Dotted Lines, Flowers, Gates

LINKS — Chapter 0: Dotted Lines, Flowers, Gates

The world remembers only what it’s allowed to.

What lies beyond the gate is never spoken — only felt, in silence, in scars, in songs no longer sung.

There are no names here. Only dotted lines.

Invisible marks stretch across old maps etched into memory — jagged black patterns bleeding across oceans, crawling through deserts, scarring continents. Once drawn to unite. Now forgotten. Forbidden.

Some say the lines mark borders.

Others say they’re wounds.

But every dotted line leads somewhere.

And today, it leads to a flower.

It grows where nothing else should — on broken stone, weathered by time, dusted with ash.

A violet bloom with six petals. A black stem. Unnaturally still.

It doesn’t sway in the wind.

It doesn’t bend to light.

It watches.

From far away, it would look like an accident — nature blooming in the cracks of decay.

But from up close, you would know the truth:

This flower is the key.

And beneath it, buried deep in silence and soil, is the first Gate.

Footsteps.

A crunch of old gravel. Steady breath. Someone approaches.

They are alone. Cloaked. Hooded. Small.

Not young, but not old either. A figure wrapped in grey, with hands wrapped in tape and sandals far too worn to survive this journey. A small satchel swings from their side. Inside: a compass with no needle. A charm carved from someone else’s tooth. And a torn page that reads:

“If the flower blinks, do not run.

If the flower opens its mouth, run faster.”

The figure crouches beside the flower.

Silence. No wind. No birds.

Only breath.

A voice, barely above a whisper:

“This is it… right?”

No answer.

The figure raises a hand — trembling, slow, deliberate — and moves it over the flower.

The petals do not move.

The air thickens, like syrup.

Then—

The flower blinks.

Once.

The world rips open.

The stone beneath the flower splits like cracked glass, shards rising into the air, frozen mid-fall. A burst of black light erupts in every direction. The ground hums like a pulse.

A gate opens.

Not made of metal. Not made of wood.

It is light twisted into shape — a crooked frame stitched from shadows and symbols. Spinning locks shift around the edges, each engraved with glyphs no living tongue has spoken for centuries.

The figure doesn’t scream. Doesn’t run.

They step forward.

And the gate accepts them.

Darkness.

No — not quite. This is not the kind of darkness that blinds.

This is the kind that watches.

It is cold. Endless. And filled with voices that do not use sound.

“One has come again.”

“So soon?”

“Unworthy.”

“Curious.”

“Break them.”

“No… watch.”

Footsteps echo. The figure walks across nothing. There is no floor, and yet they move. Around them, shapes flicker in the dark — towers without bases, bridges made of whispers, floating ruins that defy logic.

In the center, a pedestal rises.

On it: a cube.

Plain. Grey. Cracked.

Unimpressive.

The figure approaches.

Another voice speaks, but this one is different. It feels heavier. Older.

“To touch the Gate is to be bound to it.

To take the LINK is to lose your name.”

The figure pauses.

They look at their hands. Then at the cube.

“You still carry fear..I thought fear was beneath you?”, says the voice. It smiles through its tone of voice - and then says,

Good.

You will need it.”

They reach out.

Fingers brush the cube.

The cube opens.

Seven lights explode outward. Not bright — just real. Each a different color. Each humming with pressure.

The figure is thrown back — not by force, but by something deeper.

They fall.

They land.

The light vanishes.

When they wake, they’re outside again.

The flower is gone.

The Gate is closed.

The world is silent.

But the satchel now holds a stone — warm, pulsing — with a single glowing glyph etched into its face.

F.

The first SYMPTOM.

Far away, across the world, a bell tolls in a country with no name.

Seven ancient chairs shift in unison.

A crow falls dead in the sky.

The LINK has been disturbed.