Story 1077: The Eldritch Choir

In the hollowed remnants of what once was the city of Haldenbridge, a sound echoes nightly—neither human nor machine. Survivors call it the Eldritch Choir, a song that seeps through fog and bone, peeling sanity like dead skin.

The melody arrives at dusk.

It is beautiful.

It is ruin.

Priya Vale, a deaf archivist turned apocalypse runner, was immune to the song… at first. Where others clutched their skulls or bled from the ears, she walked through the ruins untouched, guided by instinct and the faint thrum of silence.

But that changed when she found the echo stone.

A polished shard of onyx, smooth as sleep and singing without sound, buried beneath a shattered church organ. When she touched it, she didn't hear with her ears—she felt with her bones.

“Do you hear us now, vessel of quiet?”

The Choir had found her.

They weren’t ghosts.

Not spirits.

Not even eldritch gods.