Rain slicked the pavement in shimmering rivers as Noah Cain adjusted the strap of his satchel and ducked beneath the overhang outside Merrick Hall. The gray stone library had stood at the edge of campus for over a century, but few students ever bothered to enter its dust-laden halls. It was the kind of place that felt suspended in time, echoing with forgotten footsteps and the silence of unread pages.
Noah hadn't planned on coming here. He never did. But today, something had gnawed at the edge of his thoughts—a directionless pull, like gravity working sideways. Maybe it was the pressure of exams, or the persistent sense that life was happening to everyone else and leaving him behind. He had friends, sure. Professors liked him. But Noah had long carried the feeling that he was out of place, as though the world had tilted just a degree too far for him to stand straight.
He pushed open the heavy oak door, greeted by the scent of aged paper and varnish. The librarian glanced up from behind her desk, eyes flickering with recognition. She was old—not in the way of years, but of eras. Her spectacles hung low on her nose, and her lips curved into something between a smirk and a sigh.
"Funny," she said, not looking at him. "No one ever goes in there."
Noah paused. "In where?"
She nodded toward the west wing. A section sealed by worn velvet ropes and a small sign that simply read: Archives. It was the part of the library even the history majors didn't visit.
He hesitated. "Am I allowed?"
"You are now."
That was all she said before returning to her book, as if the conversation had never happened.
Noah felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, but curiosity had always been his most reckless trait. He stepped over the rope, each footfall muted by thick, ancestral carpet. The rows of shelves here were narrower, their books ancient and uneven. No fluorescent lighting, only golden sconces flickering like candlelight.
He wandered aimlessly, letting his fingers brush spines until he reached a dead end—a small alcove with nothing but a single pedestal. Resting atop it was a book.
It looked almost too deliberate: leather-bound, stitched with threads of gold and something darker, maybe crimson. It had no title. No author. It radiated a strange warmth, as if it were alive.
Noah swallowed and reached out. The moment his fingertips touched the cover, a hum filled the air—soft and melodic, like the tail end of a symphony played in reverse. His chest tightened. Images burst behind his eyes: blinding light, towering figures with wings not made of feathers but of fire, a vast expanse where stars were born like thoughts, and a voice—not heard, but felt—reverberating through his bones.
You were not chosen. You came anyway.
Noah gasped and staggered back, but the room did not follow. It stood still, frozen. The sconces no longer flickered. The air no longer moved. Time had paused, the silence deafening.
He turned to run, to find the librarian—anyone—but the hallway was gone. In its place stretched an infinite corridor of light, faceted like crystal and lined with symbols he did not understand but instinctively recognized.
Noah clutched the book to his chest. "What is this? Where am I?"
The voice returned, closer this time.
You found the Record. The passage opens. Walk forward.
"Wait, I didn't mean to—I didn't ask for this!"
None ever do.
The corridor shifted. Light poured forward, not blinding but embracing, folding over him like warm water. Noah tried to resist, to turn back, but his feet moved on their own, drawn forward by something deeper than logic. As he stepped fully into the corridor, the world behind him collapsed into silence.
Back at the librarian's desk, the old woman looked up slowly.
The clock above her desk had stopped ticking.
She closed her book and whispered, not to herself but to the empty air:
"The Bearer has entered."
And for the first time in a thousand years, the library began to breathe.
Noah felt himself falling and rising at the same time, as if the rules of motion had been rewritten. Light wrapped around him like fabric, threads of reality bending into kaleidoscopic shapes. Thoughts not his own brushed past him—memories of things he had never done, languages he had never learned, sorrow he had never felt.
Then suddenly: stillness.
He stood at the center of a white expanse, too perfect to be real. There was no sky, no ground, only light. The Book hovered in front of him, its pages fluttering in a wind that didn't exist.
And then they came.
Seven silhouettes emerged from the light. Towering and formless at first, but coalescing into radiant beings as they drew near. Their wings spanned galaxies. Their eyes held stars. Each carried something unique—a sword, a chalice, a scroll, a scale, a censer, a staff, and a chained scythe.
Noah dropped to his knees.
He couldn't move. Couldn't think. Could only stare.
The one with the sword stepped forward.
"You are the one who heard the Voice."
Noah could barely speak. "What... are you?"
"We are the Cardinals," another answered—the one with the scroll. "Facets of His design. You have touched the Lumen Divinitatis."
"The what?"
"The Book," said the third, their voice softer. "It is the gate and the key. It leads only those whose hearts bend toward sacrifice."
Noah blinked. "I don't understand."
The Cardinal with the chained scythe stepped forward. His wings were heavy. His eyes burned with pain held too long.
"You don't have to. Not yet."
Noah looked up. "What do you want from me?"
"Nothing," said the one with the censer. "Only what you choose to give."
The Book floated down, resting once again in his hands. Its cover pulsed gently.
"You have entered the path. Whether you walk it is yours to decide," said the Cardinal with the staff.
Noah stared at the Book. "What happens if I walk it?"
The Cardinal with the scales answered:
"Then the world will never be the same."
And with that, the light dimmed.
Noah Cain, once just a college student searching for something he couldn't name, now stood at the edge of creation with the first of many choices before him.
He did not yet know what the Lumen Divinitatis truly was.
Only that it had chosen him the moment he chose it.