Chapter 52 – The First Void

Air became thinner the further Yusuf went. Not like on the top of mountains, but as with fire-devoured pages to ash—something taken away from the world itself.

The path was no path. It was a thread of recollection stretched across nothingness, vibrating at his heel. With each step ripples formed, and with the ripples the whispers: Rae's name, his father's voice, laughter from the faceless child. Whispers he could not muffle, or answer.

He did not know how long he walked. Time meant nothing here.

At last the nothingness yielded to something.

The First Void.

It wasn't here. It was here, folded up and stacked, like broken mirrors reassembled without any regard. A thousand cities floated in fragments: streets broken in two, towers cut off in half, bridges leading nowhere. Oceans hung in midair. Forests stretched up to the sky with bare roots. Houses suspended above his head, with doors opening on nothing but air.

And at its center, great and terrible, stood the Tree.

It had a trunk as wide as mountains, its arms thrust through horizons out of Yusuf's vision. But its bark was ripped away, its leaves were stripped, its roots tangled in chains of light. At its center floated numberless fragments, faintly glowing—the pieces of what used to be.

Yusuf's knees buckled. For the first time, he beheld the sheer scale of what he'd been struggling to preserve. His own devastation was insignificant beside this endless destruction.

But the Codex in his hand pulsed, thick, alive. Pages hummed in silence, ink bleeding into fresh forms:

THE ARCHIVIST ATTAINS THE FIRST VACUUM.

THE WELLSPRING OF REMEMBRANCE REWARD.

Yusuf swallowed. Trembling, he puffed into the void:

"Rae… Father… Child… if any of you hear me… I shouldn't do this alone."

No response.

There was only the groan of the Tree, ancient and sorrowful, as if even it had nearly forgotten what it was for.

Yusuf stepped forward, onto the broken ground of the First Void.

The final journey had begun.