Eternal

Eternal


The Papyrus Scribble

The dust was not just a remnant of time; it was its witness. Thousands of specks floated in the sunlight that filtered through the cracks of the wooden shutters, like the thin remnants of a memory that was never forgotten. Lia Stavrou stood silently at the entrance to the old library hall, her gaze fixed on the shelves that were bending under the weight of the past.


The stone floor creaked under her boots as she walked into the interior. The walls, painted in faded ochres , seemed to hide a thousand eyes; words that had never been spoken, names that had never been recorded, voices waiting to be awakened. In the heart of the library, where time stood still, Jacques Bernard awaited her .


Her old mentor had grown old. His hair, once charcoal, was now silver. But his eyes—those blue eyes—had not changed. They still had that gleam of knowledge, but also of guilt.


Zach (without looking up): "I didn't think you'd come so soon. How long has it been? Three years?"


Leah (in a low voice, but with certainty): "Since the seal on my father's diary broke. And since I found the name... Jeremiah ."


Zach slowly raised his head. There was no surprise on his face—only heavy, almost sad acceptance.


Zach: "You always knew how to read silences, Leah. And I... I always knew that one day you would return. Your blood would not leave the past alone."


Leah approached the wooden table. On it lay manuscripts, ink, notes in almost tiny handwriting, and a papyrus—old, cracked, barely legible. There was something electric in the air, a touch from another era. It wasn’t just a piece of paper; it was a scribble.


Her own joke.


Leah: "Is that him?"


Jacques: "The papyrus of the Memorandum of the Third Seal. It was hidden in the basements of this library after the looting of 1801. And just a month ago, it appeared... or, rather, returned."


Leah: "He's back?"


Zach: "Some objects don't travel the way we think. Some stories don't wait for you to find them — they come to you."


Leah touched the papyrus carefully, almost with awe. Her fingers traced the spirals of a design: a ring-shaped portal, engraved with codes similar to those she had found on her brother's childhood map years before.


Erin . His name suddenly came to the forefront of her mind, with the same weight it had when she last saw him—that dusk on the rock, just before he disappeared.


Leah (slowly): "It was true. When he told me he had heard time speak, it wasn't an illusion. It was... a calling."


Jacques approached. He was holding an old magnifying glass with a brass frame.


Zach: "Look here, in this section. The word 'Cycle' appears three times, along with the phrase 'the gate only opens on return, never on arrival.' If that's not a clear indication of the island's time mechanism, then I don't know what is."


Leah: " So Eremia exists. And the gate too. It wasn't just a myth."


Zach: "No, but maybe he should have stayed that way."


Leah looked at him in surprise. Something in his words echoed with warning, like an old psalm that never ended.


Leah: "You know more than you're saying. Isn't that right?"


Zach: "Once, yes. I was part of a small group searching for the gate before the war. Erin ... didn't go alone. We led him. And... we failed."


Leah froze.