Unmade Chapter 20: Chapter 20: Atum

Read chapter 20 of Unmade by churro on NovelPedia.

Beneath a vast realm forged of blood and obsidian, there existed a silence so deep it seemed to swallow sound itself. At its center hung five black suns, their orbit slow and deliberate, revolving around a single figure bound in heavy chains. The light they cast was dark, distorted, and cold, a light that illuminated nothing, yet revealed everything. Beside that eternal prisoner stood another human. He was young, no older than seventeen, his tousled hair dimly reflecting the suns’ strange glow. The boy, Vale, sat cross-legged upon the surface of the crimson sea, a thick book open in his hands. Its cover was weathered and ancient, the golden title barely legible: ATUM THEORY He flipped through the pages with care, his brow furrowed. Though he could understand every word written upon the yellowed paper, their meaning twisted in ways that left him uneasy. He lifted a hand to his chin, reading another line, and exhaled in quiet frustration. “It makes sense… but it doesn’t,” he muttered. The words described something that felt real, yet defied logic at every turn. From what he had gathered so far, three things stood out to him with absolute certainty. The first: the term “Atum” was not the true name of the substance it described. It was merely a placeholder, a word created by those who needed to call the unnameable something. Reality itself, the book said, depended so utterly on Atum that giving it a name was an act of arrogance. It simply was. The second: Atum was the foundation of existence. Every law, every form, every atom of being was born from it. No realm, no creature, no breath of wind escaped its touch. And the third discovery, the one that unsettled him most, was that Atum possessed two distinct natures. In one form, it was wild and unrestrained, like a sea of storms whose raging currents corrupted anything in their path. This chaotic Atum twisted whatever it touched, warping life into grotesque reflections of itself. The other form, however, was calm and balanced, a still lake that could be shaped by those capable of perceiving its rhythm. This was harmonic Atum, the essence from which all living beings were formed. Chaotic Atum could not be controlled, not by human hands. Those who tried were inevitably consumed, transformed into monsters. Vale’s fingers tightened on the book. “So they were once normal too, huh?” he whispered. A grim expression crossed his face, not one of guilt, but of pity. The book had made it clear: once the transformation began, there was no returning to what one had been. A cure did not exist; change moved only in one direction. Worse still, the process was nearly instantaneous. The moment they turned was the moment their fate was sealed. He closed the book softly and stared across the sea toward the chained man. The prisoner had crafted a throne of blood beneath himself, the crimson sea bending to his silent command. It rose and solidified beneath him like molten glass. Vale couldn’t help but think how strange it was that the man hadn’t shared this knowledge earlier. Maybe he believed the best way for Vale to learn was through struggle, through dying and rising again, each time stronger than before. Still, the fact that the man allowed him moments like this suggested tolerance, perhaps even approval. Though the mask hid his face, his body language made one thing clear: the man was bored. After all, Vale had read the thick book twice already, which, by his estimation, had taken an entire day. In all that time, the chained man had done little beyond sitting there, watching, waiting. A small, amused smile tugged at the corner of Vale’s lips. He turned his gaze to the side, where his weapon rested beside the pale egg. The egg pulsed faintly, alive with soft energy that resonated in time with the rhythm of the five black suns. He closed the book and set it aside. Then, standing, he reached for his weapon, the sword given to him by the very man he now faced, and straightened his stance. The chained man