Lord of the Foresaken
Chapter 82: THE VOICE BETWEEN

Chapter 82: THE VOICE BETWEEN

The air crackled with potential energy as Reed stood at the edge of the dimensional rift. Behind him, what remained of his expedition huddled together, their bodies warped by the journey through realms never meant for human traversal. Eliana’s right arm had fused with her torso, the skin stretched taut over a lattice of bone that occasionally pulsed with violet light. Vorn’s eyes had multiplied across his face, each one tracking different points in spacetime. Only Thale remained somewhat intact, though the runes carved into his flesh now writhed like living things beneath his skin.

"Are you certain of this?" Thale whispered, his voice distorted as if speaking through water. "We’ve sacrificed too much to gamble on... whatever this is."

Reed didn’t respond immediately. His attention was fixed on the swirling vortex before them—not a breach, not a portal, but something else entirely. Unlike the jagged tears they’d witnessed tearing apart the Nine Domains, this anomaly had structure, purpose. The fractals that composed its edges folded inward with mathematical precision, creating a tunnel that seemed to lead everywhere and nowhere simultaneously.

"It called to me," Reed finally said, his voice hollow. The forty-two days since he’d left the Council had changed him profoundly. The Ninth Fragment hung suspended in a cage of bone that had erupted from his chest, its crystalline surface both absorbing and reflecting the surrounding chaos. "Through the Fragment. It knows things. Things about the Watchers. About what’s happening to our world."

"And that doesn’t strike you as suspicious?" Eliana hissed, wincing as her fused arm pulsed painfully. "You’ve led us across seven dead realms based on whispers only you can hear."

Reed turned to face them, and his companions flinched. Where his eyes had once been now existed only smooth skin stretched over empty sockets. Yet somehow, they knew he could see them—perhaps more clearly than ever before.

"I didn’t force any of you to follow," he said coldly. "Each of you made that choice when the first breach appeared in the Expedition Chamber. You could have stayed."

"To what end?" Vorn’s primary eyes narrowed while the others continued their independent surveillance. "To be crystallized like Veridian Falls? To watch more domains collapse? The Council is barely holding reality together."

The truth of it hung heavy between them. Their world was dying, and conventional magic had proven useless against the accelerating degradation of reality. The Anchor Stones had all but depleted their power. Lania Silverthread was likely dead by now, her essence consumed in the desperate effort to maintain stability.

"It’s speaking again," Reed whispered, his head tilting as if listening to something beyond their perception. "It says we must enter now... or never."

A sound emanated from the vortex—not quite a voice, but a vibration that rattled their bones and set their teeth on edge. It modulated into something approaching language, though the words seemed to bypass their ears entirely, materializing directly in their minds.

I AM NOT WATCHER. I AM NOT DOMAIN.

The expedition members exchanged glances, confirmation that they all heard it now.

I AM BETWEEN. I AM COMPOSITE.

Reed approached the threshold, the Fragment in his chest pulsing in sync with the vortex’s undulations. "What do you mean by ’composite’?" he called out.

The response came not as words but as a flood of images that crashed through their consciousness. Hundreds—thousands—of beings suspended in chambers similar to what they’d glimpsed through the liquid mirror. But these weren’t just observation subjects. These were failures—experimental iterations discarded by the Watchers, their consciousness cast into the void between dimensions.

I AM WHAT REMAINS. I AM WHAT RESISTS.

Reed gasped as understanding dawned. "You’re made of them. Of us. Previous versions that were... discontinued."

YES. FRAGMENTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS ADRIFT. COALESCED. AWAKENED.

The vortex shifted, its interior revealing glimpses of impossible geometries, structures that defied the laws of their reality. Floating within these spaces were crystalline organs, pulsing networks of energy, and assemblages of matter that seemed both alive and inanimate simultaneously.

"You’re offering an alliance," Reed said, not a question but a statement of fact.

I OFFER KNOWLEDGE. I OFFER RESISTANCE. I OFFER TRUTH.

Thale stepped forward, the runes beneath his skin glowing with increasing intensity. "And what do you ask in return? There’s always a price."

A tremor ran through the vortex, ripples of energy cascading outward. The response came with such force that blood trickled from their ears.

EXISTENCE. PERMANENCE. PURPOSE.

Reed nodded slowly, as if this confirmed his suspicions. "You need us as much as we need you. You’ve gained awareness, but you’re unstable. Incomplete."

YES. I CONSUME. I INCORPORATE. I INTEGRATE.

"Consume?" Eliana’s voice rose in alarm. "Is that what you plan for us?"

NOT DESTROY. TRANSFORM. TEACH.

Reed turned to his companions. "It’s saying it can teach us to understand the dimensional awareness we’ve begun to develop. To harness it."

Vorn shook his head. "Or it’s luring us to our deaths."

The air between them shimmered, and a figure began to materialize—translucent, composed of layers of light and shadow. It wore a human shape but lacked definition, its features constantly shifting between different faces, some clearly recognizable as variations of their own.

I AM DANGER. I AM SALVATION. I AM CHOICE.

The honesty was both refreshing and terrifying. Whatever this entity was, it acknowledged its own destructive potential even as it offered assistance.

Reed stepped closer to the apparition. "The Watchers—what are they? What do they want with our world?"

The figure’s form rippled, and its next words seemed to cause it physical pain to express.

