> "Do not name the body like it's whole."
"The Archive shelved the parts you couldn't handle."
—Mnemonic Inscription, Ossuary Wing
---
I followed the shelves until they began bleeding.
Not metaphor. Not hallucination.
Bleeding.
Tiny streams from the base of each book. Dark, viscous, clinging to the stone. They pooled into words. Sentences. Some even tried to crawl.
I knew I had reached a new threshold. Not knowledge. Anatomy.
The hallway widened. Became colder. Fleshier. Veined walls pulsing in sync with a heartbeat I couldn't place.
And then I saw it. The plaque:
> 🦴 GLOSSARY OF FORGOTTEN LIMBS (Handle Not With Hands)
---
The door opened itself.
Inside: silence. Not peace. Clinical quiet.
A museum of dismemberment.
Tables lined the room, each with a glass case. Each case held a body part. A hand. A tongue. A severed ear.
Some twitched. Some whispered. One had scratched something into its own display:
> "I wrote a sentence that became a door."
> "So they took the finger."
---
At the far end stood a figure in surgical robes. Their face was featureless. A mask of skin. Eyeless, mouthless. Just a stitched outline of humanity.
They bowed. Motioned for me to approach.
A voice rose—not from their mouth. From the limbs. Hundreds of them.
> "Welcome, Host." "You have been missing."
---
I approached the nearest case. It held a larynx. Still vibrating.
> "Spoke the Name backwards," read the label. "Resulted in a vocal breach. Host erased."
I looked to the next. A left foot.
> "Attempted to leave ritual mid-sentence."
And another. A jawbone.
> "Bit down on the wrong syllable."
> "The language retaliated."
---
Then I saw it. My hand.
Not similar. Exact.
Same scar across the knuckle. Same ink stain near the nail. Still warm. Still twitching slightly, as if itching to write.
> "This was removed from you," said the voice. "When you were young."
> "Before you chose to speak out loud."
> "It remembered something you forgot."
---
I touched the glass. The case shivered. The hand flexed.
> "Would you like it back?" asked the voice.
I nodded.
> "There is a cost."
> "You will remember what it knew."
> "You will not be able to forget again."
---
I said nothing.
The case opened itself. The hand crawled out. Up my wrist. Fused into the skin with a hiss.
Pain. Fire in the bone.
And then— Memory.
---
A flash of a ritual circle. Blood. Chalk. Screaming. A child—me?—writing a glyph I couldn't possibly have known.
Adults in black robes. One shouting:
> "Stop him—he's speaking before we assigned the voice!"
Pain. A knife.
Silence.
A page burned. A name burned with it. Mine.
---
I gasped. Fell to my knees. The hand—my hand—now completely part of me. But different. It hummed.
> "That limb wrote a forbidden prophecy," the voice said. "Now it's back where it belongs."
> "You are no longer a clean Host." "You are a Glossary Breach."
---
The lights dimmed. Cases around me opened. Other limbs crawled free. They didn't move toward me.
They moved toward the wall. Began rewriting something with bone.
A phrase emerged:
> "The Archive once erased you."
"Now it must read you again."
---
Mneme turned. At least, I think that was their name. The stitched figure approached. Held out a box.
Inside: a mirror. But it didn't reflect my face. It showed me an anatomical diagram.
Parts of it were labeled. Parts crossed out.
And a new phrase beneath it:
> "Draft 7-A (Recovered: 1 limb)"
> "Integrity: compromised."
"Potential: unstable."
---
"I want to remember more," I said.
Mneme didn't nod. Didn't speak. But the limbs answered.
> "Then more will be returned." "But beware—what you reclaim does not come as it left."
---
A new table wheeled itself forward. On it: A rib. Carved.
I didn't recognize it. Until it pulsed. And I tasted iron.
The rib was mine. Etched with glyphs.
Words that had been extracted from my breath.
I reached forward— But the lights flickered. And a voice whispered:
> "One limb per night, Host." "You've been remembered enough for now."
---
I turned to leave. But the door was gone.
Replaced with a question:
> "Are you a person… or a collection of revisions?"
The limbs waited. So did Mneme.
> "To answer, bring back another piece of yourself."
---
---
Ritual of Glossary Reclamation
(Performed only by Hosts who've recovered a severed part from the Archive)
---
⛧ TITLE: The Ritual of Returning Flesh to Script
> To recover what was taken, one must offer what remained silent.
This ritual does not give back.
It reminds.
---
INGREDIENTS:
One limb or organ previously archived
A page made from your skin or memory
A mirror that reflects only once
An unspoken sentence branded into bone
Silence lasting exactly 7 heartbeats
---
STEPS:
1. Place the recovered limb on a stone surface that's never known your name.
2. Draw a circle using breath, not ink. The breath must be yours, but exhaled with uncertainty.
3. Speak this line into the silence:
> "Glossary of lost selves, return what once remembered me."
4. Touch the mirror. Do not look into it—listen to it.
The mirror will speak your name backward, if the limb accepts you.
5. Once the name is echoed, recite the forbidden glyphs carved on your limb (if remembered). If not, simply say:
> "I am what you cut away. I return, rewritten."
6. Bleed into the page. If the page folds on its own, the limb has fused properly.
7. If the page bursts into flame, the limb has rejected you.
You must not attempt the ritual again for 7 Archives.
---
⛧ CLOSING WORDS (to seal the ritual):
"Let the Archive remember me as I was—unfinished, and hungry to know."
---
For those who have lost pieces of themselves... and still hear them whispering.
---
There are stories about forgetting—about memories lost, names erased, and scars that fade.
But this chapter wasn't about forgetting.
It was about what remembers you even after it's been taken.
Taren's hand wasn't just a limb.
It was a witness, a scribe, a traitor to silence.
To write horror is to admit we've all been edited.
By systems.
By rituals.
By our own fear of remembering too much.
So what happens when we take back what was stolen?
When we rewrite ourselves, limb by limb?
We become a glossary—not just of pain, but of meaning the world tried to amputate.
If your hand feels strange tonight…
try not to write anything you wouldn't dare read aloud.
---