Tales of flame and void

The Lair That Breathes

The first thing Atiya noticed was the silence.

Not the kind that soothed — but the kind that pressed in from every direction, dampening even the sound of his own footsteps. He and Zelaine walked slowly down a twisted corridor of living walls. The lair pulsed around them — flesh-like, veined, breathing.

Even their connection devices, tuned to ANSEP's top-grade Yai-frequency networks, were silent. Cut off. All communications — gone.

Atiya tapped his comm again. No ping. He frowned.

> "Everything's disconnected," he said.

Zelaine yawned. "Obviously."

They had tried everything — relays, warping anchors, signal amplifiers. The Hingcha's domain rejected them all. A complete severance from outside support.

And then, from a junction ahead — movement.

Two figures emerged, then four. Silent. Fluid. Four-legged, their silhouettes stretched and sloped unnaturally. Wolf-like.

Yai beasts.

Atiya stopped in his tracks.

> "That doesn't make sense," he muttered. "Yai beasts repel Hingcha territory. They're like fire and oil."

Yet here they were — inside the Hingcha's lair.

The wolves didn't hesitate. Their bodies rippled like liquid metal, and with a collective growl, they lunged.

Zelaine stepped forward.

Petals erupted.

A wall of withered rose, sharp as glass, met the first wave. Beasts crashed into it and scattered in a mist of corrupted Yai.

But more came.

A whole horde.

Atiya's threads unraveled — warped and weakened inside this domain — and barely managed to slice through the next wave. He cursed, grabbed Zelaine by the arm, and teleported them deeper.

They emerged in a narrow spine of the lair, surrounded by pulsing stone.

Zelaine brushed petals off her shoulder. "Still not impressed."

> "You're welcome," Atiya snapped.

They walked a bit more until Zelaine abruptly stopped. "Too sleepy."

She raised a finger, encased herself in a floating dome of swirling petals, and sat down inside it like a lotus blooming. Her eyes shut instantly.

> "Lure the spider here. I'll be up in 30."

Atiya stared at her, utterly baffled.

He stomped into the barrier, grabbed her wrist, and yanked her up. "Wake up or I teleport you back to the wolf buffet."

Zelaine cracked one eye open. "With that attitude, you'll die single."

She yawned. "Fine. 30 minutes. But I swear, if you interrupt again, I'm feeding you to the Hingcha."

She fell back asleep.

---

Atiya sighed and sat beside the barrier.

He opened his comm again. Still no connection. The silence of the lair pressed harder.

Then, a message he'd missed earlier blinked onscreen.

Crept Artem:

> "Congrats. You're going to be an uncle."

Atiya chuckled despite the tension. "Took you long enough, idiot."

Time passed. The 30-minute alarm buzzed.

Atiya stood, pulled a small canteen of water from his pocket dimension — one of those "just in case" items he always packed and never needed… until now.

He poured the water directly onto Zelaine's face.

She shrieked.

"ATTIYA, YOU ABSOLUTE—"

He danced back with a grin. "Rise and shine, pig."

She kicked at him, petals flaring. He dodged.

Zelaine grumbled and adjusted her soaked cardigan. "One day, you'll regret that."

"Today's not that day."

---

They continued onward, the silence only deepening. The lair coiled around them like a serpent.

Then they found it —

A chamber.

Large. Circular. Lined with spire-like thrones — each dark, jagged, towering.

And atop them:

Victims.

Suspended like puppets. Some twisted in slow, unnatural motion. Others muttered incoherent syllables. Many stared straight ahead, eyes blank, caught in a loop of memory and agony.

One — an ANSEP officer — turned his head and locked eyes with Atiya.

> "Help… please…"

Then crumbled to ash.

Zelaine stepped forward, quiet for once.

In the center of the room floated a structure — not mechanical. Not bone. Something in between.

A Nucleus.

Atiya's threads brushed it — and his vision burst.

He staggered, clutching his head as visions flooded in.

> Researchers, devoured. Their memories… digested. Their spatial techniques… mimicked. Their pain… remembered.

The creature had evolved.

It remembered Atiya's face.

Zelaine helped him steady.

All around them, more signs.

Yai beasts in containment. Humans — ANSEP officers. All connected by veins of corrupted Yai.

