Hillcrest Street lay in a muted silence beneath the silver haze of Northern Crestwood's evening fog. The lamps along the sidewalks hummed with their low electric tune, casting a soft amber wash across rain-damp bricks. The wind carried the faint scent of metal and old dust—the kind of smell that lingered after weeks of sirens and sleepless nights. The world felt paused, as though waiting for someone to exhale.
Inside one of the narrow apartments stacked along the street, Elijah sat alone before his desktop, its faint blue glow painting shadows across his face. The room was still—save for the quiet clicking of a mouse and the faint whir of the fan inside the aging machine. A mug of cold coffee sat forgotten beside a mess of papers, half-covered by scribbles, dates, and torn clippings.
He scrolled through the KnowSearch home page, fingers hovering with restless precision. His eyes reflected the moving text—a shimmer of curiosity beneath layers of exhaustion.
That conversation back at WELB 7… he thought. Those cable guys were arguing about something bizarre—that whole talk about spiritual truth and perception. What was it the short one said? Something about how a person could be their own world, experiencing themselves instead of the world around them…?
The memory of it made him frown. And he said that some scientist—Dr. Rex Whar—wrote about it. A book about people becoming their own worlds. The name lingered in his mind, distant but sharp.
He typed it slowly into the search bar: Dr. Rex Whar.
The screen blinked once, loading. Then lines of text, thumbnails, and publication links began appearing like lights flickering in a tunnel. On the upper-right corner of the results page, an image surfaced—the face of a man in his early thirties, with sharp cheekbones and a narrow jaw, the kind of face that was both intellectual and oddly detached. His glasses sat low on his nose, his brown hair swept aside in a style that didn't try to impress. Handsome, maybe, but in a quiet, analytical way.
Elijah leaned closer. "So that's you," he murmured under his breath. "Dr. Rex Whar."
He clicked the first link—Rex Whar: The Visionary Scientist Behind Modern Synthetic Consciousness.
A banner expanded, showing Whar shaking hands with a row of suited officials. The caption beneath called him "one of the country's most brilliant physicists and a pioneering thinker in artificial technology, biomedicine, and metaphysical physics."
Elijah's eyes lingered on the text. Physicist. Inventor. Philosopher. He kept scrolling, reading quietly to himself.
Dr. Whar studied at the prestigious El University, considered the nation's most sought-after institution of higher learning—where he graduated top of his class in physics, ancient medicine, and artificial intelligence. His work combines modern science and arcane philosophy, bridging the rational with the mythical.
Elijah tilted his head slightly. El University… yeah, that's the one every bright kid dreams of. The impossible one.
He scrolled further. A section header caught his attention: Affiliations – The World Architects.
He clicked. The article expanded into longer paragraphs, formatted like an old academic report.
The World Architects are an obscure organization believed to have existed since pre-industrial centuries. Their earliest members were astronomers and alchemists who taught warlocks the spiritual principles behind existence—knowledge they claimed came from observing the divine architecture of the cosmos.
Elijah's finger froze on the mouse. The words divine architecture pulsed in his mind. He kept reading.
Over time, their teachings drew the attention of early rulers, who sought wisdom from them to strengthen their kingdoms. But as influence grew, so did ambition. The Architects moved from being advisors to becoming masters. They replaced monarchs, manipulated councils, and began shaping the ancient world from behind curtains of knowledge. By the eighteenth century, they had buried themselves beneath the surface of global progress, guiding revolutions, controlling disease outbreaks, and silently orchestrating political reform.
Elijah exhaled softly. So they went from star-watchers to kingmakers…
He scrolled again. There was another article linked at the bottom—Darknet Exposé: Practices of the World Architects. He hesitated, then clicked.
The site looked old and unpolished, built by someone who didn't care for appearances. The headline blinked against a black background: "The Nine States and the Eight Deities."
He leaned closer.
The Architects believe the universe was shaped by eight Deities and one Absolute Creator from which they emerged. A person, through disciplined awareness, can ascend nine states of being—with the ninth being union with the Absolute. In that state, reality itself aligns with the observer's awareness.
Elijah frowned, whispering, "Nine states… like nine levels of existence."
He read further.
The Codex of the Descenders—an ancient manuscript of unknown origin—details the beings that dwell beyond mortal perception. These Descenders, soldiers or disciples of the Deities, were cast down after a great conflict in higher dimensions. Their descent shaped early humanity, evolving them into conscious beings.
His heartbeat quickened slightly. The scroll bar slid down under his fingertip.
Each fall birthed a civilization—each civilization learned the higher states, only to fall again during cosmic wars. The loop repeated, weaving parallel versions of the same world. The Absolute, the highest Deity, realized that the cycle was caused by its own reflection—the Deity of Imbalance, a necessary paradox ensuring existence's continuation.
Elijah's chair creaked as he leaned back. His mind raced.
Imbalance… he thought. That word again.
His gaze drifted to the faint reflection of his own face on the screen. The Architects believe in nine states, with the ninth as the Absolute. The lower ones balance and unbalance each other. That… sounds just like the Azaqor mythology. The incarnation of chaos. Could Azaqor be this Imbalance?
He tapped his finger against his desk. And the Azaqor manuscripts… the ones my adoptive parents found… they were said to be older than recorded civilization. What if those texts came from these Descenders' era?
He scrolled again, the blue glow of the monitor deepening the shadows around his eyes. A restlessness filled his chest—that gnawing sense of connection between myth and conspiracy that wouldn't let him go.
Could my parents—Remy and Calista Isley—have known about this? Were they just archaeologists, or were they part of something deeper? And what about the Halverns? They were too wealthy, too cleanly woven into every rotten secret in Crestwood. Could they be tied to the Architects?
He typed another query: Dr. Rex Whar accolades and achievements.
The search returned an array of public images and news snippets.
One headline read:
Dr. Whar Receives Medal of Merit for Groundbreaking Research on Atomic Consciousness.
Another showed him smiling beside a panel of scientists, under the headline:
World Conference Celebrates Whar's Quantum Awareness Theory.
Then a smaller image caught his eye—a framed photograph. Thirteen individuals stood in formal coats within what looked like a marble hall. The caption read: "The Thirteen Pillars of the Architecture – Founders and Senior Members."
Elijah's cursor hovered over the image. He nearly scrolled past—until something in the background made him pause. Two familiar faces.
He zoomed in.
At first, it was disbelief. Then slow, dawning shock.
Standing just beside Dr. Whar were two people he knew too well—Dr. Remy Isley and Calista Isley. His adoptive parents. The same ones who'd claimed to discover the Azaqor manuscripts ten years ago on that excavation trip that had made them famous.
Elijah's throat went dry. He leaned forward, staring at the screen, reading the names below the photo to be sure.
Remy Isley… Calista Isley.
It was there in clean, undeniable print.
His heartbeat thudded in his ears.
They… they were part of the World Architects?
He blinked, as though the act might change what he was seeing. His chest tightened. Questions piled up faster than he could breathe through them.
Were they researchers, or something else? Did they find those manuscripts by chance—or were they searching for them because of this organization?
He sat back slowly, exhaling a shaky breath. The screen light flickered faintly across his features, catching the restless gleam in his eyes.
"This…" he whispered, voice almost lost to the hum of the desktop, "is getting really interesting."