Chapter 8 – Whispers in the Ash

The moment Yusuf went through the thread, the world opened up like a book being read for the hundredth time.
He expected chaos. Disintegration. Instead, he was in silence.
Before him was a long corridor, its walls cut from obsidian glass. There were hundreds of candles floating in the air—weightless, ethereal—trailing wisps of soft golden light. Each flame pulsed to the beat of something unseen, like the heartbeat of a sleeping god.
And then there was music.
Ancient jazz.
A tune he had not heard in years.
Yusuf halted in his tracks. The notes wrapped themselves around his chest like a childhood memory left too long in a drawer. Coffee's aroma. Musty books. A Cairo summer's heat that never broke.
He turned a corner—and stood in his father's study.
Not a replica.
The actual room.
Same broken record player. Same coffee stains on the desk. Same notebook, still open to a page Yusuf had ripped out in a rage back in the day.
And there—standing with his back to him—was his father.
Alive.
Young.
Writing.
Yusuf's breath caught in his throat.
But something was wrong. His father's hand trembled. He muttered names to himself—low, like he was afraid to forget them.
"Liora," he whispered.
"Marrow… Tollen. Rae."
Yusuf's eyes went wide.
Rae.
The girl from Elarra. The last Archivist of that broken city. The one who'd already forgotten him.
Did he… meet her too? Before me? Before everything collapsed?
The thought formed a commotion in Yusuf's chest—like walking the same dream twice, only to find another's footsteps in front of you.
Then the Codex burned in Yusuf's arms.
It burned. Angry. Terrified.
A page turned without his hand.
A new thread inscribed itself onto the parchment.
Black. Brutal. Unanchored.
"This thread does not belong," said the faceless child behind him.
Yusuf turned. The boy had followed him—hood down, hands folded—but he was trembling."Why not?" Yusuf demanded.
"Because this is not your memory. Nor his."
He stepped closer, voice low.
"It's a fissure. A trap. Something—someone—is leeching energy from this memory."
The scene contorted before Yusuf could respond.
The candles dimmed. The record warped. His father’s back twisted slightly, unnaturally.
“Run,” the Codex whispered.
But Yusuf didn’t.
“If that’s my father,” he said, “then I’m not leaving.”
The boy looked at him for a long time—his faceless mask unreadable, yet deeply human.
"You think that to remember is enough, Yusuf," the boy whispered. "But memory without love is only a list of names. You must be willing to let go of the ones who hurt you."
And then the man who looked like his father turned.
And it was not him.
Not entirely.
Its eyes blazed with absence— vacant sockets that devoured the light and gave back nothing. A maelstrom of names poured from its mouth, backwards, as though in an attempt to un-speak the world.
The study trembled.
The desk dissolved into ash.
The ground beneath them collapsed.
Yusuf plummeted—clutching the Codex, heart pounding, tracing the thread that stank of old jazz and sour coffee and the man he used to be.