Chapter 11: The One Who Spoke

Elion sat alone in the circular chamber, the mirror shard cold in his hand.

The Codex still lay open beside him, its ink shifting slowly on the page like it breathed.

He waited.

The mark behind his ear pulsed — once, then again.

A slow burn.

He remembered what the boy said.

"Hold it while the spiral burns."

He closed his eyes and clutched the shard tightly.

The burn flared into a sharp sting.

And the silence broke.

Not with sound, but with weight.

A pressure in his mind. A wind without breath.

Then—he wasn't in the room anymore.

The world melted away.

He stood in a chamber of stone and glass, floating above a black ocean. Broken clocks lined the walls, all ticking at different speeds. The sky above was blood-red and cracked with spirals of lightning.

And in the center of the room stood a man.

He wore a coat of torn velvet. His hands were stained with ink, fingers covered in spiral tattoos that twisted endlessly. His head was tilted upward, as if listening to something Elion could not hear.

But the most terrifying thing was his face.

Because it had none.

Where eyes and mouth should've been, there was only smooth skin—like wax melted and reformed.

And yet—

He spoke.

— I warned them. I whispered the truth.

The voice didn't come from his mouth.

It came from everywhere.

From the air. The walls. Elion's own skull.

The man turned slowly toward Elion, though he had no eyes to see him.

— You've begun, haven't you? The First Echo?

Elion took a step back.

— Who are you?

The man's head twitched unnaturally.

— I was what you are.

— I am what you will become.

— A Listener?

The voice laughed — hollow, endless.

— No. A Speaker.

He raised his hands, and the spiral tattoos began to move, spinning faster and faster.

— I spoke the Echo aloud. I let the silence bleed. And now it doesn't stop.

A black tear rolled down where his eye should have been.

Elion clenched the shard harder.

— I won't become you.

The Speaker tilted his head.

— Then stop listening.

— But you won't.

— You can't.

The world around them began to shatter.

Glass broke across the sky.

Clock hands spun wildly.

The spiral in Elion's mind flared like fire.

And then—he woke.

Gasping.

Back in the chamber.

Sweat poured down his neck. His fingers were bleeding where the shard had cut him. The wound pulsed — not with pain, but rhythm.

His heartbeat… was not his own.

It was echoing.

He looked at the shard, still resting in his palm.

A faint whisper escaped from its surface.

Not a word.

A name.

"Elion…"

And it was his own voice saying it.