Silent Gods

Ivy's room was a cube of silence and shadows.

The walls were covered with faded metal band posters, and the desk's neon light flickered like a sick breath, casting a blue halo over the surface cluttered with empty cups and scattered papers. The air was dense, still, as if the room itself were holding its breath. The only sound was the hum of the laptop, a low, continuous noise that seemed like the beat of a mechanical heart.

Ivy was bent over the screen, her eyes red from exhaustion, her fingers moving across the keyboard with a slowness that did not belong to her age. It was three in the morning. The city slept. The campus was a desert of darkened lights and motionless shadows.

But Ivy was not sleeping.

She could not.

She had found something.

The dark web was a labyrinth of dead links and forgotten pages, an archive of what the world had chosen to forget. Ivy had been exploring it for months, driven by a curiosity she could not explain. She was not looking for anything specific. She was only looking for... something. Something that would make her feel that the world was larger than what she saw.

That night, she had found it.

A link. A single link, written in characters she did not recognize, that did not seem to belong to any known language. It had appeared suddenly, as if someone had placed it there

specifically for her.

Ivy had clicked. And the world around her had changed.

The page loaded slowly, as if the server were buried under layers of digital dust. The loading was agonizing: the cursor spinning, the bar advancing in fits and starts, the hum of

the computer growing louder, almost gasping.

Then the page appeared.

And Ivy stopped breathing.

It was not a normal web page.

There were no images. No links. No headers or menus. There was only a white page, like an ancient parchment, and at the center...

A symbol.

A black circle, perfect, like a hole in the fabric of the screen. Crossed by a vertical line that looked like a crack, a wound, a cut in reality itself.

Ivy felt a shiver run down her spine.

The symbol was simple, but there was something about it that disturbed her. The more she looked at it, the more it seemed that the circle was moving, that the crack was

widening, that the black was expanding toward the edges of the screen.

She shook her head. It was only exhaustion. Only suggestion.

But her fingers trembled as she scrolled down the page.

Beneath the symbol, words. Not in English. Not in any language Ivy had ever seen. They were runes, but not the runes she knew from games and movies. They were

deformed, bent, as if a hand that did not know the correct form had carved them into stone.

The words formed in her mind without her consciously translating them. They were like a whisper that did not come from her ears, but from inside her skull.

Asa.

The Goddess of the Abyss.

She Who Has No Face.

The Black Gem.

The Mother of Silence.

The Eternal Darkness That Watches.

Ivy felt the blood freeze in her veins.

It was not fear. It was something else. It was the feeling that the world was much larger, much darker, much more dangerous than she had ever imagined.

She kept scrolling.

The text spoke of a ritual. The words were partially translated.

There were no precise instructions, only fragments. Allusions. Words that seemed to dance on the page like trapped flies.

"Open the door."

"Offer the name."

"Break the light."

"Call the Absence."

Then, at the bottom of the page, a list of materials. Black candles. A circle. Something personal. A name written in blood.

Ivy felt nausea rising in her throat.

But she could not stop looking.

Her fingers moved across the keyboard, almost without her control. She copied the text. She pasted it into a document. She saved it to the desktop with a name she did not

consciously choose:

ASA.pdf

The computer made a sound. A sound it had never made before. A low hum, almost a groan, as if the machine itself were trying to tell her something.

Ivy turned.

The room had changed.

The air was colder. The neon flickered faster, casting shadows that stretched across the walls like fingers of death. The hum of the computer had grown louder, deeper, like a

breath making its way through the silence.

And then, for a moment, Ivy could have sworn she saw something move in the corner of the room.

A shadow. A shadow that seemed darker than the darkness around it, as if the light were retreating from that point.

Ivy shot up. The chair fell backward with a dry sound that echoed through the room like a gunshot.

— Who's there? — she whispered.

There was no answer.

But the shadow in the corner was still moving. Slowly. As if it were waiting.

Ivy looked at the screen. The document was still there, open, the words pulsing in the neon light.

The name repeated itself, multiplied, spread across the page like an infection.

Ivy pressed the shutdown button. The computer did not respond. She pressed it again. Nothing.

— Shut down — she murmured. — Shut down, damn it.

The hum grew louder. The neon lights began to flicker, turning off and on in a rhythm that seemed almost like a heartbeat.

And then, suddenly, everything stopped.

The hum ceased. The neon stabilized. The shadow in the corner disappeared.

