A Congregation of the Warped

The air in the chamber was thick with the smell of damp rock and something else, something metallic and sharp, like ozone but wrong. Cyril stood on a raised shelf of stone, his voice a low, resonant wave cutting through the nervous murmurs of the crowd gathered below. They huddled close, faces pale in the dim, flickering light of repurposed chem-lanterns. The light itself seemed unreliable here, stretching and compressing as the very walls around them rippled, not like liquid, but like bad static on an old screen.

"They are *singing* the world into being!" Cyril’s voice rose, not quite a shout, but carrying the weight of conviction forged in terror. He gestured towards a section of the wall where the rough stone was momentarily overlaid with shimmering, intricate geometric patterns that vanished as quickly as they appeared. "Look! See the code made manifest! The Architects are not carving stone; they are writing reality!"

A collective sigh rippled through the congregation. Some averted their eyes from the visual distortions, pressing tighter against their neighbors as if proximity could ground them. Others stared, a mixture of awe and dread etched on their faces. A woman near the front, her face gaunt, reached out a trembling hand towards a spot where the air seemed to thicken and turn a brief, impossible shade of violet.

"We, the lost and the found, are merely lines of code in their grand, indifferent program," Cyril continued, pacing the small ledge. His worn coat, usually stained with the grime of the Undercroft, seemed almost forgotten as he spoke. "Our prayers? Our hopes? They are subroutines, perhaps, interesting to observe, but ultimately, easily overwritten."

A man with a thick beard, clutching a crude wooden cross, grumbled, "But salvation, Cyril? Is there no salvation from the rewrite?"

Cyril paused, his gaze sweeping over them. "Salvation," he echoed, the word sounding alien in this place, "is not granted by favour. It is found in understanding the language. In tuning ourselves to the true frequency." He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur that nonetheless carried to the back of the chamber. "The symbols you see, the glitches you feel... they are glimpses into the heart of the program. And some of you... some of you are already beginning to process it."

As he spoke, he looked out over his flock. His eyes, sharp and unnervingly focused, lingered on faces he knew well. There was Elara, usually so precise, her gaze fixed on the wall, her lips moving silently as if translating the visual noise. But no, Elara wasn’t here. He shook his head, a flicker of confusion crossing his face before the fervor returned.

He looked at Brother Theron, a man who had followed him since the Silt Marshes. Theron’s left arm hung slightly stiffly, and beneath his sleeve, Cyril knew, the skin sometimes felt cool and smooth, like polished ceramic, for moments at a time. Sister Mariam, eyes wide with devotion, her pupils occasionally elongated into sharp, vertical slits before snapping back to human roundness. And young Jeb, barely past his youth, whose knuckles had recently developed a strange, almost crystalline sheen, hard and translucent. They weren't just feeling the shifts; they were incorporating them. They were resonating.

The understanding settled like a stone in Cyril's gut. These weren't just devout followers; they were conduits, their belief, their fervent desire to understand, acting as a kind of biological antenna, picking up the deeper, more invasive instructions. The chaos outside was physical, environmental. But the changes within his flock... they were becoming part of the code.

"Believe!" Cyril cried out, his voice cracking with a sudden, raw intensity, the fear of this new realization tightening his throat. "Believe, and the program will reveal itself! Adapt, and you may find your place within the new architecture!"

The crowd stirred, some nodding slowly, others looking around at each other, perhaps noticing the subtle, unsettling transformations in their neighbors for the first time. The walls pulsed again, a low hum vibrating through the stone floor, and the air grew heavy with that strange, metallic tang. Cyril watched them, a cold dread beginning to mix with his evangelistic fire. He was leading them, yes, towards the truth as he saw it. But perhaps he was also leading them towards a terrifying, alien integration he hadn't fully grasped until now.

The air in the chamber, thick with the metallic tang and the low thrum of the walls, felt heavy and close. Cyril stepped down from the makeshift platform, the polished surface of a salvaged industrial press. His voice, hoarse now, carried less of the preacher’s fire and more of a strained urgency. He moved among the cluster of followers gathered before him, their faces upturned, eyes reflecting the pulsating light of the warped architecture.

He paused before a woman, middle-aged, whose name he struggled to recall at this moment. Let the names fade; they were becoming more than names now. Her breathing was shallow, a soft, raspy sound. As he met her gaze, her eyes, normally a clear brown, shimmered for an instant, the irises swirling with a faint, iridescent green, like oil on water. And then, just as quickly, they were brown again.