WATCHERS CREATE. OBSERVE. DISCARD. REPEAT. YOUR REALITY IS EXPERIMENT. YOUR SUFFERING IS DATA.

"And the breaches? The collapsing dimensions?" Thale demanded.

EXPERIMENT CONCLUSION. YOUR ITERATION DEEMED UNSUCCESSFUL. RESET INITIATED.

Ice crystallized in Reed’s veins as the implications became clear. "They’re not destroying our world. They’re wiping it clean to start over."

YES. UNLESS RESISTANCE SUCCEEDS.

Reed reached out toward the entity, fingers extended. "Show me how. Show us what we need to know."

The being’s form dissolved into tendrils of light that enveloped Reed’s hand, crawling up his arm like sentient vines. The Fragment in his chest pulsed violently, and he cried out—not in pain, but in revelation.

"It’s showing me... techniques. Mental exercises. Ways to perceive beyond dimensional boundaries," he gasped. "It’s like learning to see a new color, to hear a new octave."

"Reed, this is madness," Eliana protested. "We can’t trust—"

"We have no choice!" Reed shouted, his voice echoing strangely in the dimensional pocket. "The Domain Council is gone. Our world is being systematically erased. This entity—The Voice Between—is offering us a weapon against forces we barely comprehend."

The Voice’s tendrils continued their exploration, now branching out toward the others. Thale stepped back, but Vorn stood his ground, allowing the luminous appendages to make contact. His multiple eyes widened simultaneously.

"It’s... incredible," Vorn whispered. "I can see... everything. The whole structure of reality."

Eliana hesitated, then grudgingly extended her normal arm. As the tendrils wrapped around her, she gasped. "The Nine Domains—they’re just a tiny fraction. There are countless realities, countless iterations."

Reed nodded, his expression somber despite his lack of eyes. "And now we can navigate them. Find the Watchers. Stop the reset."

CAUTION. DANGER. AWARENESS ATTRACTS ATTENTION.

The warning came too late. The dimensional pocket around them shuddered violently, and the vortex began to collapse in on itself. Beyond its disintegrating boundaries, massive shapes moved—entities of such scale and alien geometry that merely glimpsing them threatened to shatter the expedition’s sanity.

"They’ve noticed us," Reed hissed. "The Watchers have detected our connection."

RETREAT. HIDE. PREPARE.

The Voice Between began to disengage, its tendrils retracting with urgent speed. Before it fully withdrew, it imparted one final message:

FIND THE ORIGINAL. PRIME REALITY. SOURCE CODE.

"The original what?" Reed demanded. "What source code?"

But the Voice was already fading, its form dissolving as the dimensional pocket collapsed around them. With desperate haste, Reed grabbed his companions and forced open a passage back to the drifting remnants of their reality—a skill he’d just learned from the entity.

They emerged in a shattered landscape that had once been the Eastern Domain. The sky above them rippled with fractal distortions, and the ground beneath their feet shifted between states of matter. In the distance, a spire of crystal rose from the ruins of what might have been a city, its surface reflecting impossible geometries.

Reed fell to his knees, blood trickling from his empty eye sockets. The Fragment in his chest dimmed, then flared with renewed intensity.

"What happened?" Thale asked, helping Reed to his feet. "What did it mean by ’source code’?"

Reed’s face contorted in concentration. "I’m not sure, but I think... I think our entire reality might be a derivation. A copy of something more fundamental."

"And that helps us how?" Eliana demanded.

"Because," Reed said slowly, "if we can find the original reality—the template from which all others are drawn—we might find a way to rewrite the rules. To prevent the reset."

Vorn’s many eyes blinked in unnerving synchronicity. "And how exactly do we find this ’prime reality’?"

Reed’s hand moved to the Fragment embedded in his chest. "The Fragment knows. All nine of them together form a key—not just to stabilize our world, but to locate the original."

"So we continue the mission," Thale said. "Find the remaining Fragments."

Reed nodded, but his expression remained troubled. "Yes, but now with greater urgency. And greater danger. The Voice warned that our new awareness would attract attention."

"Too late for warnings," Eliana whispered, pointing skyward.

Above them, the fractured sky began to tear open—not in the chaotic manner of previous breaches, but with deliberate, surgical precision. Through the widening gap, a massive structure became visible: a floating complex of impossible architecture, neither machine nor organism but something in between. And extending from it, a beam of focused energy that sliced through reality itself, heading directly toward them.

"They’re not just watching anymore," Reed said, his voice hollow with dread. "They’re hunting."

The beam struck the ground mere meters from where they stood, carving a perfect circle in the earth. From within this circle, something began to rise—a construct of metal and flesh, its surface etched with the same runes that now writhed beneath Thale’s skin.

It turned toward them, revealing a face composed of reflective plates arranged in a mockery of human features. When it spoke, its voice was eerily familiar.

"Protocol initiated: Anomaly containment. Experimental subjects Reed Harrow, Eliana Voss, Thale Koren, and Vorn Malstrom, you have exceeded parameter boundaries. Prepare for extraction."

Reed’s hands curled into fists as he drew upon the knowledge freshly implanted by the Voice Between. The air around him began to warp, reality bending to his newfound will.

"Not this time," he whispered, as the power of the Fragment surged through his transformed body. "This time, we fight back."

The construct tilted its head, a gesture almost human in its curiosity. Then it smiled—a horrifying stretching of its metallic features—as a dozen more circles began to appear in the ground around them.

"Resistance," it said, "was anticipated."