Tales of flame and void

✾ The Chains That Raised Me

The Artem Estate loomed like a citadel built to house secrets too dangerous for the light. Blackstone towers stabbed into the fading dusk, their sides entangled with veins of living chain — not mere ornamentation, but functioning arteries of the Artem legacy. Each link pulsed faintly with crimson Yai, whispering commands down the marrow of the family stronghold.

From the descending Chainez-class cruiser, Crept Artem watched in silence. The ship itself exhaled a low metallic growl as its chains adjusted for balance, their clinking rhythm echoing like distant war drums.

The family crest shone dimly at the prow: a broken shackle beneath a blood-red star.

The platform beneath hissed as the ship landed. But Crept didn't move.

---

He was ten again.

Blood in his mouth. A bruised lip. The training yard.

His mother, towering. Eyes like cut obsidian.

"You lost again," Marcaella said.

Crept's fingers trembled. "He trained for five years. I just started. It isn't—"

Her hand struck his cheek.

Not cruel. Not impulsive. Just final.

"Fair?" she murmured. "The only fair thing in this world is the unfairness of fairness."

He fell back into the dust. Syria, the soft-spoken attendant, rushed in.

"Lady Marcaella, he's a child."

Marcaella turned without a word. Her chain-robe flowed behind her like a noose uncoiled.

---

Crept blinked.

The ramp lowered. The present returned.

Waiting below were Leon, the old butler who'd raised him more gently than any blood kin, and—unexpectedly—Shilial.

She stood beside Leon, posture tense, eyes unreadable.

"Did the stars align," Crept said dryly, "or has my wife finally decided to fall for me?"

Shilial didn't laugh. Didn't flinch.

Just said: "We need to talk. Alone."

He nodded without another word.

---

Their quarters were simple. Blackstone walls. Dim floating lanterns. Shelves of medals earned in blood and silence.

Crept leaned against the doorway. "Talk."

She didn't face him.

"Do you remember the night I left the Council?"

He was already tensing.

"You promised me," she said. "If we ever had a child, they wouldn't be a pawn. Not yours. Not mine. They'd be free."

She turned.

Eyes blazing, hands trembling.

Crept stared. It was only the second time he had seen her this way.

"An Artem," he said softly, "never breaks their oath. Not even at the cost of their life."

The silence after was thick with everything unsaid.

Outside, the chains groaned in the wind.

And it was impossible to tell whether they protected the house...

Or held its sins inside.

---

✾ That Which Watches Back

The ceiling spun in thoughtless spirals.

Atiya lay on the bed, tracing the flame-vein designs etched across his quarters. His gaze remained unfocused, fixed on a single cracked photolens in the corner.

He had searched everything. Nothing stolen. Nothing moved.

But something had been there.

The scorch mark. The faint Yai residue. The door left open, but no record. No entry logs. No breaches.

> "It wasn't a Yai beast," he thought. "Sensors would've picked it up. Not a Voyager, either. No spatial echo."

He stood. Restless.

> "A machine? Then why the wing?"

He opened the door.

The hallway beyond was sterile, chilled. Medical white lights hummed low. Clean. Controlled.

He stepped outside.

And blinked.

His room.

Again.

He turned—and the hallway was there.

But it wasn't his hallway.

It stretched impossibly long. The lights were dimmer. The walls slightly warped. Space bent at impossible angles.

Every turn led him back.

Every door folded reality.

A loop.

> "A trap," he whispered.

Thread-light danced on his fingertips, near invisible strands wound tight around his hands.

One presence.

Distant. Watching.

> "You're not the only one who can bend space."

He blinked out of the loop, folding into the anomaly's shadow.

And saw it.

The creature was otherworldly.

A humanoid squid of chrome and nerve, body ribbed with surgical precision. Its nine eyes blinked in discordant rhythm, some crying blood, others unmoving.

Tendrils unfurled.

> Not a Voyager.

His threads struck first.

A cross-lattice of slashes. Four tendrils fell. Then three more.

A scream. No sound. Just pressure. Like air collapsing.

The thing flailed, then vanished—not teleporting, but slipping like oil through bent glass.

Atiya stood alone.

Breath held. Threads coiled.

Somewhere below, a heartbeat resumed.

---

✾ The Box That Breathes

The lower levels of ANSEP's vault labs had grown cold.

Cornicius Corell stood before the Box — still suspended midair, still silent — but no longer still.

The space around it rippled like heat waves over ice. Instruments left nearby had begun to decay — not rust, not wear, but collapse. Light bent differently now, and even sound seemed muffled near its perimeter.

> "It's... repelling everything," Cilene said, her voice hushed. "Yai currents can't pass through anymore. It won't allow contact."

Cornicius didn't answer.

A faint hum threaded through the chamber, not from any machine — but from the Box itself. Not mechanical. Not magical. Something older. Woven deep into the weave of space like a foreign thread.

His communicator buzzed.

Four staff unaccounted for. Theta-Zero. No signs of struggle. No logs.

> Same wing as the Box.

He slowly exhaled, eyes still fixed on the artifact. "Call Nongban."

Cilene hesitated. "Should we alert headquarters?"

Cornicius's gaze sharpened.

> "No. I'll report to Lady Inteja directly."

His voice was calm.

His heart was not.

Because in the deepest corner of his mind, where reason yielded to dread, a name stirred — a relic spoken of in fragmented scrolls, forbidden dossiers, old worlds buried under flame.

A name ANSEP was not meant to find.

> Pandora.

And in that moment, the Box pulsed.

Not visually. Not physically. But inward — like something inside it had heard its name whispered in a man's soul.

And answered.