# Working draft of a late-stage speculative science-fiction chapter used for LineMind Novelist output examples. # This text is copyrighted and shared for demonstration purposes only — not for publication or redistribution. CATACLYSMS: REVELATION Prologue The Visitor 35,264 days before the cataclysm. They’d dared each other to find the Bones of the Ancients. Two twelve-year-old shepherds’ sons, itching to prove they were more than the ice fields that raised them. He still wasn’t sure who started it. Maybe it was Dannon— probably was. By the third time they said it out loud, it wasn’t a joke anymore. They were going. Hector with a torch tucked under his vest. Dannon with his half-plan grin. Hector had pictured it more times than he could count—not just relic shards or broken scraps, but the real thing. The kind they said still lined the walls of the Temple. The kind that hadn’t rotted in a thousand years. Dannon’s father had said it once—plastic. That was its old name. But Hector never liked how it sounded. Too small for what it was. And no one called it that. Not in their new home—not in Veriya. Everyone called it the Bones. The Temple was where the name was supposed to become real—where the stories said the material still survived. One boy said the Temple’s Ancients had even found ways to trap voices in their bones—souls turned to signal, trapped forever. Now, even with the city pressed close, the Temple’s grounds felt remote. Quiet. Untouched. Here, thin ice from the last storm still clung to the stone pavers, unbothered. And no one was supposed to come this far. The grate had always stopped them—solid, sealed, a warning. But now, it groaned. Dannon had wedged in beside him, bracing with both feet. Together they pulled. Metal shrieked. A bracket tore free. For a hesitant moment, they stared into the narrow crawlspace beyond. Too narrow for a man, but just enough for a boy to worm through. Dannon slipped in first, elbows scraping stone. Hector followed close behind, breath sharp in the tight accessway. The passage opened—enough for them to nearly stand beside the mouth of the vent. Other shafts—like the one they’d just crawled through—cut down from above, letting in more light than Hector had expected. Enough to see clearly. Enough to know it was real. The Djin who blessed Gaia might turn if their home were disturbed. But that was priest-talk. Stories and riddles to keep people in line. Still, the warning quietly clung to him. “Nobody thought we’d be seeing this,” Dannon whispered—as if he'd plucked the thought right out of Hector’s chest. Maybe not. But now they could. Hector moved closer, next to Dannon—next to the edge. The shaft appeared impossibly deep. Hector leaned closer, watching his breath drift over the edge—slow and pale, unraveling into the dark. Below, the material caught the light in dull patches, smooth and ghost-colored, like bone polished by centuries, sealed into the walls as if grown there. Hector didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. Dannon had already dropped to his knees beside him, eyes wide. The vent plunged straight down. Dannon exhaled—a pant, short with wonder. “It’s real. Really here…” He glanced at Hector, as if checking whether they were both seeing the same thing. For a second, neither moved. Then Dannon turned toward him, eyes wide not with fear, but disbelief. “I thought it was all just… you know—” He didn’t finish. They both knew. Bones of the Ancients were for stories. For imagined bragging. For sketching secret maps and plans in the dirt after chores. Not for this. Not for really finding. And yet, here it was—an entire wall of it, maybe more. Dannon gave a short laugh, half-shaken, half-thrilled, and elbowed him lightly. “If it cracks off clean, we’ll be legends.” Hector didn’t answer. His eyes traced the pale surface just below the rim—smooth as poured wax, seams faint where the panels met. Dannon’s father had crafted a basin from a thin scrap of material like this—something he’d found years ago, traveling the ice barrens—before Veriya. He protected it like a secret. It held water without soaking, and never softened—not even when left wet for days. Hector had run his fingers over it dozens of times. It felt sealed. Finished. Like it wasn’t part of the world anymore. Nothing else in Gaia felt anything like it. And now this vent—lined with the same rare stuff—held more of it than they’d ever imagined. A treasure. Hector unhooked his long belt. “Lift up.” He looped the leather strap under Dannon’s raised arms and pulled it snug. Dannon gave a short nod, eyes wide. “I’ll lower you to the seam,” Hector added, bracing across the rim, boots planted against the base. He let the strap carefully slip through his hands, inch by inch, lowering Dannon into the hollow—not his full