The plunge was not falling—it was being swallowed. The rift closed around them like muscle and smoke, dragging them deeper with every breath. The air thickened into sothing neither sound nor silence, a pressure that gnawed at their bones.
Kael struck the walls as they slid, his blade sparking against flesh-like stone. No wound remained. The walls rippled and healed instantly, pulsing as though savoring the touch of steel. He gritted his teeth, growling, “It’s alive... every inch.”
Elara cradled the boy tighter, his glow fighting to hold against the dark. Each flicker of light made the walls twitch, as if the Unborn flinched at his chant. She pressed her lips to his hair, whispering, “Keep burning, little one. Even embers can bite.”
The widow clawed at the air, trying to scream but choking on blood. Her voice ca in jagged bursts, muffled by the pressure. The sound bent strangely, echoing back into her own ears as if mocking her. She wheezed out a laugh. “Even here... it copies us.”
The scarred woman dragged her spear across the wall, scoring faint grooves before they swallowed themselves. Blood streaked her chin as she spat. “Then we carve deeper—until it chokes on the shape of us.”
The farr struck his drum once, but the sound didn’t travel. It sank straight into the walls, absorbed like breath into lungs. He frowned, tapping again, softer. The walls quivered, responding not to volu but to rhythm. His eyes widened. “It doesn’t just eat sound. It digests it.”
The throat tightened. The survivors stumbled as the path narrowed, pulsing with every thunderous beat of the Unborn’s core. Around them, the fog thickened, coiling into forms that never finished shaping: half-faces of the dead, fragnts of screams, broken songs that cut off mid-note. They brushed against skin, leaving burns like frostbite.
Then ca the voice—no longer from outside, but from within the walls. It oozed into their marrow:
“You step deeper. You carry wounds like gifts. You sing as though scars are crowns. But within , all voices end. Within , silence is truth.”
Kael roared back, forcing sound into the suffocating air. His throat tore with the effort, but the vibration shuddered through the walls. “If silence is your truth, then choke on ours!”
The boy stirred, his glow bursting into fractured flares. His chant grew jagged, every syllable cracking the fog into shards. The fragnts scread as they dissolved, ripped apart by his broken rhythm.
Elara’s eyes brimd with tears. “Yes—burn him from the inside out.”
The widow forced one more scream, ripping her throat raw. The scarred woman drove her spear into the floor, blood spilling freely. The farr struck his drum in counter-rhythm, each beat a stone against the Unborn’s pulse.
The throat convulsed, writhing violently. The survivors clung to each other as the path split open—not forward, not back, but down into a cavernous hollow where the very heart of the Unborn throbbed.
And in that heart, sothing vast and unfinished waited—half void, half song, the shape of silence itself.
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