ch8: The Echo That Screamed Back

The second door stood before Kael not glowing, not golden,but pulsing like a closed wound. He hesitated. Not out of fear…but because the threads inside him tightened. Soulquill vibrated faintly at his side. It was already reacting. This echo… wasn't going to be peaceful.

"I'm ready," Kael whispered.

And stepped through.

The moment he entered a howl of rage tore through him like thunder. He landed hard on a battlefield made of ash.

No sky.

No stars.

Just black winds carrying the voices of people who screamed until their last breath. Kael covered his ears. It didn't help.

"MAKE IT STOP!" someone roared but not at him.

At the world.

Kael opened his eyes. In the distance, he saw a soldier. Burned. Alone. Carrying no weapon only rage.

"Get out," the soldier barked.

"You don't belong in my hell."

Kael didn't move. Soulquill rose gently beside him, pages fluttering. Kael whispered:

"You're the echo…"

The soldier turned sharply.

"I said GET OUT!"

The ground cracked sending waves of broken memories flying into the air. Each one screamed. Each one was pain. And each one refused to be heard.

Kael's threads twisted tighter. Soulquill tried to anchor him but the rejection from this realm pushed it back.

"Even Soulquill's ink isn't welcome here…"

Kael looked at the soldier again his eyes burning with hatred and loss.

"You've carried it for so long…" Kael said softly.

"You think no one can understand?"

The soldier didn't answer. Instead, he raised a shattered banner from the ground its symbol long erased.

"I'm not a story to be rewritten.

I'm a wound that never closed."

Kael took a step forward. His voice shook, but didn't break.

"Then let me sit beside it."

Kael stood still. The burnt sky above him didn't move. Time felt wrong like this realm had stopped counting minutes long ago. The soldier's back was to him now,staring into nothing. As if waiting for a world that never came.

"You still here?" the echo muttered.

Kael nodded.

"I said I would sit beside it."

The soldier turned slowly. His armor, melted and fused into his skin,seemed to breathe like a living scar.

"You think this is some poetic suffering?"

"This isn't pain you can write. It's pain that erased me."

Kael didn't flinch. He lowered Soulquill, letting its tip touch the ash.

"Then let the ash speak."

Suddenly, the wind screamed. Thousands of faint voices rose laughs that turned into sobs,prayers that ended in silence. The soldier laughed bitterly.

"They all wanted to be remembered."

"I didn't."

"You know what it's like when the world forgets you?

Freedom."

Kael stepped closer. His voice was barely a whisper.

"You know what it's like when the world remembers you wrong?"

The soldier froze. Kael's hand hovered above Soulquill's page.

"Let me see your story. I won't rewrite it.

I'll just… hold it."

There was a long pause. Then the soldier dropped to one knee,gripping the shattered banner.

"Fine."

"But you don't get to flinch."

And he whispered something a single name. The moment he said it the battlefield screamed.

Ash turned into flame. The ground cracked into glowing staves of broken melody. And Kael saw it:

A boy, dragged to war at twelve.

A mother crying into a burnt quilt.

A name scratched from stone by the victor's blade.

A face that no mirror ever reflected again.

Kael gritted his teeth. The grief wasn't just heavy. It was hungry. And for the first time Soulquill bled.

The blade split at the center. Ink leaked from its spine,forming the outline of a page. Kael dropped to his knees, cupping the ink with trembling hands.

"This isn't rewriting," he whispered.

"This is remembering what no one dared to remember."

The soldier stood over him. His eyes no longer burning just tired.

"I… forgot what it felt like… to speak."

Kael looked up.

"Then let me be your last echo."

Kael knelt in the ash, both hands stained with living ink. Soulquill lay before him not glowing, but aching. The battlefield was quiet now. But not because the pain had ended. Because the pain…was finally listened to.

The echo soldier stood nearby, gaze fixed on the swirling mist that carried fragments of his erased life.

"You really don't flinch," he muttered.

"Even when everything around you screams."

Kael looked up, eyes soft.

"How could I flinch?"

"This isn't your scream alone.

It's the scream of everyone the Archive pretended didn't matter."

The soldier took a deep breath.

"Then write it."

"Not to fix it. Not to make me a hero."

"Just write that I existed."

Kael raised Soulquill,and the blade hummed a tired, low vibration like a breath taken after a long, buried cry. The ink formed slowly,not forced. Every letter felt heavy,as if it weighed years. Kael whispered the words aloud:

"Echo 002: The One Who Refused to Be Saved…but chose not to vanish."

As the words finished burning into the page, the battlefield began to dissolve.

But not violently. Like ash returning to soil. The soldier turned. A small, faint smile flickered the kind that forgets how to stay.

"Thank you…for sitting beside the silence."

He faded,not erased but released.

Kael stood alone. But inside…he wasn't.

Soulquill returned to his hand,its spine repaired,its pages heavier.

More burden. But also more truth.

When he stepped back into the Archive,the second ember vanished from the sky.

A second flame lit the path forward. Another door appeared this one made not of light…but of sound. Soft music hummed from behind it.

The girl stood waiting. But she didn't speak right away. Kael looked at her.

"You watched it all, didn't you?"

She nodded.

"Most echoes are afraid to be heard.

But some…"

"Some just want someone who won't rewrite the ending."

Kael asked quietly:

"Will it always feel like this?"

She tilted her head.

"If it stops hurting…you've forgotten why you started."

Kael turned toward the new door. His threads glowed faintly one red, one blue. The Soulquill followed without being commanded. Kael whispered:

"Two down.

Ninety-eight to go."

"If they're all this heavy…then I'll carry them all the way to the last note."