Nyro sat paralyzed on the cold floor, his breath coming in ragged hitches as he tried to process what just happened. The black notebook he had held moments ago was gone, vanished into thin air. Yet, a strange, phantom weight lingered on his skin. He came to many conclusions. He was almost sure it was a bestowed artifact. These were items given to devote a servants of a god, he didn't know much about it since most of the information was not given to the public.
He began to rub the runes etched into his forearm, only to realize they didn't stop at his wrist. The patterns crawled upward, a sprawling map of light beneath his skin. He peeled off his sweat-soaked T-shirt, his eyes widening. A complex network of ethereal symbols and geometric lines now spiraled across his chest and over his shoulder. More disturbing, however, were the cracks. They hadn't healed; they remained like fissures in a broken porcelain doll, glowing with a faint, ghostly white luminescence.
He scrambled into the bathroom, clutching the sink as he stared into the mirror. The cracks had claimed his face, tracing jagged paths across his cheeks and forehead. He looked less like a man and more like a shattering statue.
"Damn it... I shouldn't have trusted that old fossil," he hissed, his voice trembling with a mix of fury and terror.
A soft pressure against his ankle broke his spiral. Little Rin was there, weaving through his legs and purring with a calm that felt out of place. The simple, domestic act acted as an anchor, allowing Nyro to finally draw a rational breath.
The apartment was a disaster zone. With mechanical movements, he began to set his home right, uprighting the furniture he had toppled during his agony. When he reached the spot where he had slammed his head against the wall, he froze. The indentation was stained with his "blood" a viscous, white substance that pulsed with visible Sparks of Divinity.
He spent the next hour scrubbing the walls with a bucket of water and a towel, erasing the evidence of his transformation. Finally, he collapsed onto the couch, Little Rin curling into his side. Driven by a grim curiosity, he took a sewing needle and pricked his finger. He didn't even flinch as a droplet of pure, pearlescent white rose to the surface.
Outwardly, he was still the same Nyro: a modest build, long black hair, and features that bordered on handsome. But internally, a primal instinct was screaming at him. He felt an ironclad certainty that if he allowed himself to fall asleep, his soul would slip through those glowing cracks and he would simply... cease.
But exhaustion is a cruel master. By 2:45 AM, his eyelids became leaden. Despite the fear of the neighbors' questions to come in the morning and the fear of death itself, he drifted off into a heavy, unnatural slumber.
The dream was suffocatingly vivid. Nyro found himself seated at a table in a room flooded with golden light. Opposite him stood a figure, their back turned, silhouetted against a sun so bright it obscured their identity. The warmth of the rays felt terrifyingly real against Nyro's skin.
"Who are you, exactly?" the figure asked. The voice was calm, yet it carried the weight of an avalanche.
"Nyro," he managed to choke out.
"Oh? This is interesting..." the being mused.
Before Nyro could demand an explanation, he felt a violent, invisible force seize his chest. He was being yanked back to reality. As the golden room dissolved, a loft, echoing voice trailed after him:
"We shall meet again... Persona of the "?di##?"
Nyro bolted upright, gasping for air. The clock on the wall read 3:00 PM. He had slept through half the day, yet he felt no more rested than before.
Then he felt it ,a weight in his lap.
The book had returned, but it had undergone a terrifying reformation. The leather, once merely dark, was now a "unnaturally Black." It seemed like a void in the shape of a book; as the afternoon sun hit it, the light didn't reflect or bounce off the surface. It was simply consumed. It was there, resting on his thighs, yet it felt as though it existed in a different dimension entirely.
The cover was now laced with intricate gold patterns that shimmered like distant constellations. Ethereal strings of light wound around the binding, pulsating in time with Nyro's own heartbeat.
He stared at it with a gut-wrenching dread, remembering the pain from the night before. But the book whispered to his mind, a silent compulsion that nudged his fingers toward the edge of the cover. Perhaps it wasn't just the book; perhaps it was his own desperate need to understand the source of his ruin.
He took a deep breath and peeled back the first page.
The script was alien a chaotic jumble of runic symbols and yet, as he looked at them, the meanings bloomed in his mind as if they were his own memories.
["HE" stood in the midst of nothingness. "HE" shed a single droplet of "HIS" glowing blood to observe. That droplet became the Light, and its birth necessitated its counterpart: Darkness. From that duality, the Great Continuation began.
Fascinated, "HE" watched as the blood transformed into the river of Time. As the eons flowed, Laws were woven to stabilize the fragile existence. Planets coalesced. Sentient life flickered into being creatures with the potential to harbor the Divine. Among them were those who carried more of "HIM" than others. Eventually, other Great Entities rose personifications of Life and Death, Light and darkness. Unlike the lesser beings, these entities sensed the gaze of their Primordial mother.
While "HE" observed their struggles, "HE" felt no emotion for them. As Time passed, Time itself became a witness...]
Nyro slammed the book shut, his heart hammering against his ribs. The cracks on his arms were widening, glowing with a fierce, unstable light. Horrified, he realized his body was becoming translucent. Little Rin, who had tried to jump onto his lap, actually slipped partially through his thigh as if he were made of smoke.
"I'm fading? ," he whispered.
He then screamed "Ahhhhhh am fading!!!!!!"
He shoved the book into a desk drawer and bolted for the shower, hoping the cold water would ground him. "I need a break. No books. No stories. I need a doctor... I need a priest... I need someone."
But as he stepped out of the steam, his heart nearly stopped. The black book was lying on the floor, blocking the bathroom door.
"Little Rin? Did you..." He trailed off, knowing the cat couldn't have opened a heavy drawer and carried the book.
He grabbed a box from under the bed, shoved the book inside, and taped it shut. He pushed it deep into the shadows beneath the frame.
He retreated to the living room and flicked on the TV, desperate for the mundane hum of the news. But out of the corner of his eye, a shape manifested on the cushion beside him. The book was there again.
Nyro leaped back, his back hitting the wall. He couldn't stay here. He was fading away, his house was haunted by a strange book, and he was utterly alone.
Summoning a desperate resolve, he pulled on a heavy hoodie and thick gloves to hide the runes. He strapped on a face mask and his old glasses to cover the glowing fissures on his face. He looked like a celebrity attempting a clumsy escape from the paparazzi.
He reached for the doorknob, intent on finding help, but the world suddenly plunged into darkness. The apartment vanished. Floating in the void directly in front of his face was the book. It hung in the air, its pages flipping violently until it stopped on a specific set of runes that burned with a blinding, warning light:
[ DO NOT REVEAL THE SECRETS OF THE DIVINE ]