How the Daughter of the Dark One Turned Out to be a Void Dweller

🎧 After Hours by The Weeknd

✵ ✵ ✵

[WELCOME BACK TO THE DOOM OF AURA, ARCHITECT.]

[YOU MAY NOW PICK YOUR CLASS.]

» WITCHLING (+700)

» FAE (+3000)

» DWARF (+800)

» DRAGON (+1m)

» PHOENIX (∞)

» SERPENT (+1M)

» VAMPIRE (+5000)

» WOLF SHIFTER (+600)

» PANTHER SHIFTER (+400)

» LION SHIFTER (+500)

» RANDOM SHIFTER (≈300↓)

» ELVEN (+4000)

» SIREN (+9000)

» FAIRY (+3000)

» ANGEL (+100K)

» DEMON (∆↑)

» HUMAN – BOUNTY HUNTER (≈30↓)

» HUMAN – ADVENTURER (≈50↓)

» HUMAN – ROYALTY (≈80↓)

» SOMETHING ELSE (∆↑↑↓)

[YOU CAN ONLY PICK ONCE.]

[IT'LL AFFECT YOUR STORYLINE GREATLY.]

[INPUT SOUL AGE: ____]

I stared at the stupid screen of the game I found in dad's vault.

My dad died in a wildfire five months ago, but I only had a simbolic funeral, since they didn't find his body in the pile of ashes of all the 9695 people that died in it. It was the biggest wildfire ever recorded in the entire history of Australia, where we've been living since I was around 6. Which means a lot, given how Australia is the most dangerous country in the world on it's own, without human intervention. It was such a big fire that it lasted 16 days, 21 hours, and 39 minutes.

He was an eccentric men, my father, that much was obvious to most who knew him, and millions of people knew him, as he's solidified himself as one of the greatest games architects in the world, working both with video games for consoles such as the PlayStation and XBOX, but also as online, portable, and board games. If you was into any kind of games like that, you must have heard of the name Sean Scott sur Mer, or S3M as he was also known by. Legend has it he also wrote a book, one I never saw or heard of.

But he never allowed me to play any game, none of his, none at all. I was homeschooled ever since I can remember, and the only things he let me play was the sports he taught me and mental games that he laid out for me solely on the speech. He was strict, and out of it, but a good father, he was everything for me, and I used to think we would compete to see who'd outlive one another. I've been lost ever since he died, unsure of what to do.

However, there was one place in our house that he did not allow me to go to: the basement, which he used to call 'Vault of Secrets'. In my rebel moments, I tried to get there, but it was locked with eighteen different locks that my father build, they were strange and I had never seen anything like it, but that was not all, all the locks felt… wrong, weird, like they did not belong. Each of the locks had a different rune, that my dad created.

Dad was the most creative being alive ever since he was born. He created his own language, one that has five different alphabets plus runes, each one with their own dialect, which he called Auraniun, and that he found of a great important to alphabetize me in it before English. Which is strange, as I've heard it's the language of his games, he never allowed me to play, even then, I've never heard of anyone being able to speak it like us.

The day he died, the basement's locks all bursted… like magic.

I'm not a believer of magic, but there was no logic for it. Well, one thing is for sure, I got so freaked out about it, since I've been prohibited of going anywhere the basement for years, that I was unable to bring myself to it for months. A part of me felt like I was disobeying my dad, and that if he were to come back from the dead, since his body was not found, he would get livid with anger to know I snooped into it, so that made me halt.

And I wasn't going to look, but they made me curious.

'Who are they?' Well, they are the hardcore creepy fans of my dad, who looked like they had just come back from a cosplay convention event, from all over the world, about 33 men and 5 women, all of which were non-connected to one another, and came to me, not to say their condolences, but to offer me money to give them the same thing.

My dad's first Gameboy game of series number 9694.

Do you see why I got creeped out and curious? Did you get the very coincidence of the number series of the game to my dad's death? He made this game of series 9694, and how many people died in the wildfire that got the best of him? 9695 with him. How many died aside from him? 9694.

9694 dead.

They were after a game of 9694 series.

I've always been a rational person, I work with clues, with what it would generally be called a coincidence, I am an overthinker, curiosity is my weapon, it's what my dad honed in my very core. To be curious and be courageous enough to go after the answers you seek, when no one else can even imagine, you need to be rational. Like my dad used to say, 'emotions are a poison to the soul of a searcher, they cloud your judgement'.

All I need was one push to jump off the hill I was hiding in, to come down those stairs that got me in so much trouble as a kid, and go through the now unlocked oak double doors. That's what that little 'coincidence' got me doing, because if I couldn't find that game they were all after, that could only mean that, if my dad really had the said game, it had to be in the vault he treasured so fucking much he never allowed me to get a foot close to it. In the end, it made sense, because he had named it Vault of Secrets for a reason, and whatelse other than to hide his secrets away.

In all honesty, the biggest mystery of my life was my dad.

I hate to admit it, but I don't know much of him, he was mysterious to the strings of his snow blonde hair, to his naturally black toe nails (the nails of his fingers were also black), and I knew that Sean Scott was never his real name, he told me, but he also told me I was only allowed to call him 'dad', and that was why, to him, me knowing his real me was unreasonable. As I said, my dad has always been eccentric. I never saw any document of his that was not signed down as Sean Scott.