weight, but to extend beyond his reach. Fingertips scraped the Bones. “Almost…” Dannon called. “Just a little more…” Then— The belt tore. Weight yanked down. Hector lurched. His hip hit the rim— balance gone. His shout rang alongside Dannon’s. Panels of their treasure spun past. No grip. No ledge. Only falling. The shaft swallowed them. Momentum stretched. The dark deepened. Impact. The floor slammed into Hector’s lower back. A flash of pain lit his leg. He Bounced. Skidded hard. He stopped, bent crooked, breath gone. Thick dust lifted in slow spirals, hanging in the light from the vent. For a moment, time pinched shut around him. His ears rang. His head throbbed. Everything felt uncertain as it drifted to black. When he opened his eyes, the light had changed. The pale glow from the vent was faint now—further above, distant and thin. Something else, dimmer and blue, glistened along the walls here. He turned, dizzy. Dannon lay a few paces away—bent and wrong. The side of his head was dark—blood, maybe—swimming in and out of focus. Hector tried to crawl toward him— but his thigh failed. He collapsed. Everything spun— then his vision stretched too far and blurred. When he woke again, the vent-light was gone. Only the soft blue glow remained. Painfully, he rose. His limbs ached—his thigh worst of all. He crossed to his friend. Dannon hadn’t moved. Still twisted. Too still. Hector hovered a hand over his friend’s chest— no rise, no warmth. He raised his knuckles to his mouth, holding in the grief. The weight of it filled him—bitter and infinite. Dannon wasn’t going to wake. Hector pushed himself up again. He had to look for something. Anything. A way back. A way up. A way to tell someone. He didn’t cry. Not yet. The torch lay a few steps away, where it had bounced and skidded— two soft arcs scuffed into the dust. He retrieved it. He lit it by reflex—no thought, just muscle. The yellow burned steady. Familiar. It bled over the strange blue and held it back. He turned. Started walking. Which corridor didn’t matter. He didn’t notice. He moved forward without counting, without thinking— long enough for the stillness to stretch, to settle. Long enough for the blue ahead to seem brighter than before. He stopped. Shielded the flame with his hand. Was the glow ahead… growing? Carefully extinguishing the oilcloth torch, he folded the burnt remnants between his fingers. The pale blue glimmer was enough to see the passage ahead. Dust curled as he walked, rising in sluggish rings. He prayed the glow was real. It wasn’t like fire—too still, too cold. More like a captured star. He’d heard myths of the Ancients trapping lightning in glass, voices stored in silence. Exciting. And unnerving. He paused, back against the cool wall. His fingers dug into the stiff muscle of his thigh, pain flaring hot beneath the skin. The memory of his mother’s wise voice landed hard: Don’t whine; act. Pushing through the stab of each step, he continued. Dust and silence repeated until time lost measure. He dragged his fingers along the smooth panels of the wall, the shallow ridges offering tactile reassurance that he was progressing. His other hand found the small wrapped cheese in his belt pouch, the waxy paper still molded by his mother’s hands that morning— It felt like a relic of another life. They would be looking for us by now, he thought. Maybe. But no one would look here, in the Temple. His stomach tightened, not from his hunger but from the quiet certainty settling into his bones. His gaze locked forward, pulling more of his mother’s words from memory like a talisman against the dark— There is a new world hidden beyond each despair. But it felt like the world was unraveling. He paused, felt the rough, torn leather end of his belt. A prize turned enemy. A slow exhale. The belt was special. It still held traces of that distant morning. His first hunt alone—the doe’s trail through frost, his fingers numb with effort. He’d carried the skin back in triumph. His mother had shown him how to tan it, warm and patient as they turned it from death into something useful— into something beautiful. He clutched the traitorous belt and lowered his head. He remembered her humming, the quiet rhythm as she helped burnish his name into the leather. Tears welled. He let them fall, then wiped his face— not because he was ready, but because there was no other way. The walking stretched—offering only the steady press of forward. The corridor walls closed in, pressing against his patience. Then, almost unexpectedly after such a prolonged trudge, its confinement fell away into a vast emptiness. Hector stumbled to a halt, blinking at the blue-tinged void before him. The light—faint and uncertain—pushed back against the darkness, revealing the vaguest outlines. The ceiling vanished beyond