These interludes have been slower, more reverent, but that is by design. The Sepulcher is not simply a place, it is a living memory of creation, and I wanted you to feel the weight of every step as Christopher records it. In this chapter, the unborn children are no longer silent passengers. For the first time, the Sepulcher itself acknowledges them, marking them as the Flame and Breath.
─── ❖ ────── ❖ ────── ❖ ───
The butterflies did not vanish when they touched us. They drifted ahead like lanterns borne on a secret wind, drawing us deeper into the Sepulcher's throat. Every step we took echoed strangely, as though the stone beneath our boots remembered other pilgrims and their burdens.
The air thickened the further we descended. Not crushing, not suffocating, but insistent, like a hand on the shoulder nudging us onward. Andrea halted mid-step, a shiver rolling through her as she rubbed her arms. Her whisper carried in the hush. "It feels like walking into church before Mass... that silence that's holy, but makes your skin prickle."
Bianca slipped beside her, mimicking the motion as if to chase the chill away. "Yeah," she muttered, "like not knowing if the sermon's going to scold you into guilt or lift you into heaven."
The walls pulsed with gold and bronze, alive and breathing. They did not hiss deceit as I once feared they might. Instead, they hummed low, steady, almost like a lullaby carried through stone. For the women, it seemed a welcome. For me, it was a reminder that I did not belong.
We reached a chamber vast enough to swallow mountains. The air itself seemed to hold its breath. A single flake landed on my cheek. Instinctively, I brushed at it as though it were an insect, only to realize it left behind no damp and no chill. More followed, drifting down from heights unseen, each one glowing faintly as though it carried a secret.
All three of us lifted our palms, unable to resist. The flakes settled there, too heavy to be dust, too soft to be ash, before dissolving straight into our skin. The warmth that spread was subtle but undeniable, like embers hidden in the hearth.
I turned to the women, still marveling at the snowfall that was vanishing into me as though I were meant to drink it in. "Tell me," I asked quietly, "have you ever seen anything so unearthly... and beautiful?"
Bianca stepped closer, her eyes wide, her lips parting as though caught between laughter and tears. "No," she breathed. "But as it seeps into me, I feel warmth, not cold, and..." She held her palm higher, tilted her head, and inhaled. "It smells of sunflowers."
Andrea blinked, sniffed the flakes dissolving against her own skin, then shook her head. "Sunflowers? No. It smells like dandelions just after rain."
I raised my palm and inhaled deeply, the golden flecks already fading into my veins. "Strange," I whispered. "I smell both."
I stumbled back as the golden snow thickened, tumbling faster until it seemed the chamber itself was caught in a storm of light. Within it, I noticed strange eddies, clusters of flakes that spun together in tiny whirlwinds. They scattered the falling snow like playful hands, only for the gaps to be filled again almost instantly.
We all stood with mouths agape. Bianca, ever braver than she claimed, reached toward one of the swirls. "It looks as if they're... playing with us."
The cluster darted away, then swooped back, moving not like wind but like a fish darting through water. It brushed against her, then Andrea, circling their bellies in a teasing spiral.
Andrea gasped, half-laughing, half-astonished. "It tickles." And then, without shame, both women began to twirl with the dancing flakes, their cloaks sweeping out in wide arcs.
My pen slipped from my fingers, clattering to the floor. Words failed me for a moment, but finally I forced them out. "They're not playing with you. Look..." I nodded toward the glittering swirls that lingered at their middles. "...they're nudging your baby bumps more than they are you."
The flakes gleamed brighter at my words, as though acknowledging the truth. My throat tightened. "What could it mean?"
And then the chamber spoke.
It was not earth, not stone, not anything made by hands. It was older. A groan that rolled through the seat of my soul, a vast exhale like the breath of eternity itself. Every golden flake vibrated with the sound, flaring all at once until the chamber burned with soft radiance.
The Sepulcher had not simply allowed them entry. It had marked them.
Stamped them with its truth.
And in that moment, even I, who had sworn to write without bias, understood.
This was no accident.
This was an inauguration.
The unborn Flame and Breath had been named, not by us, but by creation itself.
─── ❖ ────── ❖ ────── ❖ ───
And so the Sepulcher speaks and not in words, but in its own language of gold, snow, and sound older than stone. Christopher records this moment as if it were an inauguration, a crowning before birth.
As we near the end of these interludes, I hope you feel the same mix of awe and tension I do writing them. Soon, Arc Two will begin, and the story will surge forward. Until then, these glimpses into the past are laying the foundation for everything Max, Seth, and the others will face.
What did you think of the Sepulcher's "marking" of the unborn? Did it feel like destiny? Or like the weight of inevitability?