He did told me the Sur Mer was my mom's last name, not his, but no matter how many times I asked, that's all I know of my mom, that and the fact that he loved her and he used to claimed they were 'fated' and that their souls were 'mated for eternity', or whatever romantic shit he meant. I never believed that, because he did raise me all alone, and I can feel it in the very foundation of my bones that my mother isn't dead. To me, dad was only saying that not to make me hate my mother for abandoning me.

Either way, it doesn't matter, she doesn't matter. He was enough for me, he was my father and my mom, even if strict, he was all I needed. I've told him that countless of times when he thought he wasn't enough.

So, yes, I was dying for a reason to get into the Vault of Secrets aka the basement, my dad's cave, to see if I would learn a bit of him. Imagine my disappointment when all I found was a nearly empty room made of some really creepy black stone, as if it was crafted in the inside of one big obsidian, with an ever creepier glowing altar in the center of it. By what I could make up of the altar it was made of the same stone of the room, and it glowed in a pale dark red light.

The very oxygen in the creepy vault felt… wrong, toxic to the body of a human, and my body felt weird in the suffocating atmosphere. It felt as if the room wanted to consume me, to crush me, to take me away, not outta here but into it. Which makes no fucking sense, right?

My mind screamed for me to leave, to ignore the gameboy, the very creepy looking thick book, the medieval looking long dagger, and the blood markings that wrote something around the altar. My body had contradicting ideas, and before I could even realize, I was moving, my feet forcing me to get inside, to walk closer to the altar, the air around the room nearly palpable like a thick toxic black fog trying to suffocate and control me. And as soon as I was a meter away from the doors, they closed with a loud sound.

I swear, I jumped out of my skin.

But swallowing the fear that began to bubble inside of my chest, I went closer, my curiosity thickening and taking the best of me again. For that, I blame my dad, he made me like this. In the end, it was just a stupid old Gameboy and an even stupider old grimoire-ish book, with a ridiculous seethed knife that probably can't even cut a darn bread and ain't got nothing on any medieval dagger.

With the fear out of my body, I stared at the small screen of the dam Gameboy so many people were after, "Stupid ass game," I looked at it in all sides, "what's so special in you for so many people want you, uh?"

Clicking my tongue, I halted before I could pick the phoenix class, which by the name, and the infinite symble at the side, must be a broken one, as phoenixes are immortal. And before I could press on it, my dad's wise words came to my mind:

"You gotta keep something in mind to whenever you find yourself in a position of picking a class in a game, that you'll not be able to change, snowflake. If there is an option that says you can pick 'something else' other than what's on display, always pick that. A normal lesser being would believe that it's better to guarantee that their class is higher, rather than try something random and get screwed over. However, the key to get the greatest class is risking on something," he told me. Not just once, but he told me that countless times. Countless!

I swallowed, "Was he preparing me for this?" Clenching my jaw, I moved my finger to the last option, "Okey dokey, dad, I'll follow your lead, since you're the brain of this game," I said under my breath as I was taken over by an inexplicable anxiety. "Hah, don't overthink, this is just a stupid game," I told myself. "But made by dad, so you gotta play it!"

Then I pressed my finger on the last option.

Lastly, I pressed on the 'input soul age' and added my age, thinking that was just a term related to the stupid game. "24," I mumbled to myself.

But then, something weirder happened as the screen text changed.

[YOU ARE NOT THE ARCHITECT.]

» I AM NOT.

» I GOT MY AGE WRONG AGAIN.

"What the fuck?" I frowned, pressing the first, and it changed again.

[INPUT HOUR OF BIRTH: __:__]

I gulped, freaked out, "This shit is old, it can't be an AI, right?"

Creeped out, I added my hour of birth, 01:35 am. It changed, again.

[WELCOME TO THE DOOM OF AURA, DAUGHTER OF THE ARCHITECT.]

[INPUT FULL NAME: _____]

A bad kind of chill ran down my spine, "Relax, dad probably just programmed it this way to know it was me… by my hour of birth. It's not something to worry about, relax," I told myself, but my hands were shaking.

Swallowing hard, I added it: Hesperia Merikh.

[EVENING STAR OF DEATH, WELCOME.]

"Alright, so it knows the meaning of my name," I said anxiously.

My hand grabbed the knife handle, contemplating if I should or not break the creepy gameboy to bits with it. I stared at the knife, at the game, at the knife, at the game, at the knife, at the game and stopped. Fuck, I can't destroy it, if dad kept it here so hidden preciously, he would be heartbroken if I were to break this bitch.

But all thoughts escaped me as the screen changed.

[HESPERIA MERIKH SUR MERLIN,

DAUGHTER OF THE ARCHITECT,

BORN AT 01:35 AM, ON A FRIDAY,

CURRENTLY 24 YEARS OLD.]

And that was enough to awake my curiousity, "Sur Merlin?" My eyes narrowed at the surname the gameboy added to my name. "Dad told me my last name was Merikh."

[MERIKH IS A MIDDLE NAME!]

My blood went ice cold.