Chapter 6 — Where the Whispers Took Root
🎬 Scene 1 — Ashwyn, Years Before the Curse
Ashwyn was a quiet village.
Tucked between the silverwood forests of eastern Thaloria, it breathed slow and soft — a place untouched by war or wonder, where days passed like folded paper, and nights arrived without warning.
But every year, under the crimson moon of the harvest, they celebrated the Festival of Light.
Fires. Feasts. Laughter. Lanterns.
And stories.
Always stories.
And in this village lived a man who told them better than most.
---
🎬 Scene 2 — The Father's Gift
Her father was a simple man — no gold, no bloodline, no magic.
Just a voice that could make silence lean in.
Each year, the villagers begged for his tales — hero myths, forbidden romances, old forest spirits.
And he gave them freely, with a grin that made you forget you were ever sad.
But that year…
Someone in the crowd shouted:
> "Tell us something dark this time, old man! Something real!"
He paused. Laughed.
Then began.
> A story of a ghost with no name. A woman who could hear when death approached. A whisperer, cursed to see the moment someone's breath would break — even if they begged her not to speak.
The crowd leaned in.
They laughed nervously.
Until the girl in the third row collapsed.
No scream. No struggle. Just silence.
Her mouth fell open. Her eyes glassed over.
Dead.
Right there on the cobbled stone.
---
🎬 Scene 3 — Panic, Then Poison
Gasps filled the night.
A few ran. A few prayed.
But most just turned — toward him.
> "What… what did you do?" "That story—was it real?" "He cursed her."
The joy of the festival turned cold.
Fear, like fire, spreads fast when it's dry.
And the village was bone dry with doubt.
---
🎬 Scene 4 — The Title That Killed Him
By morning, they had a name for him:
> Death Whisperer.
They said his voice could drag souls from the body. That his tongue was cursed. That even listening was dangerous.
No one dared speak to him.
Children were told to hold their breath if he passed by.
And worse…
They turned toward his family.
> "His wife must be a forest witch." "And their daughter? Always quiet. Always watching. She never cries, never stumbles. Unnatural."
And with one death… the whispers began.
---
🎬 Scene 5 — Escalation
A week later, someone carved symbols into their front door: "SPAWNS OF SILENCE"
Her mother was denied entry at the apothecary. The baker "accidentally" burned their bread. Even the priest who once dined at their table refused to look them in the eye.
> "The daughter will be next." "No human child is that still."
They were no longer people.
They were myths waiting to be hunted.
---
🎬 Scene 6 — The Night of Ruin
She had gone out that evening.
A walk. A breath. A few flowers by the edge of the woods.
And when she returned…
Smoke.
Not chimney smoke.
The thick, cruel kind.
She hid among the trees.
Watched as the crowd tore through the house.
Her mother's screams. Her father's voice — begging, then breaking. The torches. The laughter.
And someone shouting—
> "Burn the enchantment out of them!" "Witch. Whisperer. Elfspawn. Demons!"
She didn't blink. Didn't breathe.
Just watched, as her whole world blackened in the shape of neighbors.
---
🎬 Scene 7 — The Pact Beneath the Roots
She walked for three days without stopping.
Through thorns. Over frost. Past reason.
Until she reached the Hollow Tree.
An ancient thing. Dead before names were born.
There, in its hollow heart, something pulsed.
A book. Black. Blank. Breathing.
And a voice like velvet rot:
> "You watched them die… and still you were not chosen."
> "But I see you now."
> "Do you want them to pay? To feel it? To bleed every time they whisper like they did that night?"
She nodded.
Tears dried against her dirt-streaked face.
> "Yes."
The voice smiled.
> "Then write."
She opened the book.
Her fingers trembled — but the ink came willingly. No quill. Just fury.
The first word:
> Ashwyn.
---
🎬 Scene 8 — Present Day
[Back in present time.]
The mysterious woman stood at a cracked window in her darkened home.
She looked down at her gloved hands.