Atiya's breath caught.

This wasn't just a hunting ground.

It was a laboratory.

A mirror of ANSEP.

The Hingcha was experimenting.

On humans. On beasts. On them.

Then the lair… spoke.

Not words. Not voice.

A memory pressed against their minds. A hunger.

> "It's communicating," Zelaine whispered.

Atiya's threads trembled.

Some of them moved — not under his control.

Twisted. Corrupted.

The Hingcha had begun mimicking.

Adapting.

Zelaine's jaw tightened. "It's learning our Yaicraft."

Atiya pulled her back.

"We're not just lost in here…" he muttered. "We're inside a live experiment."

The walls pulsed.

And somewhere deeper in the lair, the real experiment was only beginning.

----

Far above the lair, inside the high security wing of ANSEP's command station, Cornicius Corell reviewed a cascade of reports. Most he dismissed with a glance. But one line of text stopped him cold.

> [Signal Trace: Subject – Atiya Yaisha: Missing]

His breath caught.

Atiya — missing.

If Yaishna learned of this…

Cornicius ran a hand down his face, heart pounding in rare anxiety. She would not ask questions. She would burn ANSEP to the ground and start over with ash.

"Unacceptable," he muttered. "Absolutely unacceptable."

A knock interrupted his thoughts.

Nongban stood at the door, all casual elegance. "You look like you've been ghost-kissed. Fresh air?"

Cornicius only nodded. They stepped outside the main control room into the corridor. The artificial lights flickered with soft buzz. The moment Cornicius opened his comm-link again, another voice answered.

"Inteja?" he asked, voice sharp.

Her face flickered into the air above the screen. "Fourth Corps has just finished subduing the Hingchas. They're returning from Aeon Relay Outpost."

"Already? That's… fast," Cornicius said, brows furrowed. "I thought Hingchas couldn't be handled so easily."

Inteja crossed her arms. "They can't remain fully manifested in this plane for long. Their presence decays the laws of space, but it's unsustainable."

Cornicius leaned forward. "Yes, but this timing is too clean. It's like something wanted them to be wiped quickly."

Inteja's smirk faded. "You think it was… staged?"

"A diversion," Cornicius said grimly. "To keep attention away from the real front."

Her silence was telling.

Then Cornicius whispered, "It wasn't the Hingchas. Someone summoned them."

---

Meanwhile…

In a separate wing of the ANSEP observatory dome, the Orb watched.

A great floating construct of silver and black, bristling with glowing lenses — Eye of Presence

> Primary Directive: Locate Artifact – [BOOK OF VOYAGES]

Secondary Directive: Record Spatiotemporal Anomalies

Error Rate Threshold: < 0.01%

It hovered across dimensions stitched together by ANSEP surveillance. Through hundreds of overlapping visual feeds, it saw all:

Crept Artem walking with three security teams, unaware of the silent pulse tracking him.

The sealed chamber, where the Pandora Box pulsed with cryptic rhythms.

Atiya Yaisha and Zelaine Roseblood, trapped within the fractured space below.

But then—

> Scanning Lair Sector...

Entity Detected: UNCLASSIFIED

Error. Visual Signature: [NULL].

Structural Form: [NON-EUCLIDEAN].

Threat Level: Undetermined.

Cognition Looping. Repeating. Repeating.

—WHO IS WATCHING WHO—

The Orb's core flickered. Its threads of data momentarily glitched, as if the creature had noticed it back.

For the first time in its operational history, the Observer was being observed.

A shadow passed over one of its lenses — something formless, memory-shaped — and then was gone.

---

Back in his private chamber, Cornicius paced.

"Everything's converging," he said to himself.

His screen still glowed. Data lines updated constantly — anomaly traces, missing personnel, void interference rates.

Then one alert from earlier pinged again.

> Message from: Crept Artem.

"Congrats. You're going to be an uncle."

Cornicius allowed himself a brief smile.

"…He finally manned up," he murmured.

Then a reflection caught his eye — the glass of his datapanel, just behind his shoulder.

Nongban.

Still standing.

Still smiling.

Not a word spoken.

Cornicius turned, but Nongban simply raised a hand in farewell and walked away.

Yet that smile lingered like smoke, long after he'd gone.