Chapter 18: The Keepers of Silence

The light of Elsewhere dims.

Not from darkness—but from memory erosion. Whole thoughts disintegrate mid-formation. Landmarks vanish if not looked at directly. And behind Kael, the fractured Second Lock pulses like a heartbeat refusing to die.

Naia keeps close as they walk, silence stretched thin between them.

"You said the Forgotten," she finally whispers. "What are they?"

Kael hesitates, voice low. "Not monsters. Not gods. Something… in between. We sealed them because they made people remember too much."

"Too much of what?"

Kael stops.

"Pain. Power. What we were before we decided to become human."

They pass into a new region of Elsewhere—flat land paved with shattered clock faces and rivers of melted ink. The horizon folds like origami, and each fold reveals a memory.

Naia sees it first.

A black obelisk, surrounded by silent figures in gray cloaks. No mouths. No eyes. Only the sigil of the Lock burned into their chests.

Kael kneels. "Keepers of Silence."

The figures do not move.

"They speak only in thoughts," Kael explains. "Their voices would shatter time."

Naia steps closer, eyes narrowing. "They've been expecting you."

One Keeper raises its head. The sound that follows isn't voice—it's resonance, striking directly in Kael's mind:

Vaeren… Returned.The first Lock broken. The second bleeding.Reven walks. The world forgets itself.

Kael swallows hard. "We need to stop him."

You cannot.Reven is not a person. He is the consequence of your silence.

Kael steps forward, more forceful now. "Then help me. Before he finds the Third Lock."

The Keepers turn, together, and gesture toward the base of the obelisk. A glyph appears, floating in gold flame.

The path to the Third Lock lies through memory unreconciled.You must remember what you destroyed.Only then will the next Key awaken.

Suddenly, a shriek tears through Elsewhere.

A rift rips open in the sky. Black vines of smoke lash through, dragging with them a tide of shrieking shapes.

Reven's voice echoes across the realm.

"You think they'll protect you, Kael? These husks? These cowards who locked themselves away from pain?"

The Keepers raise their hands. Silence erupts like a bomb.

The attacking wraiths freeze mid-air, their forms collapsing in on themselves.

But from the rift steps someone else.

Not Reven.

A girl.

Thalia.

Her eyes glow with Reven's mark. Her skin pale, veins lit with red shimmer.

Naia gasps. "Kael—who is that?"

Kael's face falls.

"She was one of us. From the old world. My—"

He falters.

"She died sealing the first Lock with me. I buried her name in the Door."

Thalia smiles—broken and strange.

"You left me there," she whispers. "Alone. Forgotten."

Kael steps forward, voice cracking. "I didn't have a choice—"

"But you did," she cuts in. "And now Reven gave me another. I'm your reminder, Vaeren."

She raises her hand, and the sky screams again.

The Keepers' silence breaks.

The world starts collapsing.

Naia grabs Kael's arm. "We can't fight her here!"

Kael nods, gritting his teeth. "Then we run—through the glyph. Through the memory."

He slams his hand against the golden sigil. It bursts open—revealing not a path, but a reality fracture.

Through it, Kael sees a city of glass towers and floating sanctums—an old place. His home.

He turns back one last time. Thalia watches, face unreadable.

"I'll see you there," she whispers.

Then she vanishes into dust.

Chapter 18 End