Symbols that bled.
Structures that breathed.
And a voice—always the same—calling his name in a tone that didn't belong to any language known to man.
---
Inside the dimly lit room, he stared at the reflection in the cracked mirror.
What stared back wasn't him anymore.
Not entirely.
The faint veins of light under his skin pulsed—like parasites feeding from within.
They twisted slowly, as if aware of being watched.
He pressed his fingers to the mirror.
The reflection smiled.
He did not.
---
[SYSTEM INTEGRATION: 2%]
[WARNING: Host Mental State – Fluctuating]
[First Trial Initiation – Imminent]
The panel blinked before his eyes, etched into the darkness like a curse.
And still, he stayed silent.
Because something in him already knew.
---
He had felt it.
The shift.
The world around him had gone wrong—subtly, violently wrong.
His shadow no longer followed the rules of light.
It lingered. Twitched.
Sometimes, it moved before he did.
And at night, something knocked from behind the walls.
Rhythmic. Hungry.
Like reality itself was watching him breathe.
---
Then, without sound, without fanfare—it arrived.
A figure tore itself out of the black corner of the room.
No footsteps. No breath.
Just presence.
Its body was robed in shadows woven from screams.
Its head was a blank void.
And from its chest bled ink that floated midair, refusing to fall.
It had no eyes… but it saw everything.
---
"You are the wound," it said.
The words were not spoken—they invaded his mind, like broken glass and forgotten truths.
"You carry what was never meant to be remembered."
---
EXIN stood.
Not because he was brave.
But because fear had lost its shape days ago.
The system had warned him.
Now, it was silent—as if it, too, feared this thing.
---
The creature glided forward.
No steps. No weight.
"You bear the Spiral. You are the echo of Nothing. You are the one chosen by absence."
Its voice became many. Male. Female. Monstrous.
All speaking at once.
All wrong.
EXIN clenched his fist.
[Command: APPLY – NULL-PULSE]
His body moved before he understood what he had done.
Light collapsed inward.
The air howled.
The void entity shuddered violently—its formless face cracking open into infinite mouths.
Then—
Silence.
The thing disintegrated, leaving behind only a shard of obsidian floating in the air, dripping with lightless blood.
---
[Trial Completed]
[System Integration: 7%]
[NEW FUNCTION: NULL-PULSE ACQUIRED]
EXIN knelt.
Not from weakness.
From weight.
The world felt heavier now, like every breath was borrowed.
And through the floorboards, he could hear it:
The Tower… had turned its gaze.
---
Far above the planet, hidden beyond the veil of stars,
a massive spire that shouldn't exist
opened a single, burning eye.
It saw him.
And for the first time in 19,000 years—
It remembered.
---