I

In the twilight of man’s dominion, when the stars grew dim and the heavens turned away their gaze, there came a time when steel outlived memory. This was the Age of Rust, when the old songs were drowned by the grind of machines, and the sacred balance of the world was forgotten.

Men, drunk on echoes of power, raised towers of glass to a sky that no longer listened. The firmament, once vibrant and watchful, veiled itself in silence. The forests grew still. The mountains slept uneasily. And far beneath them, under root and ruin and the deep sighs of time, something awoke.

It was not god, nor devil, nor any herald of justice or sin. It was reckoning made flesh.

The ancients, whose wisdom was carved from fear, had once sealed it in the world’s marrow. Bound not with chains, but with purpose long abandoned. When the first fire was stolen and blood first stained the sacred earth, they buried it in silence. Wrapped in thorns. Crowned in shadow. Unnamed.

But the world changed. Its laws twisted. Waters soured. Skies burned with false stars. Truth itself was buried beneath the songless hymn of industry.

And so the seals cracked.

The final wound was struck. And the bones began to stir.

II

On the second day, the earth did not bleed—it remembered. Stones cried in dead tongues, rivers reversed their course, and cities of circuitry found their lights dimmed to dusk. The skies offered no sign, no sun nor moon. Just a growing absence.

From beneath the groaning crust, something vast unfolded. Not like a beast. Not like a man. But like a mistake—realized too late.

Those closest to the deep places were the first to fall, not by blade, but by understanding. They knelt not from reverence, but because their limbs could no longer recall defiance.

A mark appeared, etched not on stone but into being itself. It burned with hunger older than fire. It spoke in silence. It called in marrow.

III

On the third day, the winds fell mute. Not a whisper stirred leaf or ruin. Oceans pulled away from land like frightened children. The stars blinked—and turned. Beneath the skin of the world, it moved. Not with step or crawl, but with pressure. A presence that displaced certainty. Dreams rotted. Reflections trembled. The word why vanished from every tongue. And still, the mark glowed—not to warn, but to claim. The world had not been invaded. It had been remembered.

IV

By the fourth day, the world no longer obeyed itself. Hills slouched. Towers bent toward unseen axes. Roads circled into nonsense. Time fractured. The beasts cried, not in panic, but in greeting. They knew. Long before man ever named it, they had seen its shadow. In cities of molten glass and ruined spires, the mark brightened again—closer now, etched into consequence. Those who gazed upon it too long forgot their faces. Their minds folded inward like dying stars. No resistance came. Only reverence.

V

And then came the fifth day. The faithful gathered. Not by creed or sermon, but by pull. Drawn across continents, shrouded in red, blind by will. There were no chants. No leaders. Only surrender. They knelt where the ground cracked, and gave not blood, but identity. Names, histories, definitions—surrendered to the thing beneath. The sigil above them pulsed with geometry that defied mind and matter. The firmament blistered under its light. The world was reshaped in its absence. Those unclaimed began to dissolve—not in body, but in self. It was not belief that remained. It was only proximity.

VI

On the sixth day, the sky came undone. It split like ancient skin, revealing veins of light that pulsed like memory. Trees bowed. Mountains leaned. All things faced inward—toward the center. And from that center, it rose. Not born. Not summoned. But remembered. The Marrowghast. A form of shifting bone. A face that showed the ruin of all who looked upon it. Some saw flame. Some saw wound. Most saw only their own undoing. The last of the cloaked were absorbed into its shape, their offerings accepted, their will woven into its return. No voice rose. No scream endured. Only kneeling. The clocks broke. The oceans stilled. The mirrors turned black.

And the world, at last, understood: It was not awaiting salvation. It was always becoming the cradle of the Marrowghast. And it had been claimed.