Chapter Next: "Echoes of the Forgotten"
The ruins whispered.
Wind slithered through cracked towers and shattered glass, carrying with it the ghosts of a world long abandoned. Violet lightning forked across a torn sky, briefly illuminating the skeletal remains of what once had been a thriving city. Nature had not reclaimed this place—something far more deliberate had erased its soul.
Lina stepped over a broken pillar, eyes scanning the wreckage. Every step echoed too loudly. "This place feels… wrong."
Kai nodded, gripping his blade tighter. "Like something's still watching. Waiting."
A flicker of movement caught Lina's eye—too fast, too distant to follow. But it wasn't the only one. Shapes danced just beyond the edge of vision, silhouettes fading the moment she turned. It was as if the city was alive in a way it should not be—feeding on memory, thriving on silence.
They moved deeper through the ruins, passing beneath archways etched with faded runes. At the center of what looked like a plaza, a tree stood—completely out of place. Blackened branches twisted toward the sky like claws. Beneath it, a single figure sat in stillness.
A girl, no older than sixteen, wrapped in robes of frayed silver and gold. Her eyes were closed, but tears streaked her cheeks.
Lina approached cautiously. "Are you—?"
The girl's eyes snapped open. They were completely white, glowing with inner fire. "You shouldn't be here," she whispered, voice layered like distant chimes. "You bring echoes with you."
Kai stepped forward. "What echoes?"
The girl's face twisted with sorrow. "The fragments. They're not just lost. They're... breaking. Splintering across timelines, unraveling into myths and madness. I can feel them scream."
Lina knelt beside her. "You're one of them, aren't you? One of the fragments?"
"I was," she said softly. "Until I remembered too much. Now I'm tethered here, guarding what's left of the Memory Spire."
She reached into her robe and held out a small shard of crystal—pulsing faintly with light. "This is the first key. It holds a name. Not mine. Yours."
Lina took it, and the moment her fingers closed around the shard, visions exploded behind her eyes.
A child with wild eyes standing on a battlefield of broken stars.
A voice calling her name not in words, but in song.
The burning of wings. The choice not made.
She gasped, reeling back.
"I remember…" she whispered.
The girl's expression hardened. "Good. Because the next one won't give the key freely. He's buried in the Shattered Depths, and he's forgotten what he is. You'll have to make him remember. Or kill him."
Kai exhaled slowly. "So it begins."
The girl nodded. "It never ended."
Behind them, the wind shifted—and for the first time, Lina heard it clearly.
A song.
Faint and distant.
Calling them forward.
To be continued...