Ivy stood still, her heart beating too fast in her chest, sweat trickling down her forehead.

The computer was off.

But the document was still there.

ASA.pdf.

She looked at it. Her fingers trembled. Her breath was short, labored, as if she had just run for miles.

She did not know what to do. She did not know what to think. She did not know if what she had just seen was real or just a hallucination from exhaustion.

But she knew one thing.

She knew that page should not exist.

She knew that name should not be spoken.

Ivy did not remember clicking "Print".

Yet the printer in the next room began to emit a low hum, like an animal waking up.

The sound was different from usual. Slower, deeper, as if the machine were struggling to breathe. The sheets came out one after another, but they were not white. They were

covered in characters Ivy had never seen, runes that seemed to move across the paper like serpents.

Her hands trembled as she gathered the sheets.

The first page was the symbol. The black circle. The crack. It looked darker on paper, more alive, as if the ink were still drying.

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The following pages were the text. The words seemed written in an ink that was neither black nor blue, but something in between. A color Ivy could not define, as if the light

itself were retreating from those words.

And at the end, the last page.

An image. An image she had not seen on the screen.

The face of a woman.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps it was only a shadow that had taken the shape of a face. Her eyes were two pools of darkness that seemed to look through the paper, through time, through the world itself.

Ivy felt a wave of nausea rise in her throat.

The face on the paper seemed to... smile.

Not a human smile. A smile that did not belong to this world. A smile that said: "I found you."

The room grew colder.

The printer's hum fell silent.

Silence fell like a cloak.

Ivy looked at the sheets she held in her hands. Her fingers were white, her knuckles protruding, her muscles tense.

She knew what she had to do.

She had to throw them away. Destroy them. Forget she had ever seen them.

But she could not.

There was something about those pages that attracted her, that called to her, that whispered in her ear.

"Share what you found with the fraternity."

Ivy closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, she had already made a decision.

She took her phone. Her fingers moved across the keyboard. She wrote a message. She sent it to Piper.

"I found something. We need to talk."

Then, with a slow, almost ritualistic movement, she placed the sheets into a folder.

Then, half an hour later, another message to Piper:

<< a ritual about someone named Asa.. I've got goosebumps >>

About 20 minutes later, another message:

<< I told the fraternity group, we have to do it Saturday night, they're all excited >>.

The face on the paper was still watching her.

And it was smiling.

---

While Ivy watched the face smiling from the paper, Askel and his friend walked toward the lecture hall.

Piper walked ahead of Askel, her hips swaying like a wave that asked no permission, and he felt the blood burning in his veins. His hands found her backside, his fingers

gripping her flesh as if they wanted to imprint themselves forever, as if that moment could be the last.

The lecture hall was a temple of shadows and silence. The tall windows let the moonlight filter through, drawing silver streaks across the wooden floor. The desk, massive and

ancient, dominated the room like an altar.

— The lecture hall — Askel said, looking at the building. — This is where you wanted to come?

— Yes — Piper said. — Here. I want to try that position on the desk. I want to feel the cold wood against my back while you... while you do the Viking.

Askel felt desire rising like a flooded river. His hands found Piper's body, his fingers gripping her skin as if they wanted to imprint themselves forever.

But before they could move, Piper's phone vibrated in her pocket.

A single pulse, brief, like an off-beat heartbeat.

It was a message.

A message from Ivy.

Piper read it half aloud, and the empty corridor seemed to tighten around them.

— Ivy — she murmured. — She found a page on the dark web about satanic cults. Saturday night they're doing the ritual in the gym.

Askel looked up.

His voice, when he spoke, was low, almost a breath, but it vibrated with something that was not only fear.

It was as if a distant memory had brushed against his skin.

— A ritual? — he repeated. — What kind of ritual?

Piper scrolled through the rest of the message, her fingers trembling.

— I don't know. They wrote to me about an ancient page, some kind of lost archive. It talks about someone named Asa...

She paused, as if saying that name carried a weight.

Askel stiffened.

— Asa?

The name came out of him like a whisper that did not want to be heard.

Piper nodded.

— They call her the Goddess of the Abyss. The Black Gem of Norse mythology. The eternal darkness. I don't know what it means, but... the gym Saturday night. You're coming

with me, obviously.

Askel did not answer immediately, or perhaps he did not want to.

The university was theirs now.