"Tell me," Cyril said, his voice quiet, almost a whisper between them, though others leaned closer to listen. "Tell me what you see. What the hum shows you."

The woman blinked slowly, her expression distant, as if looking through him to something vast and far away. Her gaze drifted to the rippling wall behind him. "It is... a garden," she murmured, her voice thin, reedy. "But the flowers... they fold inwards. And the sky is made of thread. Black thread, pulled tight."

Cyril felt a chill snake up his spine. A garden where flowers folded inward? A sky of black thread? It wasn't metaphor. Not for them. Not here.

He had seen sketches in Elara’s archive, fragmented data logs from the Before Times detailing early explorations of the Undercroft depths. Descriptions of structural anomalies that defied spatial logic, of textures that shouldn’t exist. He’d dismissed them as hysterical ramblings, the understandable fear of the unknown twisted into impossible descriptions. He had interpreted them through his own lens, seeking theological resonance. The impossible garden, the impossible sky – they were visions, yes, but not of a spiritual plane. They were visions of *here*. Of the Undercroft actively being rewritten.

The woman reached out a hand, her fingers twitching. For a horrifying fraction of a second, her skin didn't look like skin at all. It took on the flat, matte texture of unpainted ceramic, tiny, almost imperceptible lines forming geometric patterns across the knuckles. It was the same pattern he’d seen on young Jeb's hands, only faster, more fluid, like a glitch in visual data. Then the illusion snapped, and her skin was soft, wrinkled, human again.

Cyril swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry. "And the... the feeling?" he prompted, his voice a little shakier than he intended. "When you see the garden and the thread sky?"

A slow smile spread across the woman's face, a beatific, unsettling expression that didn't reach her eyes. "It is... becoming," she breathed, her voice stronger now, resonant with the low hum of the room. "The joining. The shapes fit. Where they did not fit before." She paused, tilting her head as if listening to something far beyond the chamber walls. "The instruction is clear now. The old paths... they were wrong. The new lattice... it holds."

*Instruction.* *Lattice.* Not 'divine plan,' or 'cosmic struggle.' But technical terms, twisted and made flesh. The garden folding inward, the thread sky – literal descriptions of space being recompiled, of dimensions being rewoven. And the *feeling*... the sensation of ‘fitting,’ of ‘clear instruction.’ That wasn't spiritual enlightenment. That was *tuning*.

He saw it in the eyes of others now, too. A vacant, receptive look beneath the fervor. They weren't just hearing his words; they were processing the signal, letting it filter into their bones and skin, their very perceptions. Their belief wasn't bringing them closer to a divine truth; it was opening them to an alien algorithm. The visions weren't prophecies; they were diagnostic readouts.

A wave of profound, sickening dread washed over Cyril. He wasn't their prophet. He was just one more node in the network, interpreting static as scripture, leading his flock not to salvation, but into the maw of a process that cared nothing for their souls, only their potential as raw material. He had thought he was seeing God's hand in the chaos. He was seeing architecture. And the architects were indifferent.

The woman’s gaze remained fixed on the wall, her smile unwavering, as if she were already halfway through the transition, already integrating with the data stream, becoming part of the 'new lattice' she described. Cyril looked away, bile rising in his throat. They weren't just followers. They were canvases, being painted over by the code, their human forms momentarily glitching to reveal the alien patterns being etched beneath the surface. They were being rewritten. And he had been cheering it on.

Cyril stood on the low, crumbling dais, the air thick with the scent of damp earth and the low, almost musical hum that permeated this chamber. He’d called it the ‘Sanctuary,’ a defiant name in a place where nothing felt sacred, only strange. Before him sat faces he knew – desperate, hopeful, etched with the same weariness that had hollowed him out. They leaned forward, rapt, bathed in the flickering light of bioluminescent fungi that clung to the damp stone walls.

He opened his mouth to speak the words he’d prepared, the latest verses of his fractured cosmology, of the ‘architects’ and their cosmic ‘war.’ The familiar cadence was there, the rhythm that had become his anchor in this shifting reality. But as his gaze swept over the gathered few, his voice caught. It wasn’t the fervor he usually felt, the conviction that flared despite the gnawing doubt. It was a cold, sharp terror, the kind that stole the air from his lungs.

