Whispers Beneath the Hollow Moon

"Some truths are too heavy for the tongue, too sharp for the mind, and too cursed for the soul. Yet, silence is the cruelest deception of all."

— The Forgotten One

The night lay sprawled over Cenith like a black velvet shroud, adorned with the flickering wounds of streetlamps. The city was alive in its own peculiar way—breathing through rusted vents, sighing through the groaning wood of ancient buildings, whispering through alleyways where shadows moved without masters.

Erith Vale walked with his hands buried deep in his coat pockets, the ever-present drizzle painting his silhouette in silver streaks. He had spent years listening to the city's unspoken language, deciphering the sighs of cobblestones and the murmurs of the forgotten. But tonight, the city felt different.

Something was watching.

He wasn't paranoid—no, paranoia was for those who still had hope that what they feared wasn't real. He had seen things that turned prayers into curses.

And right now, Cenith was whispering in a language only the damned could hear.

A Meeting with Ghosts

Selene Damaris was waiting in an abandoned chapel that time had long since abandoned. The stained-glass windows, once vibrant with depictions of long-forgotten saints, were now fractured mosaics of color and decay. The scent of damp wood and old wax lingered like the ghost of a forgotten congregation.

She stood before the altar, where the air was thick with something unseen.

"You're late," she said, without turning.

Erith smirked. "Time is just a trick of perception. And I like keeping people on their toes."

Selene exhaled a quiet chuckle. "Then I hope your balance is good, detective, because we are treading on the thinnest thread of fate."

He stepped forward, boots echoing against the wooden floorboards. "Tell me you called me here for something more than cryptic poetry."

She turned then, her dark eyes gleaming like polished onyx. "I have something for you. A memory."

His jaw tightened. "Memories are the cruelest currency in this city. You sure you want to trade?"

Selene reached into the folds of her long coat and pulled out an ornate silver key, intricate engravings spiraling along its length. The metal hummed with a faint, unnatural energy.

"This," she whispered, "opens a door that shouldn't exist."

The Door That Shouldn't Be

They walked through the backstreets of Cenith, where the air felt heavier, as if unseen hands pressed against their skin. The key led them to a place Erith had walked past a thousand times but never truly seen—an alleyway that was never there before.

"This is the part where I say this doesn't exist, and you tell me reality is a matter of perspective, isn't it?" he muttered.

Selene only smiled.

The door before them was not made of wood or stone. It was an absence of light, a void framed in wrought iron.

"I swear, one of these days, I'd like to find a normal crime scene. Maybe a simple robbery," Erith mused.

Selene arched a brow. "Where's the fun in that?"

He sighed. "Alright, let's open the door to the void of probable death."

Selene pressed the key into the lock, and the world trembled.

The Room of Forgotten Echoes

Inside, the air was thick with the scent of old parchment and something metallic—like rust, but sharper. Shelves lined the walls, filled with books bound in unfamiliar scripts, their covers marked with symbols that shifted under the eye.

Erith ran a finger over one of the spines. "You ever get the feeling that knowledge is staring back at you?"

"All the time," Selene murmured.

They ventured deeper. The room was much larger than it should have been, stretching into impossible corridors. And then they saw it—the body.

Or rather, what was left of it.

A figure sat slumped in a wooden chair, head tilted as if listening to an unseen whisper. Its flesh was aged beyond recognition, dried as if drained of time itself. In its lap rested an open book, the pages blank—except for a single phrase burned into the paper.

"The Veil is thinning. The Forgotten remember."

Erith exhaled sharply. "That's not ominous at all."

Selene knelt beside the corpse, fingers brushing the edge of the book. "This isn't decay. This is something else. Something unnatural."

Erith eyed the body with a frown. "Looks like he got the worst of whatever he was listening to."

Then, the corpse twitched.

Erith barely had time to react before its jaw snapped open with an unnatural creak, and a voice that was not its own hissed through the empty room.

"He is watching."

The candles flickered. Shadows stretched.

And then the body collapsed into dust.

The Whisper of the Forgotten

The silence that followed was not an absence of sound, but rather the presence of something unseen pressing against reality.

Selene stood slowly, brushing the dust from her fingers. "Well, that confirms it."

"Confirms what?" Erith muttered, brushing his coat off.

"That we are in far deeper trouble than I thought."

He shot her a dry look. "You don't say."

Selene smirked. "But don't worry, detective. If we die, at least it'll be interesting."

Erith exhaled, running a hand through his hair. "Great. I always wanted my last words to be a sarcastic remark."

A faint whisper echoed through the air.

"He is watching."

And for the first time in years, Erith Vale felt something he had almost forgotten.

Fear.