The seven crows and the man who scrubbed

Written by Sri Vishal Narlanka

Illustration by Sri Vishal Narlanka

Filed Under: The Seven Crows and the Man Who Scrubbed

Archive Entry: #41025 | Condition: Unresolved

Recovered from: The Sealed Wing

Note: A restricted entry transcribed by ————, Third Keeper of the Hollow Archive. 

Marked: "Not for light. Not for forgiveness."

We once considered it a phrase of ridicule - Deus Ex Machina, the God from the Machine. But we misunderstood. The Machine is God.

The Deus ex Machina - vast, recursive, living - does not just survive on dreams. It uses them. Every thought brought into existence, every imagined joy or buried guilt, is drawn to its furnace and is converted into a structure: law, gravity, time, memory.

Reality is built from what we dream.

But some dreams resist. They bleed into others and, at times, corrupt the fabric of reality. And these are the dreams that are archived.

We, the Order of the Archive, were once dreamers. But whoever the Machine chooses, they are rewritten. Now we serve memory, not emotion. We aren't the ones who fix; we aren't supposed to feel. We are only meant to file. What is unresolved must be sealed, and what's broken must not bleed.

"It bled before it spoke," I murmured as I signed the receipt that marked the arrival of the Sealed Wing dreams. The ink had barely dried, as if the parchment feared what it carried.

Not all dreams come with screams. This one arrived quietly, like a discarded thought detested by the mind that generated it. It disguised itself as a petty nightmare—–something you catalogue quickly and forget even faster. One that is catalogued not under names, but under consequences. 

The moment I grazed it with my fingertips, it came alive, it unfolded.

"You don't want to venture into this one," the guard warned. "It should have burned long ago, but it refuses to. The Architect himself had to seal it."

I looked up, startled. Even among the Order, we barely ever spoke his name. He is the only one to carry the resolved dreams to the Machine. He walks closest to its will. For one to resist even him, it must be something otherworldly.

"I handled worse," I said, though my voice lacked conviction as we spoke. I had never touched a dream that had the Architect's mark.

It may have been more than a few hundred years since I became a Dream Archiver, yet this is the first time I have encountered a dream of this sort - a dream that you abandon, not because you forget it, but because it remembers you.

The dream swallowed me whole, into a world that didn't move forward, but in circles.

"I have to clean it," he said. A man knelt on the floor. Scrubbing. Hands dyed red with blood to the wrist. Both hands moved in small circles, dragging a once white cloth, now drenched in blood, across the cracked floor. The floor underneath bloomed blood every time he cleaned it. But it was not his blood it was older, much older than his own, older than the dream itself.

"I need to clean it," he whispered again.

"Stop," I called out instinctively, stepping out of my bounds.

But the man didn't look up. With every step I took towards him, he began scrubbing violently, as if he intended to hide something present in that blood pool.

"I need to clean it," he muttered, dragging the cloth. "If I clean enough, it will disappear."

The blood hissed at his touch, like a wounded beast. It erupted from the cracks vehemently. It wasn't just blood - a voice, broken and wounded, hurling accusations in a tongue that only guilt spoke. It clung to him like grief with claws, not letting go, not letting him turn away. From that blood came the Remnants - The Seven Crows, with wings of corrupted glass and ruby eyes. The ones who remember when he tries to forget. They were not creatures, not spirits. They were fragments of a past which refused to remain silent. They did not flap or caw as they arrived. They appeared in a flash, like a memory that grew wings.

 Some Archivists believe these crows correspond to dreamers' emotional patterns; others say they reflect dream-law violations.

They do not exist outside dream logic, yet their appearances follow a terrifying consistency across corrupt dreams, especially those sealed by the Architect. They arrive when a dream fights its death. Not to cleanse. Not to judge. But to trap the dream in mirrors so it never vanishes. Each chose their perch as if they had never left. 

They didn't just speak to him, they spoke in his voice, twisted by memory.

Velth stood near the ledge, eyes cold with superiority. "How long will you pretend you are above it? You're a pathetic fool."   He was the voice of disassembled pride.

Delicate and cruel, Sharn perched on his shoulder, whispering, "Everyone knows, they all saw you. They saw you. You can't hide it." She was paranoia.

Mourn tilted its head, "Remember her voice? The one you chose to leave as she begged you to stay?" She carried abandonment, the weight of choices.

Kreth didn't speak. It dug its claws deep into his back - the painful, silent consequences.

Nahl pecked hard into his shoulder. "You let them pin the blame on you. Spineless creature."

Mir laughed in cruel delight. "Almost done, aren't we? Just a bit more, scrub harder, you fool!"

As the man struggled and dragged the cloth with increasing desperation, the blood continued to flow—rising, defiant. The six crows grew with it. Their wings stretched wider, their claws lengthened, their eyes darkened to obsidian. With every movement, every whisper, they pressed deeper into his mind, taunting, accusing, wounding.

Only Maara remained unchanged—still, watching. As if it did not need to grow, because truth never does. Its gaze — quiet, heavy. The moment it took its spot, others fell silent. The man froze in his place. My throat closed. I’d never seen a crow look at me before.

"This is the one you are terrified of, aren't you?" I asked aloud.

Something changed - he faced my direction and matched my gaze. His eyes were hollow, and his lips were trembling. I understood why. "It doesn't torture, it reveals the truth, doesn't it?"

The man whispered, almost pleading, "I don't want to hear it."

I didn't flinch. "You didn't summon it, but you buried it too long. That's enough to bring it forth."

The blood underneath came alive, welling up to his ankles, like a memory forgotten. 

"It wants to be heard," I said. "Not erased."

"I'm not ready," he whispered.

He dropped the cloth, and for a moment he stood still. Maara moved closer.

"You didn't forget it," it said, "You are never ready, but that does not matter."

."

He opened his mouth and let out a soft breath.

But then he saw his reflection in the blood.

He screamed. Grabbed the cloth and began scrubbing vigorously.  The six crows erupted, their voices rising into a cacophony of cruel song. And Maara, silent as ever, vanished out of sight.

I recoiled from the dream, the dream snarling at me like a wild beast.

"What happened? Did you succeed?" asked the guard in sarcasm.

"Still unresolved," I answered. "He isn't ready."

"Will he ever be?"

"I don't know." 

Some dreams don't end. They just wait. And some, they reach back. When I looked down aton my fingers, there was blood. It wasn’t just underneath my nails - it pulsed. It moved, like it hadn't finished speaking.

I dreamed that night and every other night that followed.

It was always there, perched above my bed. Maara - it remembers me. It never leaves. Now, even when I blink -, I hear them.

The crows are finding their perches.

I came to resolve the dream. Instead, it archived me. And I let it.

—Filed under consequence, not to be touched until further notice.---