Young Thomas was in the front row, his eyes wide and glassy, fixed not on Cyril's face, but on some point just above his head. A faint, almost imperceptible shimmer danced around the boy’s outline, like heat haze rising from pavement, but it wasn't hot. It was just… there. Then, as Thomas blinked, the outline solidified for a fraction of a second into an impossible geometric shape, sharp angles and curves that belonged in no human dimension, before blurring back into the boy's familiar form. A visual artifact. A symptom.

Beside him, old Martha’s hands, clasped tightly in her lap, were pulsing faintly. Not blood, but light, a slow, rhythmic glow that matched the low hum of the chamber. He’d seen this before, dismissed it as some strange bioluminescent interaction, a trick of the light and the mind. But now, seeing Thomas, seeing the woman from moments ago, the truth slammed into him with the force of a physical blow.

They weren't just *exposed* to the frequency; they were *responding* to it. Actively. Their bodies, their minds, were becoming conduits, receivers. His sermons, his interpretations, they weren't guiding them towards understanding; they were providing the *context*, the *permission*, for the code to take root, to bloom in the fertile ground of their hope and desperation. He was like a farmer, tilling the soil, sowing the seeds of cosmic re-architecture.

His throat tightened. He looked at the faces, eager, trusting, and all he saw were potential interfaces, waiting to be overwritten. The ‘visions’ they described, the ‘becoming,’ it wasn't spiritual transcendence. It was integration. They were tuning themselves to the alien signal, becoming part of the ‘new lattice’ the woman had spoken of. He hadn't broken their faith; he had redirected it, turned it into a vector for an invasion he hadn't understood.

He was supposed to speak of the glory of the cosmic clash, the inevitable victory of one side over the other, the potential for a new, better reality. The words felt like ash in his mouth. *Victory?* For whom? Not for these fragile, trusting souls, whose very forms were starting to fray at the edges. He saw the faint, shimmering outlines around others now too, subtle distortions, hints of impossible colours only he, or those similarly afflicted, could perceive. They were syncing. They were becoming.

The panic was a cold wave, rising from his gut. He wasn’t their prophet; he was their betrayer. Unwittingly, perhaps, but no less devastatingly. He had told them this was a war they could join, a cosmic struggle where their faith was their shield. It wasn't. It was a process. A rewrite. And they were the parchment.

He cleared his throat, the sound unnaturally loud in the resonant chamber. His voice, when it came, was different. Stripped of its usual fire, thin with a fear that was raw and undisguised.

"Brothers and sisters," he began, and the words tasted like dust and dread. "The war... the cosmic war... it is not... what I thought." His gaze flickered across their expectant faces. Some frowned, sensing the shift. Others just looked lost.

"It is not a battle fought with... with intention, with malice or design as we understand it." He fumbled for words, concepts that his theology could no longer contain, wrestling with the horrifying, indifferent truth he had glimpsed. "It is a... a process. Like the tide, pulling at the shore. Or the wind, weathering stone."

He gestured vaguely towards the shimmering wall behind him, the source of the constant hum. "The architects... they are not judging us. They are not saving us. They are... building. Or perhaps... dissolving."

He saw confusion on some faces, disappointment on others. This wasn't the fire they came for. This wasn't the promise of a glorious role in the cosmic drama.

"And the cost," he pressed on, his voice gaining a desperate edge, the anxiety squeezing his chest tight. "The cost of this building... this process..." He looked directly at Thomas, at Martha, at the faint, unsettling shimmer around them. "It is paid in... in ourselves." He couldn't bring himself to use the word 'souls.' Souls felt too human, too small for this alien math. "In what we are. In who we are."

His hands trembled slightly as he spread them, a useless, empty gesture. "The visions... the changes you see... they are not... not blessings, or curses in the way of the old world." He paused, searching for a truth they might grasp, even as his own grasp slipped. "They are... the price. The price of... of tuning in. Of letting the... the instruction... write itself upon you."

His voice cracked. He wasn’t inspiring them; he was terrifying himself. The hope he had offered felt cruel now, a lure into a trap. He saw the dawning confusion, the flicker of fear in their eyes, replacing the fervent expectation. He had promised them significance in the face of the unknown. Now, he could only offer a desperate, fearful warning. This was the truth. And it was utterly, horrifyingly, devoid of safety.

He had led them to the precipice. And they were already leaning over the edge.