reach, and the farthest edges never resolved—just suggestion and dark. He had never conceived of an inside space so enormous. It was like floating inside the night sky. Yet there was no wind, no life—only the eerie threat of something waiting. Barely entering, he leaned against the smooth wall, easing the weight from his aching leg. He relit his torch, the amber glow stretching feebly into the dim expanse, urging him to see what lay ahead. The room was filled with narrow tables, a few chairs, and other objects—mostly familiar, but strange in shape. And all of them appeared to be made from Bones of the Ancients. Once, the sight would’ve thrilled him—proof of the stories, of everything he and Dannon had dreamed they might find. Now it just looked like a trick. In the distance, rows upon rows of stacked boxes stretched into the cavernous dark, their insides alive with scattered constellations. Some danced like fireflies trapped in glass—white, yellow, red—flaring in a rhythm that felt deliberate, almost orchestrated, like a call and response. Maybe they’re talking, his tired mind imagined. Do they hear me? Half a question. All of it dread. His breath stalled, awe and unease coiling in his chest. He thought of the stories—old-world tech-myths, machines that held thoughts too heavy for the dead to carry. The air felt thinner here, crisp, dry on the throat. Is this where stars are kept? Or born? Or something stranger— something waiting? I’m too small for this place. The thought sat heavy in his stomach—bitter, unwelcome, and hard to shake. He folded his arms tight against his chest, but the chilling idea gnawed through his skin, through his bones. Some places, he thought, weren’t meant to be entered. Some things weren’t meant to be seen. He swallowed hard. What happens to those who trespass against the gods? Hector's hungry stomach growled loudly, echoing through the room as if to betray his presence to some unknown guardian. Escape clawed at him, but he could not leave the way he came. There was no scaling back up the smooth vertical surfaces of the vent. He didn’t want to look back— but the image surged anyway. Dannon sprawled on the floor of that room, blood seeping down his temple, mouth parted, eyes too still. It struck like new pain, sharp and forever. The image clamped onto his thoughts, biting at the edges. His stomach tightened, a shiver running through his arms, hollow and shaking. He jerked his head up, inhaling sharply as if the motion alone could sever the past from the now. He let the labyrinth demand his focus. Forcing himself to breathe steadily, Hector opened his pack and counted his remaining oilcloth, assessing the burn on his torch. He estimated a day had passed since the fall, though time was slippery in the oppressive darkness. His numbed mind feebly rebelled, refusing to entirely believe Dannon was dead. An unexpected guilt stuck in his gut, less for the risk-taking and more for surviving. They were only a month apart—close enough it never mattered. They’d grown up like twins. He couldn’t remember a time without Dannon. Waves of dysphoria washed over him as the brutal reality of the permanence—the aloneness—increasingly invaded his thoughts. He wished he could undo the bravado and the dare, the childish game-playing, and the decision to explore the grounds of the Temple. But Dannon was gone. The cost was already paid. Renewing his determination, he held his torch with both hands and cautiously advanced toward the star-filled containers ahead. His palms twisted tightly on the shaft, finding their best grip. He was no longer holding it for illumination. The flickering tool was more important as a barrier between himself and whatever terror might spring toward him. The whirring’s getting louder here. He glanced over his shoulder. Nothing. Quiet sounds could not warn him now. A breeze brushed his skin—the first he’d felt since the fall. The smoldering cloth twitched. He stepped forward—into something unseen— A sudden gust, unnatural and strong— It swept down, slicing the air into ribbons. The torch hissed and died. The sudden darkness swallowed everything. For a breath, nothing. Then the blue glow returned— dim, peripheral… enough to faintly see. He stood frozen. Heart in his throat. Behind him, emptiness. Dannon, dead. Ahead, the comparative hope of some unknown alternative. As quickly as the powerful gust had come, with the next stagger of a step, it passed. The rushing blast of air was like a physical thing. Hector glanced back as if he might see it manifested. It’s a barrier, he thought. And I’m not supposed to be on this side. It’s different here, he noticed. It’s clean… Someone cleans this place. The observation seemed to prove he was not alone. Reflexively, he cast anxious glances into the dimness—unable to see