Unaged. Unbroken.
> "They thought silence was safety." "Now it will be their ruin."
She walked past a candle.
Her shadow moved in the opposite direction.
And in her wake, Witch Whispers rested on the table — open, humming softly.
The names inside? Endless.
But always written with the same hand.
Hers.
🎬 Scene — Leo's Resolve, Beneath the Storm
The rain hadn't fallen yet—
but the clouds above Bloom hung low and heavy,
like the sky was mourning something no one dared name.
Leo stood at the edge of the inn's rooftop.
One boot on stone, one hand on the hilt of his blade.
The other—wrapped in a blood-stained cloth.
Below, the village slept.
Too quiet.
The kind of silence that presses against your ribs and makes you listen for ghosts.
He hadn't slept.
Not since the hotel.
Not since the screaming.
Not since he saw her.
His thoughts clawed at each other—
memories bleeding into mission.
---
> "They came from nothing," he murmured.
"And returned to nothing.
No scent. No blood. No soul."
He closed his eyes.
> "They don't die. They just fade."
"But everything has a crack... even curses."
---
He had tried everything.
Steel blessed by flame.
Salt etched with scripture.
A Ferrum relic that once turned a banshee into smoke.
None of it worked.
The spirits returned —
faster, darker, more violent.
As if the fight only made them... remember.
---
A crow landed beside him on the railing.
Its eyes black. Still. Knowing.
Leo stared back, jaw tight.
> "You're always watching, aren't you?"
The bird tilted its head.
Not mocking. Not afraid.
Just... waiting.
He sat down slowly, back against the chimney.
His side throbbed from the last fight —
a wound too deep to stitch.
But pain helped him think.
> "There has to be something."
"Not just how to kill them...
but why they can't be killed."
---
From inside his coat, he pulled a worn old map.
The edges were burnt. The ink, fading.
But one place remained marked in red:
An X, deep in the forest ruins.
He traced it with his thumb.
> "Not today...
but soon."
---
Behind him, thunder groaned.
The wind whispered through the tiles.
And still, no answers.
Just a name.
A blade.
And the weight of every soul he couldn't save.
> "I don't know how yet..."
"But I will."
He rose.
Faced the storm.
---
🎬 Scene — Elina's House, That Night
Rain tapped gently on the roof.
The wind curled through the trees like a question left unanswered.
Elina stood by the window, arms folded,
a cold cup of tea untouched in her hand.
The fireplace crackled behind her.
Her children slept upstairs.
Her husband had gone to bed early — said it was a headache.
But she knew better.
It was fear.
She hadn't spoken since the ride home.
Not about the man.
Not about the blood.
Not about the scream still caught in her throat.
---
She took a slow sip,
even though the tea had gone bitter.
Outside — stillness.
Then—
> Caw. Caw. Caw.
Crows.
Dozens.
Lining the fence.
Perched along the roof.
Black eyes blinking against the glass.
She stood motionless.
> "Just birds," she whispered to herself.
"Just birds..."
But her voice didn't sound convinced.
She turned away—
And stopped.
There—on the wooden floor by the door—
a single feather.
Black.
Drenched.
Where no bird had ever flown.
She stepped back, pulse racing.
> "No..."
"Not again."
---
🎬 Final Scene — The Old Manor, Valmora Outskirts
Beyond the city's reach,
in the manor where silence made its home—
Candles flickered.
Walls moaned softly under their age.
Ink dripped in steady rhythm.
And in the center of it all—
She stood.
The mysterious woman.
Still smiling.
In front of her: a basin of dark ink.
And a quill that bled across the floor like a wound left open.
She traced a new line on the parchment.
Paused—
As if listening to something distant.
She tilted her head.
And smiled wider.
> "The crows have gathered."
Her voice was a whisper—
but the air rippled around it,
as if even the dark knew to listen.
She turned toward the black hallway—
And whispered:
> "She's starting to remember."
Then—
BLACK SCREEN.
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— Kent