Askel scanned the hall as if checking for anyone hidden who might be spying on them.

Then he heard Piper's voice, turned, and she had her legs open like an offering. Her hands had dropped low and were just waiting.

<< come Viking.. enter my kingdom >> the girl said

Askel had alcohol guiding his impulses and without needing to be told twice, he positioned himself between Piper's legs, she lying with her back on the desk.

Piper's moans were an echo that spread through the corridor, an echo of pleasure and perdition.

<< turn me now. Hold me by the hair >> Piper said

Choked messages arrived on her phone. Shortly after, another message, while she felt Askel's fervor.

<< Like that Viking.. even harder >> she continued

<< I have a desire.. >> Piper said, her voice hiccupping with pleasure

<< oh yeah.. and what would that be >> Askel replied, engaged in the act

<< Rhea.. her nipple piercing drives me crazy.. I want to get one >> Piper exclaimed

When they finished, Piper took her phone, still flushed, and read the messages that had arrived. Askel went to the bathroom to clean off the sweat.

Ivy had told everything quickly, with fragmented messages, as if she were afraid someone might read them.

She had dug into the dark web, she had found Asa.

The text spoke of an entity lost in time, a goddess forgotten by the gods themselves.

A creature born before light, when the world was only a sea of shadows.

The page described a ritual, but in fragmented form.

There were no instructions, only allusions: "open the door," "offer the name," "break the light."

The fraternity group, convinced it was a horror stunt, had decided to "recreate" it taking advantage of the closed school.

Askel returned from the bathroom, saw Piper lying on the desk, satisfied with the performance.

As the two were getting dressed, the sky lit up with an ancient glow, a hammer blow on the anvil.

Her voice was ancient, young, wise, and very worried.

<< wow what a lightning bolt >> Piper exclaimed, I think it's going to rain soon

<< I think in a few days there will be an air of death in here >> a voice exclaimed

Askel recognized it and spun around.

<< Thora >> he exclaimed

Before him, a figure stood out against the lightning's light. Silver armor gleaming like the moon. Her hair was blond like ripe wheat, and her eyes — her eyes were two storms.

They were eyes that had seen the birth and death of gods. They were eyes that knew no fear.

A silver hammer — Mjolnir — gleamed with a light that did not belong to this world.

The Valkyrie of thunder.

Thor's heir on earth.

— Thora — Askel repeated. His voice was a whisper, a breath, a shadow of words. — But... how... why...

It has been a long time, Áskell — she said, using the accent on the name that only she had the right to pronounce. Her voice was the sound of distant thunder, the sound of wind among the mountains, the sound of ice breaking. — since we last saw each other.

Piper looked at Askel, then at Thora. Her eyes were full of confusion, fear, wonder. Her breasts were still bare, covered by her arm.

Thora stepped closer, and for an instant Piper had the impression that the corridor had curved around her, as if reality itself were trying to avoid her.

It was not her steps that moved: it was the world that was retreating.

— I did not come to speak of the past, Áskell.

Her voice was restrained thunder.

— I came to speak of the future. The air has changed on Asgard... and here there is an air of death.

Piper stared at her, unable to breathe.

Her eyes were two pools of confusion, two lakes in which terror was beginning to form like ripples on the water's surface.

Áskell stood still.

The name ASA had already begun to weigh on his chest like a stone.

Thora spoke, and the air trembled.

— ASA is not a legend from a forum. They don't know what they are evoking. They don't know what they are awakening... and neither do you two.

Her storm eyes grew darker, as if a shadow had crossed the sky.

Her voice was a thread of metal stretched to the breaking point.

— It is a myth that is not spoken of. Not in books, not in sagas. It is something scholars avoid. It is not a goddess. It is... an absence. A void that takes form.

Piper swallowed.

— But what is ASA? Who is she? Or what?

Thora closed her eyes for an instant.

When she opened them again, they seemed to contain a horizon no mortal should have seen.

— Asa was a girl.

The phrase fell like a stone into a bottomless well.

— A simple girl like any other, who lived in London. Beautiful, intelligent, with an ancient soul. Then her forgotten village called her back.

Piper leaned forward, as if afraid Thora might stop speaking.

— What happened to her?

Thora breathed slowly, as if each word were a weight.

— Asa was chosen.

Her fingers trembled.

— Chosen by something that had no name. Something that lived in the shadow before light existed. Something that waited millennia for the right soul to incarnate, to give form to the void, to give it voice.