detail beyond a few steps. Suppressing a rise of panic, he scrambled to relight the oiled cloth. Each flint strike dragged—time raced. The sparks scattered with each attempt. Finally, the sharp tang of smoldering cloth cut the air. His nerves calmed as the familiarity of the warm, golden tone spread around him, making a shelter of sorts in the alien shadows. With the growing light, his heartbeat slowed. Breathe, he reminded himself. Dust still clung to him. But here, the air was pure. Clean. A welcome relief after a day of breathing silt. But the cool air tickled the back of his throat. Still hoping to be unnoticed, he fought off the urge to cough, settling for a hushed, throaty rasp instead. He paused, eyes scanning the way ahead. Only the star-boxes remained—twinkling lights pulsing in time with a low, mechanical whirr. No sooner had he begun forward again when Hector perceived another change. It was slowly getting brighter—like dawn was coming. Shapes and edges were sharpening. The warm tone of the new light felt comfortingly familiar amid all this strangeness. Oddly, the boxes' stars kept twinkling—not lighting the room, only themselves. Why don’t they dim and disappear? He extinguished the torch again and let his gaze drift over the vast space now taking shape around him. He wasn’t sure if he was being brave or just scared of waking something best left alone. Either way, he moved toward a newly revealed mass near the center—dark, rectangular, and imposing. As he got closer, navigating through the stacks of star boxes, the hum changed—shifting, recalibrating, almost aware. It no longer just filled the space—it tunneled into him, slow and searching. Each box vibrated at its own frequency, its pulses layering into a whispering chorus. The one nearest him pulsed differently. Lights drifted—some floating near the surface, others falling into unfathomable depths. A subtle warmth rose from it, radiant along his skin. His fingers twitched. He shouldn’t touch it. But it felt like it was waiting. Is it breathing? Or maybe it’s a constellation—stars and planets? Am I in there? Is this a map? There and here both—like a shadow burned into glass, or like the old-world tech-myths—a soul copied into a signal vault. His hand recoiled. The stacks of star boxes now clustered around him, their vibrations swelling in his ears. At some point, he’d stopped walking. His leg ached. His stomach clenched. He wasn’t sure if he had the strength—or the will—to keep going toward the massive central structure. He stood there, locked in a quiet standoff with himself. Then, his familiar risk-taking curiosity resurfaced—he was so close to the center. He started forward again, reaching the large mass without interruption—but no more assured than before. The immense block loomed before him—a sleek, obsidian slab on a pedestal, its surface too perfect, unnerving. He guessed it stood six meters high, maybe more, stretching twice as wide—dominating, making him feel smaller as he approached. As Hector edged closer, his breath hitched. Lifesize silhouettes came into focus, etched like a mural of dancing ghosts captured mid-movement. His stomach churned, and a chill crawled up his spine. He took a half-step back, his mind racing. Was this a shrine, a sculpture, a warning? Something far worse? His gaze wandered across the dark form as his worn-out eyes focused beyond the surface—deeper into the slab. At first, just a murky glimmer—then, gradually, the pale face of a boy stared back at him like a mirror. Hector could feel his heart beat as he tried to understand what he was seeing. Is this a phantom? My own reflection? His exhausted mind was hazy and uncertain. Could it be an omen like the priests pray over? He regretted not paying closer attention to the Elders' myths and lessons. Hector tentatively stepped onto the pedestal to better look at the etchings. As his second foot touched the smooth surface, a blinding flash exploded around him, and the world dissolved into a swirl of shadows and light. A force unlike anything he’d known tugged at his body, pulling him toward—then into—the slab with relentless force. His skin tingled sharply—every nerve awake and overwhelmed. A suffocating heat wrapped around him, thick and inescapable. His lungs seized. No atmosphere. No sound. He clawed at the air, but the space around him had no substance, no anchor. Prickles enveloped him like a swarm, folding over itself, pushing him with it—like an enraged hive of wasps. He shook, his nerves raw with static. His mind fractured, split between terror and surrender. Is this death? He tried to scream, but there was no breath, no voice— only the crisp silence of oblivion swallowing him whole. The silhouettes from the slab flitted forward in his mind’s eye— etched figures that now felt