Unsleeping Patron - Trapped in a Memory

Ceasing to exist in a fraction of a second, the door didn’t even slam shut.Silas stood on the woven straw mat in the foyer, his hand still resting where the brass doorknob had been a fraction of a second before. Now, there was only a smooth, unbroken expanse of white plaster wall.He didn’t draw his mantis-scythe. He turned his head slowly, his amber-and-crimson eyes scanning the narrow corridor.The house was completely out of place in the Miasma Wastes. It was a two-story Earth-style suburban home with a red shingle roof, smelling faintly of lemon floor wax and old dust. Sunlight bright, artificial, and casting no shadows filtered through the sash windows in the living room. Outside the glass, there was no grey fog, no violet canopy, only a flat, featureless expanse of blinding white void.It was an anomaly. A sub-spatial trap disguised as a memory, floating invisible in the deep shale trenches two hundred miles north of New Sanctum. He had tracked the final Sequence 8 spiritual ingredient a strand of Pale-Night root directly to the front porch.Silas flexed his right wrist.A three-foot blade of solid, Stage 9 Peak Mind-Light erupted from his forearm, humming with a low, saw-like whistle. He didn’t hesitate. He drove the golden edge straight into the white plaster wall where the front door used to be.CLANG.The wall didn’t crack. The golden blade, sharp enough to cut through the Ancient Treant’s iron-bark, deflected off the plaster with a shower of orange sparks. A sharp, stinging feedback raced up Silas’s arm, numbing his elbow.He pulled the blade back, letting the amber light dissolve into the air.He twitched his shoulder blades, unfurling the ten-meter crimson Blood-Wings inside the narrow foyer. The translucent blood-membrane scraped against the floral wallpaper, tearing a strip of paper loose. He locked his gaze on the white void outside the window and blinked.Space didn’t tear.Instead of reappearing outside the house, Silas was violently thrown backward, his boots skidding across the hardwood floor as his back slammed into the staircase banister. A cold, heavy pressure settled over his spine, pinning his blood-wings tight against his ribs.Spatial lock. The house wasn’t just a physical cage; its internal geometry was completely severed from the outer Miasma. A Blood-Wing couldn’t fold space if there was no space to fold into.Silas pushed himself off the banister, his breath coming in a short, controlled pull.He sat down on the bottom step of the oak staircase. He didn’t look at the fake sunlight or the floral wallpaper. He closed his eyes, sinking his consciousness deep into his own skull, passing through the bronze-hard shell of his Stage 9 mind to reach the freezing, ancient leather of the Parchment.The artifact shivered in the dark.He didn’t ask it for a weapon or a potion. He pushed ten years of his newly reset, three-hundred-year lifespan straight into the yellow hide.Reveal the exit rule.The obsidian quill tore across his consciousness, dripping heavy crimson ink that burned like hot iron against his retinas.Sub-Spatial Cage (Rank: Sequence 8 Level). Rule 1: Outer space cannot be accessed via internal folding. Rule 2: Physical destruction of the boundary from within is nullified by the absolute lock. Exit Condition: The lock is vulnerable only at the point of external or internal rupture. To exit, the Vessel must locate a Sequence 8 entity attempting to tear the fabric from the inside, and exit through the localized tear before the fabric seals.Silas opened his eyes.The house was perfectly silent. No floorboards creaked. No wind rattled the sash windows.If he had to find a Sequence 8 entity trying to tear through the walls from the inside, he wasn’t alone in the house.Silas stood up from the bottom step, his bare feet making no sound against the polished oak. He didn’t summon his golden blade or unfold his crimson wings. He pulled his canvas tunic tight against his ribs, keeping his breathing shallow, and walked slowly toward the closed door of the kitchen at the end of the hall.