The requiem

**Kelly Thompson's POV**

The silence isn’t silent.

It’s a vacuum, a pressure that gnaws at the eardrums, leaving behind a phantom tinnitus—a high-pitched whine that isn’t sound but the *absence* of it. The Valley of Echoes stretches before us, its jagged obsidian spires clawing at a sky stripped of color. Eden’s breaths are shallow, deliberate, his hands clenched to stifle the faint hum still leaking from his scars. The Cantor’s melody is quieter now, but not gone. A sleeping beast, not a dead one.

The Maestro’s presence lingers here, heavier, as though the valley itself is his instrument, waiting to be played.

Eden signs to me, hands sharp in the dead air: *No sound. They’ll hear.*

I nod. The Dirge’s warning hangs between us—*The Maestro will finish your song.* But the valley’s rules are clear: a single footfall, a gasp, a heartbeat too loud, and the Requiem will find us.