closer, as if they surrounded him in this chaos. Is that what happens—to those who trespass? The thought sliced through his terror, cold and final, as the pull intensified, dragging him deeper into the slab’s depths. It was of no comfort that he was not the first. Hector’s body wrenched into an aching, unnatural shape, but he couldn't tell if it was his doing or if it was being forced upon him. The waves of pain subsided slightly. A clarity crept in. He thought of Amelia, the sweet and kind classmate he hoped to kiss one day. Images of his parents rushed into his thoughts, his mother’s loving hand on his cheek. Then, Dannon—smiling before their fall into the vent. The images blurred together until they dissolved into a dark, relentless void. Everything wrenched sideways, folding, crushing, and expanding all at once. Then the sensation was gone. A sudden weightlessness before impact—knees striking cold, unyielding stone, hands bracing against a smooth surface. The world pitched around him, vertigo churning his gut. A dream? Not like this. He gasped, air flooding his empty lungs as sunlight shattered across his vision—sharp, blinding, too real. A still pond shimmered ahead, glassy, still—touched only by a few drifting lilies. Beyond it, a strange, curved building—unthinkably elegant, perfect. The air smelled thick and fragrant. He wasn’t where he had been. Am I still in Gaia? The Temple? Where is the slab? Its absence was disorienting, but he was glad to be free from its violent grip. His body quivered as he managed to rise and stumble hesitantly toward the water. The sun was high and impossibly hot, prickling his skin. The humid air smelled like flowering water. His pulse slowed. Around him, strange flora bloomed with vivid color. A few people stood by the pond—quiet, oddly dressed. A bee traced lazy loops above the basin’s edge, where lilies floated on still water. It was beautiful. More dream than reality. Like something trying to erase what he’d just survived. Am I imagining this? Am I in heaven? The air suddenly felt tense, pregnant with a foreboding he couldn’t place. Like everything had paused, waiting to drop. A sharp, ragged scream tore through the air. Hector jerked back, his senses still sluggish, still lost in the aftershock of the slab. All around him, people collapsed in groups—hands clutching chests, faces twisted with confused emotion. A ripple of gasps and sobs spread outward, swallowing the plaza. Some reached for each other. Others ran away. His gut tangled. Did something horrible wake up? He staggered—the ground gave slightly, like thin ice flexing beneath him, as if something unseen had just stepped closer. A kaleidoscope of bare emotions seemed to seize every face—joy blooming into ecstasy, awe splintering into shock, fear buckling into sudden terror. Hector backed away in confusion, bumping into a large, ornate stone marker. A strange thought crept in—maybe it wasn’t him they were reacting to, but something around him. Something about the space he moved through. The way their eyes tracked—not him, exactly, but the wake he left. He hesitated, unsure of why this was happening. The weight of it settled heavily—he felt somehow responsible. Something was following him. A ripple in the air, in the people— his very steps seemed to disturb the world. Are they seeing something I can’t? His leg quivered with pain, threatening collapse. Instinct led him—limping—toward a recess between two carved buildings, a shadowed niche just far enough from a world too strange to belong to him. He sat on the ground and leaned against the smooth, shaded foundation stones. Here, he could think without being seen by others. He felt exhausted. Hungry. Alone. The cool stone wall leached the heat from his back and legs, a slow siphon that dulled the thrum of his aching body. The searing sunlight seemed to fill even the shade, thick and too bright, nothing like the frail, torch warmth he had fought to preserve in the dark. His heavy eyelids slid shut as the sweet aroma of blooming flowers filled his nose. Distant voices murmured on the edge of hearing, but the cheerful trills of nearby birds wrapped him in a fragile calm. His thoughts from the labyrinth echoed, multiplied. This place isn’t meant for me. It struck differently now— Still with fear, but with bewildered reverence. A voice in the distance cried out in surprise. Hector was too tired to worry. His thoughts thinned into the soft fog before sleep, where nothing made sense, but the ache stayed near. He felt like he’d slipped through a second vent— into a world even stranger than the star box labyrinth. Now there was no path home. Only deeper. I don’t know what this place is. But I know it isn’t heaven. Page # (c) copyright 2025, Barton Niedner, Licenced for use to Resource Forge LLC.