The Voice began again.
All eight figures spoke as one, their words resonating across a world still frozen in disbelief.
"We understand your confusion. So let us do this."
In unison, they opened the books they held. The pages fluttered—once, twice—and then they closed them with a sound that was barely a whisper.
A single second passed.
And every monster, every dinosaur, every creature that had emerged from the rifts across the entire world collapsed.
They fell where they stood—the raptors, the compys, the carnotaurus, the orcs, the goblins, the flying abominations in Ammitt. The Spinosaurus that had been inches from devouring Jean's family crumpled to the ground like a puppet with cut strings. Its massive body hit the earth with a thunderous crash, sending dust and debris into the air.
Then the disintegration began.
Their bodies crumbled, dissolving into fine dust that rose on the wind like ash. The dust scattered, faded, vanished into nothingness—as if these creatures had never existed at all. As if the nightmare of the past hours had been nothing but a collective hallucination.
But the destruction remained. The burning buildings. The broken streets. The bodies of the fallen.
The people of Earth stared in shock.
Jean's mouth hung open. Around him, soldiers who had been fighting for their lives now stood frozen, weapons dangling from limp hands. His family had climbed out of the truck moments ago, seeking the reassurance of open air after being trapped inside for so long. His mother stood with his sister in her arms. His father held his brother's hand. They were all together, clustered near the truck, watching the impossible unfold.
The figures spoke again.
"We know you have questions." A pause, deliberate and weighted. "And we will answer them."
Another pause. The eight beings seemed to survey humanity, their pupil-less eyes taking in every face, every expression, every flicker of emotion.
"The accord we offer is this: we will grant you powers."
A murmur rippled through the camp. Through the world.
"But powers are not given freely. They must be earned. Each of you must complete a task—a trial." The Voice inclined their heads slightly. "We call it 'The Path'."
Jean's mind reeled. 'Task? Trial? Path? What do they mean by that? What kind of powers? What kind of—'
Before he could finish the thought, the figures opened their books again.
This time, when they closed them, the sound was not a whisper.
It was a thunderclap.
The noise spread across thousands of kilometers, a shockwave of pure sound that made every human being clench their ears in agony. Jean screamed, his hands pressed so tightly against his head that he thought his skull would crack. Beside him, Eugene did the same. His parents and siblings writhed in pain just a few feet away.
Then it stopped.
And something began to form in his mind.
Knowledge. Pure, absolute, overwhelming knowledge. It poured into him like water into a drowning man's lungs—too much, too fast, too vast to comprehend. He saw things he had no context for. Understood concepts that had no names. Felt the weight of information that should have taken lifetimes to accumulate pressing down on him in an instant.
'The Path. The trials. The powers. The cost.'
'Everything has a cost.'
'Everything has a flaw.'
Around him, people began to collapse. Not everyone—perhaps half of those in the camp crumpled to the ground, their minds unable to bear the weight. Soldiers fell where they stood. Civilians dropped mid-stride. It was happening everywhere, across the entire world—half of humanity succumbing to the overwhelming flood of knowledge.
Jean staggered, his vision swimming, his knees buckling. But he stayed conscious—barely.
Eugene grabbed his arm, steadying him. "Jean! Jean, are you—"
"I'm here," Jean gasped. "I'm... I'm here."
But he wasn't sure if that was true. Part of him felt scattered, spread across dimensions of thought he had never known existed.
'Mother? Father? Ben? Julie?'
The figures waited until the worst of the chaos subsided. Then they spoke again.
"We, The Voice, have given you the knowledge for achieving power. But it will not come easily. Everything has a cost. Everything has a flaw. Be careful, children of Earth."
Silence.
Then, from somewhere in the world—not near Jean, but somewhere distant, picked up by microphones and broadcast across every remaining channel—a voice called out.
"Why are you helping us?"
The question hung in the air.
"Why have you given us this knowledge?"
The eight figures turned. Not toward the source of the voice—they had no need to locate it physically. They simply acknowledged the question.
"Why are we helping you?" they repeated. "Why have we given you this knowledge?"
A long pause. Longer than before.
"Because..."
The figures seemed to consider their words carefully.
"Because we do not know."
Confusion rippled across the globe.
"We were born to this task. We were created for this purpose. And we are completing it." Another pause. "As for why? That is your task to discover."
Jean felt his heart pounding. 'Their task? We have to figure out why they're helping us?'
The figures continued.
"Children of Earth, we, 'The Voice', must warn you: this is not the end. This is the beginning."
They opened their books once more.
"The beginning of an Era."
The pages fluttered.
"The beginning of the 'Pathwayers'!"
They did not close the books this time. They held them open, waiting.
And Jean felt it.
A wave of exhaustion unlike anything he had ever experienced. It rolled over him like a tide, pulling him down into darkness. His limbs grew heavy. His eyelids drooped. His thoughts slowed, thickened, became distant echoes of themselves.
'No, he thought. No, I can't—'
But he could. They all could.
He turned, desperate, and saw his family.
His mother, clutching his sister, both of them collapsing together. His father, reaching for his brother as the boy's eyes fluttered closed. They fell as one—his mother, his father, his sister, his brother—all crumpling to the ground in a heap of limbs and clothing.
"No!" Jean tried to scream, but his voice was already fading. "No, please—"
His body betrayed him. His knees gave way. He fell forward, catching himself on his hands, crawling toward his family even as darkness closed in around the edges of his vision.
He reached his mother first. Pressed his fingers to her neck.
A pulse. Weak, but there.
His father. Pulse.
His sister. Pulse.
His brother. Pulse.
Alive. All alive.
Relief and terror warred in his chest as his strength finally gave out. He collapsed beside them, his hand still reaching, still trying to hold onto something—someone—as the darkness swallowed him whole.
His last conscious thought was of his family, breathing but unreachable.
Then Jean was gone.
Eugene stood alone among the fallen.
His brother. His sister-in-law. His nephew Jean, sprawled on the ground mere inches from his parents. His other nephew and niece, still and silent beside their mother.
All around him, the camp was a patchwork of bodies—half the soldiers unconscious, half still standing. Those who remained awake moved among the fallen, checking pulses, calling for medics, trying to understand what had just happened.
Eugene knelt beside Jean, his hand on his nephew's chest. A heartbeat. Strong and steady.
He moved to his brother. Pulse.
His sister-in-law. Pulse.
The children. Pulse. Pulse. Pulse.
All alive. All breathing. All... sleeping.
'Somnum.'
The word meant nothing to him. But the weight of it crushed him nonetheless.
He looked up at the figures in the sky—those eight beings of light, their books still open, their pupil-less eyes surveying the devastation they had wrought.
They had saved them from the monsters.
And then they had taken half the world.
The figures began to fade, their light dimming, their forms dissolving back into the clouds from which they had emerged—the same way they had come, silent and absolute. Within moments, they were gone, leaving behind only empty sky and a world forever changed.
But their final words lingered in the air, in the mind, in the soul of every conscious human left standing.
"You must save the ones who have entered the Somnum."
"Otherwise, your species will never achieve salvation."
Eugene looked at the sky, at the empty space where the beings had been, and whispered a single question to gods who would not answer.
"What have you done to us?"
The world had no reply.
Only the wind, blowing across the bodies of the sleeping.
Only the silence, where monsters had once roared.
Only the beginning.