In Abe’s reality, all felt wrong. This inheritance, this birthright, he felt that the many hours and days of page turning and pondering had stained him, as well as his hands. The same pink hands that were so sappy in yon pines so far away. How long had he been without the outside’s air and sun and caress? Left to his own demise, choice and escapades that a young one aught enjoy?

Instead, he was beset with this? A book and a blanket and a furnace that was filled with the dead? Improbable and unlikely! He resented that the whimsy of adventures had led him down a dismal spiral of events! He wanted to tell the gargantuan Uncle to kick sand, look what his own seed had sown? Loneliness, not but a shade and likely faë-folk wandering around the family cadaver, it was nothing but a felt-lined bear trap and the boy was angry in its snare.

Abe did feel strong though, the was constitution and willfulness in his girded loins, but he knew he had to make a choice, he’d not have his life lead by the tome’s trap. He’d not have his story told by a lingering morality yarn about an aged warlock’s crusade to fight against the darkest forces of villainy. Was that not one of the wretched parable’s chief lessons: to break the cycle? See the pattern that lures the wolves to your fire to feast on your sleeping kin again and again, you fool!?

There was only one problem, he loved the story and wanted to know how it ended. It gnawed at him and he felt rapture in his digits pressing the pages, pheromone bibliosmia, the words waltzing ‘round in his mind even with eyes closed. Yes, rapture and he thought remotely that it was a pitfall, but that it was his now.

Uncle Cain had left it for him to tell. Abe was alone with his beloved and he longed to open and explore further! He knew as Amun did that the craving for the Knowledge, the Insight was cool, clean dew. The best of quenching waters that made his spirits sing!

When he read, he could keep his young eyes on the crafty Choir and eavesdrop on their chicken clucking gossiping, the wringing hands that ultimately wouldn’t take direct action on Amun. Because of fear. Because of power. Because of prophecy. Did they suspect they Amun was a signal, a catalyst for change?

When he swept to another page, here was Ben and he could always spend an age with the gentle meister, confused in his fidelity, but had he not proven against odds his bond? Ben read secrets, shared them with Abe, the boy was just reading over his shoulder!

He felt that with his guidance, he could be Amun’s new Vanessa, starting a patronage as Ob Nixilus had, perhaps uncovering new covenant along the way, making him strong and learning from one another because Abe could see all th players and could influence their moves….couldn’t he?

What of the threat of the Yellow King, the pulling at the bindings and these very chapters? Was he capable of shredding his own reality just to bring about Carcosa and the inevitability of the Oduum? Why must Ourobouros not be ever sated? Could the pattern be halted?

Was Amun the key?

Adrestia, she was keen, but was the enemy’s agent, correct? It was her role to play and she was quite focused. He was pondering her location in his was when he felt her tug. They connected.

She was coming!

The reality ….dimmed. Saturation of color and familiarity, outlines and frames, the shape of known that comforted and grounded the mind…..all dimmed and blurred.

There was a passage and wishing that hall were doors and doors and doors that Abe knew was the work of Droste. Spirals and Infinity, anywhere had found his child lotus pose and nothing could prepare him for the knowing that all peripheral shadows were now passages and his eye was opened. Wide open.

Beyond fright, no thought other that she was coming for him. She would take his corpse and feed it to that gaping maw and be done with her hunt. Abe was a key that the whale-like Oduum would swallow and render Amun inert. There was no time to hide, he only squeaked a bit there, alone.

He saw the Shade, Cain’s other, except the thing on the threshold between Abe’s quaking reality and it’s home. The Shade was a jumble, but mostly humanoid. It now looked to have less of a blurred form, but the Golem was several people, … persons?.. All in one as Abe had seen in Cain’s medical books this was a conjoining of at least triplets. Where a seam of a face would end in a third a misplaced nostril blinked, too many eyes where they should and very not shouldn’t be, tufts of hair in varying hues of greyscale.

Abe knew, somehow, that they were all family and that they meant their own lineage no harm. The homunculus opened the furnace grate and the ash inside began to kindle.

Wordlessly, Abe knew what his guardian was pantomiming, he just lacked the strength to enact his own atrocity. What would it do to them to burn the book?

Several frothy voices spoke from the monstrous doorman at once, “She is here”.

*****

The tome tumbles in, the child knows in certainty how much strength it takes to override fear and do the gravest harm unto oneself. It catches faster than one would expect, it made for excellent kindling and the warmth of it as the primal fire had its mighty meal, made Ade hope that mercy came next.

The Ash was getting everywhere and the fire spread so fast. Had he ever left the belly of the beast? Was he also to be prey to the pyre, an offertory for all of this to end?

Please, mercy.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

*****

Abe, breathing heavy, his new third eye half-open, stands alone in the belly of the furnace. The world is silent, gray, nothing but mounds in every direction, stretching endlessly. Everything we have all read and knew together have been burned away—the elders conjoined, Cain’s home, even the constructed “The Sole Voice Amidst the Discordant Chorus” was nowhere in this nowhere. Vast, one so virginal feels an emptiness like he’s never known before, a haunting quiet.

For a long time, steady tears are all that streak his face in the grey dawn. No cosmic movements above, no clean horizon line to navigate. Nothingness and tears.

