Story 1140: The Gate Cracks Open

It began with a sound.

A breath against the silence. A flutter in the gloom.

Far beneath Greybridge, where the Choir of the Hollow Ones had carved their dominion, something shifted. A fracture split the ancient seal hidden beneath the Chapel ruins—a line of darkness, thin as a whisper, glowing faintly with violet light.

The Gate had cracked.

Not the gate to a place, but to a truth.

It had been sealed in the early days of the Spiral’s birth, back when the Mouth That Waits was still learning how to feed. The old magi called it the Vein Gate, where thought and flesh met dream. It was said to lead to the origin of all absence.

Now, it pulsed.

And something on the other side… watched.

In a collapsed corner of the city, five survivors huddled near the bones of a forgotten watchtower.

Eyre, a former chapel scribe, held the pages of the Book of Hollow Psalms—not as gospel, but as warning.

Dalren, a blacksmith with a cracked hammer and lungs full of ash.