Khetum: The forgetten ones

I stepped cautiously into the chamber, the air heavy with the musty, damp scent of ancient scrolls. The walls were lined with dusty shelves sagging under the weight of brittle parchment, their edges curled and frayed with time. The floor was scattered with crumbled remnants of forgotten knowledge, the faintest rustling of paper disturbing the otherwise eerie silence. The room felt timeless, as if it existed outside of reality itself, locked away for centuries, waiting for someone—or something—to disturb its peace.

Then, in the stillness, a loud thud echoed through the chamber as a book slipped off one of the shelves, its fall somehow louder than it should have been, causing my heart to race. I reached down and picked it up. The leather was cracked, its once rich color faded into an earthy brown. This was no modern creation. It was handmade, an artifact from a time when ink and parchment were the only means of preserving knowledge. The weight of it felt significant, as if the book carried the weight of forgotten centuries.

The book was sealed—its cover imprinted with strange symbols that pulsed faintly in the dim light. My fingers itched to break the seal, to unlock whatever secrets it might hold. There was something irresistibly compelling about it, as though the book was calling to me. Despite my hesitation, I reached for the seal, my hands trembling slightly. Yet, no matter how hard I tried, the cover remained firmly shut, as if it had been locked for eternity.

My gaze shifted to the title embossed on the cover. The lettering was archaic, the symbols foreign to me, but I managed to decipher the word: Khetum. The name echoed in my mind, its resonance sending a shiver down my spine.

"Khetum?" I whispered aloud, my voice almost reverent in the silence, but the moment the word left my lips, everything around me changed.

A pulse of energy surged through the room, and the seal shattered with a sharp crack, as though some invisible force had torn it apart. The book sprang open in mid-air, the pages glowing with an ethereal light, casting strange shadows across the walls. I staggered back, my breath caught in my throat as the book began to float before me, its light growing brighter, more intense with each passing second.

"WHAT THE HECK?!" I gasped, my heart racing, my body frozen in shock. My instincts screamed for me to run, but I couldn't move. The book's glow pulsed rhythmically, as if it were breathing—alive, aware.

Then, the air around me seemed to crackle, and a thunderous crack split the silence. It wasn't a sound of nature, but a force unlike anything I had ever heard before—sharp, violent, like lightning tearing through the fabric of the world. The light from the book intensified, blinding me, as if it were drawing in the very essence of the room.

Before I could react, the book's pull became irresistible. My body swayed, dizzy, as though the ground beneath me had shifted, tilting into a vortex. The book beckoned me closer, an invisible force pulling me toward it. I felt my body move against my will, the dizziness overwhelming, my legs unsteady.

Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, everything seemed to collapse into itself. The air grew thick with a strange, unnatural weight, and I felt as if the very fabric of reality had begun to tear. The book—its pages now turning rapidly on their own—seemed to consume the light around it, pulling me toward it with a force that felt like it was eating me alive.

I tried to scream, but my voice was swallowed by the darkness that seemed to close in around me, the last thing I saw before everything went black was the blinding glow of the book and the sensation of being torn from this world entirely.