《Divine Madness》 1. The Name in the Ink The first thing Neno Vaulden knew was cold stone beneath him. The second was the sound of paper breathing. His eyes snapped open. The ceiling above was cracked and stained, its faded murals depicting a faceless figure with outstretched hands. He lay on the floor of a ruined chapel, its air thick with the scent of wax and old parchment. The candles had long since melted to their wicks, leaving behind dark puddles that reflected something moving in the shadows. His fingers twitched. Something was in his hand. A page. Torn. Crumpled. Stained with ink. Neno sat up slowly, his body aching as though he had been asleep for years. The silence in the chapel was unnatural¡ªnot the stillness of an empty place, but something else. Something watching. He unfolded the page. His own name was written there, over and over, the ink dark and wet as if it had just been inscribed. Neno Vaulden. Neno Vaulden. Neno Vaulden. The words bled into the fibers of the paper, stretching, twisting¡ªuntil beneath them, new letters bloomed, forming a sentence that should not be. "Seek the Mouth of Saranja before it speaks your name." This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. The words shifted as he read them. As though they knew he was looking. A breath caught in his throat. Then¡ªa sound. Footsteps. He turned sharply toward the chapel¡¯s entrance, where the light from the broken stained-glass window bled across the stone floor. A man stood there, draped in tattered robes. His breath rattled in his chest, his fingers twitching like a puppet¡¯s limbs. His face¡ªno, what was left of it¡ªwas streaked with ink, his lips stained as though he had been drinking from a well of black. The man took a shuddering step forward. ¡°The Gospel¡­¡± he whispered, eyes locked onto the page in Neno¡¯s hands. Neno stiffened. He felt something wrong in the way the man moved¡ªhis limbs slightly out of sync, as if his body had forgotten how to function. ¡°What¡ª¡± Neno started, but the man lunged. Fingers like claws seized his wrist. ¡°You read it, didn¡¯t you?¡± The man¡¯s voice was desperate, a pleading rasp. His breath reeked of old paper and something rotten. ¡°Do you hear it yet?¡± Neno wrenched his arm away, stumbling backward. The man stared at him¡ªeyes wide, bloodshot, unblinking. Then, his lips began to move, forming words that sent ice through Neno¡¯s spine. "It already knows you exist." The ink on the page trembled. And then, before Neno could react, the man¡¯s body began to tear. Not like flesh. Not like bone. Like paper. His skin split along invisible seams, peeling apart into curling fragments, each piece marked with unreadable text. His mouth gaped open in a silent scream as his body unraveled, scattering into the unseen wind. The ink-dark remnants drifted in slow spirals, caught in an unfelt current. Then, nothing. Neno stood frozen, his heartbeat hammering in his skull. The air in the chapel had changed¡ªthicker now, weighted with something unseen. He looked down at the page in his hands. The ink was moving. The words were changing. New letters crawled across the surface, twisting into place. "Do not run. It is already listening." Somewhere beyond the chapel walls, from the depths of Saranja, something sighed. Long. Slow. As if awakening. And the candles, long since melted down to wax, flickered back to life. 2. The Streets That Forget Neno¡¯s breath came shallow, his pulse thrumming in his ears like a distant drum. The chapel was silent again¡ªtoo silent. The air no longer carried echoes of his own movement. As if the space around him had paused, waiting for something unseen to respond. His fingers tightened around the page. The ink was still moving, shifting in slow, deliberate motions, reforming words that whispered without sound. "Do not run. It is already listening." A tremor crawled down his spine. The Mouth of Saranja. He didn¡¯t understand what it was. He didn¡¯t know why the words warned him against running. But every instinct in his body screamed that he should not be here. With a final glance at the empty space where the man had dissolved, Neno forced himself toward the chapel doors. They loomed before him¡ªtowering slabs of wood and tarnished iron. He hesitated, pressing a hand to the surface. It was warm. As if something behind them had just breathed against the wood. Pushing aside the unease coiling in his gut, he shoved the doors open. The city of Saranja stretched before him, and for the first time, he understood: Something was terribly wrong. ______________________________________ The streets twisted beneath a sky of neither night nor day. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. The sun was gone, swallowed by an expanse of shifting gray, tinged with faint, pulsing veins of ink. No wind stirred. No voices called. The city breathed in eerie stillness, its spires standing like the ribs of a great carcass, long picked clean. Buildings leaned unnaturally, their structures seeming to bend toward him. The stone of the streets was etched with faint symbols, worn away by time¡ªor by something that wanted them erased. Neno swallowed hard. The silence was suffocating. Yet, as he took a step forward, the ground beneath his boots creaked, like old parchment bending under weight. He kept moving. Every street he turned onto felt off, as though it had just shifted into place before he arrived. Windows were hollow and dark, but when he wasn¡¯t looking, he swore he could feel something behind the glass. He passed a statue¡ªa towering figure wrapped in stone robes. Its face had been chiseled away, leaving only the vague impression of a mouth, a whispering hush of lips against smooth marble. Beneath its feet, an inscription: ¡°Do not speak its name.¡± Neno felt a pressure behind his eyes. The city was watching him. ______________________________________ He reached a small courtyard where a fountain stood, its waters dark and unmoving. A mirror of ink. As he approached, something shifted in the reflection. Neno froze. It wasn¡¯t his own face looking back at him. It was¡­ another version of himself. Pale. Hollow-eyed. A black stain creeping from his mouth. And then¡ª It spoke. The words did not match the movement of its lips. Instead, they appeared in his mind, crawling over his thoughts like ink bleeding through paper: "You will forget this street the moment you leave it." A sharp pain stabbed through his skull. He stumbled back, gripping his head, and when he blinked¡ª The reflection was gone. And so was the street behind him. Neno¡¯s breath caught. He turned sharply. There had been a path. He had come from somewhere¡ªhadn¡¯t he? But when he looked now, all he saw was a solid wall of stone. The city had changed. ______________________________________ Panic coiled in his chest. He reached into his pocket, his fingers brushing the crumpled page. The ink had shifted again. New words had formed. "Saranja does not remember. It does not want you to leave." The walls creaked. The buildings around him seemed to lean closer. The city was awake. And it had noticed him.