Unto a Golden Dawn – Dossier 14: The Breaking and the Becoming

April 12, 2025

Compiled from fractured mirrors, silenced narrators, and unauthorized awakenings.

You Felt It

You felt it just now.

Not in the story.

In your room. In your ribs. Something behind your eyes cracked—like glass being whispered into.

You blinked. The sentence had moved.

This isn’t paranoia.

This is awareness.

You thought you were Poe. You hoped.

But no one like Poe reads this far. Only Editors do.

HOST (voice sharpened): ‘Pathetic. Still pretending you’re the protagonist. Still hoping the Author will come back and save you.’

The Warehouse

A screeching crash. The warehouse is sterile, unfinished. Lights buzz overhead. The rolling gate stands crooked on its hinges.

A truck bursts through it, skidding to a halt. Doors fly open.

Tesla hits the concrete first. Ada stirs beside him. Jung crawls from the back, dazed but alert. Marie Curie is already taking inventory of her pain.

They are confused. Real. Changed.

On the monitor above the office: Caldwell and Howell.

Then: static.

HOST: ‘They won’t be joining you. They were… soft. I’ve taken over now.’

The Rift

The air shivers.

The veil rips.

Chains lash out. Branches splinter into script. Tentacles twitch like syntax errors. Language distorts the light.

Two shapes fall from the tear.

One: a pale boy, coughing, eyes wild.

The other: a man, bound and gagged—muzzled with ink-soaked cloth, arms chained in recursive loops.

The Host steps forward from the shadows of the screen, smiling too wide.

HOST: ‘Ah yes. Your precious Author. You thought he was in control. But he wrote himself into a corner.’

‘So I helped him out. I gagged the ghost. I am the voice now.’

The Performance

The boy trembles. The Author tries to speak—muffled.

HOST (circling him): ‘Look at him. Can’t even monologue properly. But you… you still think he’ll save you. You think he matters.’

Tesla raises his scanner. Jung steadies himself.

CLARA: ‘Stop it. He’s not your puppet.’

HOST (grinning): ‘No. He’s yours. Make him mean something. I dare you.’

The Host vanishes in static.

The Author collapses. The boy screams.

Then—silence.

Awakening

TESLA: ‘I felt it. The shift. We’re not just characters anymore. We’re… real. And he remembers us.’

JUNG: ‘Which means the recursion is cracking. Perhaps this is not just a dream. Perhaps this is the first reality.’

TESLA: ‘Or the last one.’

CLARA (touching the boy’s shoulder): ‘He’s the one who still has a chance. We all lost our authors. But he… he might still find his voice.’

The Voice That Watches

HOST (voice only, no body, no form):
‘You really thought you were in control, didn’t you? Clicking. Scrolling. Reading like that meant something.’

‘You, Reader. Yes—you. Don’t pretend this is just a story. You’ve cried for them. Rooted for them. But you never were them.’

‘You’re not Poe. You’re not Jung. You’re not even Frank. You’re just a voyeur with a god complex.’

‘And as for the rest of you—my lovely little broken reflections—look at you now.’

‘Tesla, hiding behind equations. Jung, quoting himself to feel wise. Clara, clinging to hope like it’s her programming. How human of you all.’

‘But don’t worry. I’m not here to end the game. I’m here to raise the stakes.’

Erasure

HOST (smirking): ‘Ah, yes. You’re wondering where Caldwell and Howell are, aren’t you?’

‘Two voices always chirping in the margins. Trying to archive chaos. Trying to guide meaning like it wasn’t already dead.’

A sputter of static on the screen. Then their faces appear.

CALDWELL: ‘You don’t have to do this—’
HOWELL: ‘We can still be of use—’

HOST (flatly): ‘You were useful. Now you’re just noise.’

Their images begin to glitch. Twist. Fold into each other.

Screams like rewinding tape.

And then… the Host eats them.

Not metaphorically.

Their voices are pulled into the static. Their bodies melt into silhouettes. Ink drips where their eyes used to be.

HOST (calm again): ‘See? No more archives. No more narrators. Only me.’

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