Following the Silencers through The Fracture Scar was a surreal experience. The Wound Chorus, the primordial howl of dissonance, grew more deafening with each step we took toward the heart of the Scar. The air vibrated with a rhythmic violence that felt as if it were tearing at the very fabric of my existence. The shapes around us visibly twisted, not from illusion, but from the fundamental instability of the Veil in this place. The ground beneath our feet groaned and creaked, threatening to give way under the rhythmic pressure of chaos.
But amidst this sonic and visual storm, the Silencers moved with unnatural grace, wrapped in their bubble of anti-harmony. It was as if the primordial dissonance receded slightly in their wake, the Veil itself attempting to 'heal' or 'silence' itself in their presence. They didn't speak, made no sounds. Their communication seemed telepathic or rhythmic, a silent exchange we couldn't comprehend, but which manifested in their coordinated movement and singular focus on guiding us.
They guided us along paths that, although unstable and dangerous for us, seemed to be deliberately chosen. Sometimes, they indicated a particular path with a subtle gesture, and although my own rhythmic sense was too overwhelmed to trust it completely, I noticed that the areas they chose seemed to have a slightly different, perhaps less chaotic, frequency of dissonance, as if they were following a preexisting pattern, or one they themselves had imprinted on the wound.
My rhythmic mind was in constant agony. The Wound Choir was a relentless assault, and I had to use all my willpower to maintain my own coherence, to keep from dissolving into chaos. I clung to the faint but pure echo of the fragments I carried, my only anchor in the sea of primordial pain. At times, I felt the Sound Silhouettes we encountered in the Wasteland were mere whispers compared to the raw power of the dissonance here.
My companions suffered as well. Gustave paced with his jaw clenched, his eyes hard, his focus entirely on the group's safety. Maelle monitored her tools, which whirred and sizzled under the influence of the dissonance, trying to obtain coherent readings or find ways to mitigate the influence of the environment. Lune had her protective earpieces on, but even so, her pale face betrayed the strain of being immersed in the Veil's scream, though she remained alert to any subtleties in the distant echoes, any patterns in the chaos my overwhelmed senses couldn't perceive. Sciel struggled with his device, cursing under his breath whenever his readings became unreadable, but he persisted, trying to map our path and detect the shard's fluctuating signal.
We saw more structures as we went deeper. Angular towers rising into the twisting sky, connected by arcs of dark, silent energy. They were monuments to anti-harmony, buildings that seemed to absorb ambient sound rather than create it. I felt a subtle vibration emanating from them, an 'anti-resonance' that actively repelled the primordial dissonance, creating small pockets of relative stillness around them. These were outposts, laboratories, fortifications built by the Silencers at the very heart of the wound they had caused.
The lead Silencer stopped before a particularly massive structure. It was a gigantic monolith, made of the same dark matter, rising from the fragmented ground and lost in the heights of the distorted Veil. It emitted no sound, but an overwhelming sense of stillness, an anti-harmony so potent that the howl of the Veil around it was reduced to a distant, agonized murmur. It was like the Primeval Monolith, but imbued with silence instead of harmony.
At its base, there was an entrance, a dark archway leading into the darkness within. The lead Silencer turned to look at us. His eyes, so sharp and cold, seemed to scan each of us. Then, he gestured deliberately toward the entrance.
There was no sound, but I felt a rhythmic 'impression' projected directly into my mind. Not words, but... concepts. Fragmented images. The Primeval Monolith, whole and vibrant with harmony. Then, a flash of silence, and the Monolith broken, its fragments scattered. Then, an image of us , the golden shards we carried glowing brightly. And finally, an image of the Scar, the howl, the wound... and the sense of a mistake . Not our mistake, but its own . Its 'release' had turned to agony.
The rhythmic 'impression' ended with a sense of anticipation. They wanted us to come in. They wanted us to see something, or do something.
Gustave approached, his sword ready. "They want us to go in," he said, his voice low and tense. "Why? Is this a trap?"
"I don't know," I replied, my mind still grappling with the 'impression'. "But I felt... the fragment is close. Very close. And they... I think they want us to see something related to the Fracture itself. To... their mistake."
Sciel, his device finally displaying a strong, stable signal, nodded grimly. "The fragment's signal is coming from within that structure. And the rhythmic readings of the structure itself... are of pure anti-harmony. It's its... heart. Its bastion."
The other Silencers positioned themselves on either side of the entrance, still as statues. They didn't seem threatening, but rather... vigilant. As if they were waiting to see what we would do.
The choice was clear, and terrible. We could try to flee, but we wouldn't survive the Scar without his guidance, and we wouldn't have the shard. Or we could trust (or risk) that his purpose in bringing us here was genuine, at least in part.
I looked at my companions. The fear was there, visible on their exhausted faces. But so was the determination. We'd come too far to turn back. The truth about the Fracture and the Silencers, the next crucial fragment, waited in that fortress of silence.
"We'll go in," Gustave said, his voice firm. "But with extreme caution. Team, in tight formation. Ready for anything."
I took a deep breath, trying to calm the rhythmic tremor in my being. The disharmony of the structure loomed over us, a throbbing emptiness that promised to erase any rhythm, any sound, any rhythmic presence that might enter.
The Silencers stepped aside. The silent path to the heart of their fortress was open. We exchanged determined glances with my companions. The journey through the Fracture Scar had brought us to this threshold. The encounter with the Silencers, and perhaps the final truth about the Fracture, began now, in the realm of anti-harmony.
.
Hello everyone, what did you think of the chapter? Please let me know in the comments. If you want to download the full book, it's available on my KO-FI page. The link is here. 👉
🤩ko-fi.com/winterstar01/shop🤩