The corridor seemed to darken, as if the story itself held power.

— Asa was born like that: from the abyss that took form, from the darkness that found a body. Death that learned to speak.

Piper covered her mouth with a hand.

Thora continued, and every word was a poison.

— Asa is not a goddess. Asa is a shadow. A reflection. Asa is the hybrid part of Runa. It is the part that embraced the void, that fed on darkness, that learned to hate the light.

The name burned on Thora's tongue.

An ancient poison, a poison that belonged to no world.

Askel looked at her, and in his eyes there was a fear he had never felt.

— What do you mean?

Thora raised her hand, as if touching an invisible thread.

— Norse mythology is a fabric.

Her voice was a funeral chant.

— A fabric of the Norns, of destinies, of the choices of gods and men. Every thread is a life. Every knot is an event. Every weave is a story.

She paused.

Her gaze lost itself in a distant point, beyond time.

— If Asa were to awaken, if Runa's call became too strong... the fabric would shatter. The threads would fray. The knots would come undone. And everything we know — the

gods, the worlds, the Norns themselves — would be swallowed by the void.

Piper felt the world collapse around her.

Thora spoke again, more slowly, as if revealing a forbidden secret.

— This is why Asa must remain asleep. She must remain an essence and nothing more.

Then she raised her gaze toward the invisible sky above them.

— The Norns' loom, in this instant, is woven from the threads of the Daughter of the Red Desert, of Cassandra and Freyja. Alongside the threads of all of us, Runa included.

A tremor passed through her voice.

— If the thread of the black abyss were to appear... the loom would twist. And even the Norns would have no answer for the future.

Silence.

A silence that did not belong to the human world.

<< Dear brother, choose your next steps carefully, you and I are destined to clash until the last drop of blood.. and I hope you are ready to wield your axe when that moment comes >> Thora said

Another lightning bolt lit up the sky, the campus electrical grid sparked, fire appeared on the electrical meters outside.

<< let's get out of here, things are getting bad and before someone comes to put out the fires we need to disappear >> Piper said, taking Áskell's hand and dragging him along

Asa was not just an entity.

It was not just a myth.

It was the form that the void takes when it decides to remember it exists.

It was the hunger of the night before the sky was created.

It was the voice that speaks when no one should listen.

It was the cruel beauty of darkness that does not want to be illuminated.

Asa was sublime.

Asa was terrible.

Asa was inevitable.

And someone, in a few days, would try to call it.

---

While Thora spoke to Askel and Piper in the university corridor, in the realm of the Norns, the loom trembled.

It happened without a sound.

Without a flash.

Without a breath.

The Norns — Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld — were weaving as they had always done, seated around their eternal loom, the great interweaving that held the destinies of gods and men.

Their fingers glided over the threads like water over stone, ancient and sure, motionless for millennia.

And then, suddenly, the loom trembled.

Not a physical tremor.

Something deeper.

As if a forgotten memory had knocked on the door of the universe.

Urd looked up.

Verdandi stopped breathing.

Skuld, the youngest, felt a chill run down her back.

Before them, among the golden threads of Freyja, the red ones of the Daughter of the Desert, the silver ones of men, and the dark ones of the gods, appeared a thread that belonged to no world.

An impossible thread. A thread that had fused into Runa's very essence.

Verdandi spoke first, her voice broken.

— This thread... belongs to no destiny and should not exist.

Skuld stepped closer, trembling.

— It is not a thread. It is a call.

Urd closed her eyes.

— Asa.

The name fell into the loom like a stone into a still lake.

The surrounding weaves contorted, as if the threads themselves were afraid to touch that new intruder.

The black thread pulsed.

Once.

Then again.

Like a heart waking up.

Urd shot up.

— If this thread grows... the loom will shatter.

Verdandi nodded, pale.

Skuld looked at the black thread, which now seemed to move like a serpent.

— Asa is not a destiny. Asa is the end of destinies.

The loom trembled again.

A subtle vibration, like a premonition.

The black thread stretched.

A millimeter.

Then another, until it stopped beside Runa's.

The thread of the abyss was there.

Black as death.

Black as silence.

Black as what exists before anything exists.

A thread that should not have been woven.

A thread that no hand had created.

A thread that no divinity could break.

The thread of Asa.

And the Norns' loom, for the first time, had no answer.

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