Chapter 22: Voices in the Static

Yang Xiang sat by the broken shrine's hearth, feeding dry sticks into a dying fire. The copper plate now lay wrapped in thick linen, yet its presence still clung to the air like humidity—dense, suffocating.

"I've been hearing voices since we left," he confessed.

Old Li glanced up, his eyes red-rimmed and sleepless. "Me too. And I haven't touched that damn thing."

Crackling came from the old radio set propped against a cracked stone wall. It hadn't worked in years—until now.A burst of white noise tore through the silence, followed by a voice so distorted it sounded mechanical and ancient.

"Return… the… seal… to the heart."

Yang jumped up. "Did you hear that?"

Old Li slowly stood, face pale. "The heart?"

Before they could react, the fire went out. Not slowly—instantly. As if someone had snuffed it with a hand.

Darkness swallowed the room. A chill swept through. Something creaked above them.

And then… laughter. Childlike. Inhuman.

Yang grabbed the flashlight. Its beam sputtered before stabilizing. They turned it toward the ceiling.

A small handprint was there—black, soot-like, and inverted—on the ceiling beam.

"Children don't live here," Yang whispered.

"They haven't… for seventy years," Old Li replied.

There was a story about this place. A ritual. Children offered to the soil to appease "what lies beneath."

Yang felt bile rise. "We need to leave."

But outside the door, footsteps approached—bare feet slapping wet stone. One. Then two. Then too many to count.

"Don't open that door," Old Li breathed.

Yang stepped back as the knob slowly began to turn on its own.