Opening Monologue:
"Sanctuaries are built of faith. Prisons are built of steel. A place that consumes memory is built of both. To enter is not a struggle of strength, but a submission to being read."
---
Scene 1 — The Weight of the Archway
Lullaby stood beneath the colossal archway of the Absorbing Cathedral. The doors weren't doors in the traditional sense; they were massive, fused panels of black metal and skeletal bone, etched with faces that seemed to shift when viewed peripherally.
The Orb Companion pulsed violently, a tiny yellow beacon against the immense, suffocating darkness.
Lullaby placed his hand on the cold seam where the panels met. He expected a lock, a seal, or an attack.
Instead, he felt a massive, psychic weight.
It wasn't a physical force. It was the collective gravity of every single stolen memory pressing down on his mind, demanding he justify his presence.
Why are you here? the silence screamed. Why do you still remember?
Lullaby held his ground, feeding his own pure, painful memory—the final glance of his mother—into the seam. His visor glowed fiercely yellow.
With a sound like a whisper turning into a groan, the panels slowly parted.
---
Scene 2 — The Infinite Archive
Lullaby stepped inside. The Archway slammed shut behind him with an echo that was immediately devoured by the air.
The interior defied physics. It was a vast, silent hall, far larger than the exterior suggested. It stretched infinitely upward and sideways, lined with endless shelves and towering pillars made of dark, carved obsidian.
But the shelves held no books.
They held Lanterns.
Millions upon millions of small, delicate lanterns, floating in the air, arranged in perfect, meticulous rows. Each one glowed with a different color: soft gold, mournful blue, fierce red.
Lullaby whispered, the silence making his voice sound like a gunshot:
"The memories..."
---
Scene 3 — The Curator
At the very center of the nave, sitting atop a throne made of fused memory cores and shadow-crystal, was a figure.
It was impossibly tall, draped in robes that absorbed all ambient light. Its face was a smooth, white porcelain mask with no features—save for a single, thin, vertical crack where a mouth should be.
This was The Curator.
The figure did not look up. It was holding a book made of sheets of pure, glowing light, methodically turning a translucent page with a long, skeletal hand.
The voice came—polite, ancient, and utterly terrifying. It was felt in the bone, not heard by the ear.
"Ah. An anomaly. You carry uncataloged data, little shadow. You are... incomplete."
The Curator slowly closed its book. The vertical crack on the mask widened slightly, revealing a pinprick of swirling void light.
---
Scene 4 — The Incomplete Collection
Lullaby stood his ground, the Orb spinning protectively around his head.
"I am Lullaby of Homelight," he said, his voice surprisingly steady. "I'm here for the memories you stole."
The Curator made a sound like dry, quiet laughter.
"Stolen? No. I am the librarian of the Deep. These memories are far too volatile to be left with their original owners. I offer them permanence. Safety from the Hunter's oblivion."
He pointed a finger at Lullaby.
"You, however, are an open book. Your trauma, your guilt, your purpose. All visible. You are unstable. And unstable elements must be cataloged immediately."
The figure made a small, contemptuous gesture.
The Lanterns closest to Lullaby began to rattle violently.
---
Scene 5 — The First Ingredient
From the endless rows of shelves, shadows dripped down like black syrup, pooling on the floor.
They quickly coalesced into shadowy, ghostly figures—the Ashborn Spectres—their eyes glowing cold blue as they turned toward Lullaby.
They were not solid, yet they radiated a piercing mental coldness.
The Curator tilted its head.
"Surrender your core data, and the assimilation will be painless."
The Spectres advanced, their spectral hands outstretched, seeking Lullaby's mind.
Lullaby knew he couldn't run. He couldn't fight. He could only disrupt.
He focused his gaze on the Lanterns—the millions of trapped souls. He focused on the memory of his people's laughter, turning his own emotional resonance into a shield.
He screamed, not with his voice, but with his pure, bright, defiant yellow light.
A wave of pure sonic energy erupted from the Orb, slamming into the advancing Spectres and the silent, arrogant Curator.
The Ashborn Spectres staggered, momentarily disrupted. The Lanterns above flickered wildly, the stored memories suddenly agitated by Lullaby's living, painful sound.
The Curator's mask cracked wider.
"Insolent child! You think noise can stop order?"
He lifted his hand, and the very air around Lullaby compressed. The ceiling began to slowly descend, intending to crush the small anomaly beneath the weight of the endless Archive.