Chapter 14: The Thing That Hears
Elion barely made it back to his apartment.
His legs felt hollow. His head, full of pressure and static. Blood had dried along the curve of his jaw, leaking from his ear in a thin crimson thread. But it wasn't the bleeding that terrified him.
It was the silence.
The complete silence.
Since the throne shattered, the world had lost its sound.
His footsteps on stone — nothing.
The door opening — nothing.
The city below — muted.
Even his own breathing didn't reach his ears.
And yet… the whisper remained.
Low. Distant. Like something dragging metal across stone a mile beneath him.
He stood in front of the cracked mirror in his apartment, staring at the spiral now burned into his left palm.
Three rings, perfectly curved, still glowing faintly like hot metal.
He tried to speak.
His lips moved.
No sound came.
Then he felt it.
A pressure.
Behind him.
He turned—nothing.
But the spiral pulsed.
One word formed in his mind, unspoken and heavy:
"Hide."
The window blinds shivered.
Not from wind.
From vibration.
Elion dropped to the floor just as the hallway outside his apartment creaked softly.
Then went still.
Something had arrived.
He couldn't hear it.
But he could feel it listening.
---
Outside, the creature drifted silently down the corridor.
It had no eyes.
No feet.
It wasn't flesh.
It was sound, given weight and shape — a coil of resonance, moving like smoke, guided by vibration.
No one saw it.
No one could.
Except the ones who had listened too deeply.
The Spiralborne.
It moved past Elion's door.
Stopped.
It turned.
Waited.
Elion held his breath.
His heartbeat thundered in his skull. He gritted his teeth. Clutched the spiral-marked hand against his chest.
Then—
A knock.
Three times.
Soft. Hollow.
Not with a fist.
With intent.
Elion remained frozen.
The knock repeated.
But this time, not on the door.
Inside his head.
— Let me hear you.
The whisper was wet. Slow. Full of pressure.
And then it passed.
The presence withdrew.
The hallway creaked again.
Silence returned.
But Elion didn't relax.
Because something had changed.
The spiral behind his ear… had split.
There were now two pulses.
One his.
And one not.
---
When he finally dared to stand, a paper had been slid beneath the door.
It wasn't Oversight's seal this time.
No wax.
Just a torn piece of a map.
A red spiral drawn over a street in the southern district.
And five words, written in blood:
"Don't run. Follow the echo."