The presence he begins to feel nearby causes him to take a quick breath and he sputters thinking he may choke on the dusty elements everywhere.

Not alone now, Adrestia’s voice cuts through the silence, as she materializes faintly beside him, drifting like a ghost.

Abe: [sighs, frustrated] “It’s… gone. Everything. I thought… I thought burning the book would make things better, fix things. But now… there’s just… nothing.”

Adrestia: [hovering nearby, watching him with a mixture of sadness and understanding] “Sometimes, freedom means leaving things behind, Abe. Even things we loved, things we thought we needed. You thought burning the book would be an end, but this—gestures around to the ash—this is only the beginning.”

Abe: [frowning] “But it’s all so… empty. I thought if I broke it all, I’d feel different. Like… like I’d won. Like we’d beaten him.”

Adrestia: [softly] “Burning the book cut his hold on you, on me… but it didn’t erase the memories, the shadows. Freedom doesn’t mean that everything disappears, Abe. It just means… it changes. Sometimes, things stay with us. Even the bad things.”

Abe: [kicks a pile of ash] “So what am I supposed to do now? It feels like I’ve broken everything—like I tore it all apart, and there’s nothing left. No voices, no path, no way to put it all back together. Was I the haunting Hastur all along?”

Adrestia: “Abe, sometimes the hardest part of choice is realizing that… you have to choose what comes next. [she pauses, looking around] You wanted to get rid of the book’s grip, to destroy what tied us all down. And you did. But now you have a chance—[her voice softens]—to build something new.”

Abe: [looking around, hesitant] “But with what? It’s just… dust. There’s nothing to make anything with.”

Adrestia: [smiling faintly] “Ashes are what’s left when something big is broken, when the fire takes everything. They’re… what you start with. What’s left, even when the world seems gone. You could build something with them, shape your own story.”

As she speaks, Abe slowly begins to gather the ash, feeling the faintest pull, as if it’s calling him to shape it, to create something out of the ruin. He lets it sift through his fingers, hesitantly at first, and then he begins to work, forming small shapes, like walls or the beginnings of a shelter.

Abe: [half to himself, half to Adrestia] “So… I could start again? I could make… something out of all this?”

Adrestia: [encouraging him] “Yes, Abe. You have a chance to make something that isn’t Hastur’s, something that isn’t tied to that book or those voices. This could be your world, made by your hands, your choice.”

Abe: [his face falling] “But what if… what if the bad things come back? What if it’s still tainted… by him, by the book?”

Adrestia: [kneeling beside him] “Sometimes the past leaves marks, shadows. Burning the book didn’t get rid of those shadows—they’re part of the ashes now, mixed in with everything else. You can’t erase every part of what was, but you can choose what to build with it. You can shape it into something new, something that’s yours.”

Abe: [looking up at her, thoughtful] “So… even if it’s not perfect, even if there’s still… pieces of him, of the past… I could still make it mine?”

Adrestia: “Exactly. Freedom isn’t about making something pure or perfect. It’s about having the power to make something honest, something you believe in. Even if it has shadows… it can still be beautiful.”

He nods slowly, seeming to understand, and resumes shaping the ash, this time with a bit more purpose. But as he works, something strange happens. The pieces of ash start to shift, taking on odd, distorted shapes—shadows of eyes, twisted forms, hints of the cosmic darkness that Hastur once wielded.

Abe: [alarmed] “Look! It’s… it’s happening again. The shadows, the things from before… they’re coming back!”

Adrestia: [steady, calm] “They’re only shadows, Abe. Fragments of the past. They’ll try to creep in, to remind you of what was, but that doesn’t mean they control what comes next. You just have to keep shaping, keep building. You decide what they become. They must remain, what would light be without the contrasting dark? The prey never advances itself without such a threatening predator.”

Abe: [hesitating] “But they’re part of the ash, part of… everything I have to use. They’re… all mixed together. What if I can’t separate them?”

Adrestia: [placing a hand on his shoulder] “Maybe you don’t have to separate them. Maybe it’s about learning to live with those shadows, to let them be part of what you make, instead of fighting them.”

Abe: [looking down, understanding but still unsure] “So… I can use them. Even the broken parts, the dark parts. They don’t have to ruin it?”

Adrestia: “No, they don’t have to ruin it. They can be part of it. Sometimes, it’s the shadows that make the light seem brighter, that give depth to what you build. You can make a place where both can exist, together. A place that’s yours.”

For a moment, Abe stands still, the ash falling from his hands, his gaze intense. He begins to build again, letting the shadows mix in with the forms he’s creating. As he does, a faint light seems to glow within the shapes, a promise of something whole and new. The echoes of Hastur, once menacing, begin to take on a different form—less a threat, more a part of the pattern.

Abe: [whispering] “I see it… a way to build without forgetting, without erasing. Maybe even the bad things can help me… make something worth keeping.”

Adrestia: [nodding, her voice soft but sure] “That’s the spirit, Abe. Freedom isn’t about pretending the past never happened. It’s about choosing how it lives on, how it shapes what comes next.”

The new architect sits in his sandbox, builds steadily, his expression one of quiet determination. Though the shadows linger, they blend into his creation, becoming part of something new, something real. The world may be ashes, but he is finding a way to build again.