||Voices that Shouldn't Speak||
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The crimson fog had thinned, but it never truly cleared. Even as Code Seven stood still, his breathing slow and steady, the air crackled with a tension that had no name. The silence was a presence—palpable, watchful, ancient.
He moved forward, boots pressing against the smooth obsidian surface beneath him. The hallway twisted now, wider but still featureless. It felt less like a place and more like a dream—yet every scrape of his movement echoed with suffocating realism.
Behind him, the door he had crossed earlier shimmered—an ethereal boundary no longer tangible. Forward was the only choice.
Seven clenched his fist. His right shoulder ached from a subtle shift in weight—an internal stress he'd barely noticed. He had no system to tell him his condition, no health bar, no voice in his mind. Just himself. Just instinct. Just the cold hum of the Infinite Planes observing in silence.
Then came the pressure. A sudden, invisible force pressing on his body—light at first, like an anxious breath on his neck, then heavier. Not weight, not gravity. Awareness.
Something knew he was here.
A low tone trembled through the ground.
Thummmmmm.
It didn't sound like metal or stone. It sounded like the groan of a being asleep for eons—disturbed.
A heartbeat later, his vision flickered. For a moment, he saw double. The hall twisted and warped. He blinked—and then it was gone.
He wasn't alone.
-------
The hallway opened into a dome—a colossal chamber so wide it stretched far beyond sight, wrapped in total darkness. No walls. No ceiling. Just void.
Yet standing at the heart of it was a single monolith. Towering. Carved from black stone with veins of shimmering red. It pulsed like it breathed.
Code Seven's steps slowed as he approached it, something primal crawling under his skin. A whisperless dread.
Then he saw the others.
Figures.
Four of them. Slumped against the ground in twisted positions. Bodies still, lifeless—but no decay. No wounds. No dust.
Their robes were unlike anything he had seen. Not the sterile white of the Amalthea labs, nor the armored garments of soldiers. These were etched with runes. Personal crests. Threads glowing faintly even in their silence.
"They were here… before me," he murmured, voice quiet.
How long ago?
[You arrive late.]
The message descended like a divine judgment. Not spoken—imposed.
Code Seven flinched. The words weren't sound. They were existence.
His body stiffened involuntarily. The chill in his bones wasn't from fear—but from the sudden understanding that something had seen him completely.
[You step into a tomb left by the unworthy.]
[You are not chosen.]
The words struck like a gavel, final and brutal.
He exhaled slowly, steadying his pulse. "Then why am I here?"
Silence followed.
Then—
[Because you walked through fire.]
[And you burned alone.]
-------
The floor beneath him shimmered, and the corpses at the base of the monolith suddenly twitched. Not rising. Not returning. But reacting—as if a wind passed through bones that had long forgotten motion.
And then the whispers began.
Low, chaotic voices filled the dome. Not from around him. Not from the corpses. From within. They scratched at his thoughts—no words, just sensation. Suffering. Regret. Rage.
He dropped to one knee, clenching his jaw. His right arm convulsed. Veins bulged. That ache in his shoulder now pulsed—hot.
Something was waking.
Not in the monolith.
In him.
Images burst behind his eyes—visions not his own.
—An empire burning. A man screaming at the stars. A child left on a table as men in white coats whispered of "Project Striker." A tower split in two. A voice laughing through broken glass.
Then—
A name.
A name never spoken aloud.
Seeker.
He gasped, shuddering violently.
The whispers stopped.
[You remember.]
[You carry your shadow.]
[The Seeker stirs.]
Code Seven opened his eyes. "That's not my name," he hissed.
[You have no name.]
[Only the shadow you wear.]
-------
The dome trembled. The monolith cracked. Veins of light—now blue—spilled from its core. The corpses finally crumbled into dust, unmourned.
Then came the test.
Without warning, the floor erupted. Spires of metal and stone shot upward, forming walls, trenches, towers—a labyrinth.
Code Seven backed away instinctively.
The moment he did, the whispers returned—stronger, sharper.
Then the ground opened behind him.
And he fell.
-------
Darkness.
Falling.
Then impact.
He landed hard on metal—cold and screaming with static.
He rose to his feet fast, on reflex. His surroundings were utterly changed.
A new chamber. Circular. More mechanical. Walls lined with strange devices. Screens with no light. Pillars with unreadable glyphs.
But it wasn't empty.
Something stood at the far end.
A figure—cloaked. Not human. Too tall. Too thin. Head tilted unnaturally to the side.
It did not breathe.
It did not blink.
It did not move.
Yet Code Seven felt its gaze.
His instincts screamed.
A challenge.
But not one of strength.
One of control.
The whispers returned.
[He who falters breaks.]
[He who breaks never returns.]
-------
The figure moved—slowly. Almost floating.
Code Seven darted left. The environment responded instantly. Walls shifted, closing the path. A dead-end.
He turned.
The figure was closer.
No footsteps. No sound.
Just presence.
He ran. Every direction warped around him. Corridors formed and collapsed. Metal bent, then healed.
A maze. Alive.
The entity behind him didn't pursue in haste. It stalked. Deliberate. Perfect.
[Do not run.]
[There is nowhere to run.]
Seven skidded to a halt. He'd been corralled. Trapped.
So he stood his ground.
He slowed his breath.
Thought.
Waited.
The figure approached.
Closer.
Closer.
Then—he struck.
Not blindly. Not in rage. A feint. A flick of motion meant to read the opponent.
The figure did not dodge.
Instead, it dissipated—smoke unraveling into mist.
Only a whisper remained:
[Correct.]
-------
The maze fell away. The floor beneath him dissolved, and he was lifted—not upward, not sideways, but into something else.
Reality twisted.
And then he was back.
In the dome.
But this time… he was alone. The monolith was gone. The corpses were dust. The walls faded into a fog that shimmered faintly gold.
He breathed once. Twice.
Then came the final message:
[The Infinite Planes acknowledge your survival.]
[Not your worth.]
[You are not seen.]
[You are only tolerated.]
[Go.]
A flash of white.
And he woke.
-------
He was on the floor again. Cold stone beneath his back. The mechanical hum of the first corridor returned. His fingers twitched.
The mark on his soul burned—a whisper of fire deep in his being.
Code Seven sat up.
He was changed.
Not stronger.
Not clearer.
But marked.
Not just by the Planes, but by the attention he had accidentally drawn.
He looked toward the next door.
And behind it, something old was waiting.
Something that had noticed the name "Seeker."
-------
(Far Away…)
A dark chamber flickered with dying stars.
An entity sat in silence—robed in layers of spatial cloth. Its eyes were absent, but it watched.
On a screen woven from divine energy, a name glowed once.
SEEKER
"…He stirs again," the entity whispered.
Another figure entered behind him.
"Should we act?"
The first being did not move.
"No. Not yet. But we will watch. If he truly becomes what the Planes once feared…"
He closed his hand.
"…then we kill him before he remembers who he is."