Elias's footsteps echoed against old brick walls and damp wooden floors as he entered Old Smith Warehouse. A thin mist hung in the air like the breath of the past, unwilling to let go. In his hand, The Sealed Solar Codex was wrapped in a black cloth that pulsed slowly—as if it knew fate would be wagered tonight.
The warehouse looked like a forgotten building from the Victorian era, abandoned by time—gas lamps hissed on the walls while neon tubes cast strange glows among the shadows. An eight-legged spider machine—made of old brass and synthetic leather—crawled silently, cleaning soot-covered windows. The walls were adorned with paintings that didn't belong: spaceships warring in Mars orbit, framed in ancient mahogany wood.
But as Elias stepped past the inner iron gate and the door behind him closed with a click that drowned even breath, everything changed.
As though he had walked through a veil of reality.
The warehouse peeled away like old skin, revealing a grand gothic hall. Towers of black marble rose, each etched with weeping faces—some crowned, some masked, some eerily resembling Elias himself. The ceiling was a glass dome, and beyond it stretched an unfamiliar night sky. Two moons hung: one glowing silvery pale, the other blood-red and blinking like a waking eye.
In the center stood a long table made from whale bone, curved like the spine of an ancient leviathan. Upon it lay artifacts from times and worlds that contradicted each other:A tiny music box that played Für Elise in a broken minor key, surrounded by holograms of Roman soldiers wielding laser rifles.A bronze mirror reflecting the Flying Dutchman firing on WWII fighter planes.An hourglass filled with seconds that defied counting, labeled: Seconds Stolen from Doomsday.
The guests had already gathered—nobles in suits glowing in ultraviolet, women in dresses made of suicide letters, and entities not fully present, including one whose face changed every time you tried to remember it.Among them, Elias saw Lysandra sitting quietly, and he didn't greet her—as though they were strangers meeting for the first time.
Above, on the balcony shrouded in gaslight and red moonshine, someone sat still. Their jet-black cloak absorbed all light like a hole in the canvas of reality. No one looked at them. As if time itself avoided their presence.
Elias glanced up only briefly—then forgot he had ever seen them.
He sat down, though his soul begged to stand. The Codex was placed upon the table. A man wearing an antique clock mask gently tapped a glass bell—and the Auction of Fate began.
"We do not sell objects," said the auctioneer, his voice echoing with the resonance of future and past, "we sell potential: endings, beginnings, and possibilities that never happened."
The bids began to flow.
One Chronos Second was traded for an Echo of an Alternate Reality—a prince who was never born.Four Minor Rituals for Memories of a Day That Never Was.
Then, another voice—like frost crystallizing—spoke:
"The Sealed Solar Codex. I offer one Sliver of a Doomsday Second, and one Fragment of the Fourteenth Entity's Consciousness."
Elias said nothing. The bid was too costly—and too dangerous.
But before he could respond, Lysandra stood.
Her dress moved like living mist. Her eyes met Elias's—there was either warning in them, or a plea.
"I raise the bid," she said. "As collateral—half the Codex itself."
A gasp rippled through the room. Some guests turned.
Elias's face paled."Lysandra, what are you—"
But she had already touched the Codex. A flash ignited. The ancient ink melted and crawled into her skin like poison. In one swift motion, she leapt backward and escaped into the folds of time—a dimensional rift blinking like a broken screen.
And vanished.
Everything went silent.
Elias stood, his heart like a clockwork engine missing its hands.
"Betrayal is the highest form of honesty," whispered the entity with the shifting face, now wearing his mother's. "It shows who truly wants to save you—by hurting you first."
He wanted to follow. But there was no door left to chase through. The room was now staring back at him.
The night sky flickered. The two moons aligned for a second, and in the glass dome's reflection, Elias saw a glimpse of himself—wounded, aged, bound in the chains of time, staring back from a future that might never arrive.