The first sign wasn't footsteps. It was stillness. Not normal Oakhaven stillness — absolute stillness.
As if the entire town had taken one synchronized breath and held it captive.
Then came the knock. Three short taps on the front door. Kael stood, heart pounding against his ribs. He didn't move to open it, his senses on high alert. A second knock followed. This time, slower, almost polite in its measured rhythm.
He motioned for Two-Tap to stay back, his gaze fixed on the door, and edged towards the window. He had to see.
They were here. Four of them.
Spaced evenly across the cobblestone road, their presence radiating an unnerving calm.
All tall.
All cloaked in shadows that seemed to cling to them even in the dim light. All wearing those blank, bone-white masks — featureless yet undeniably present, their smooth surfaces reflecting nothing.
The air around them shimmered faintly, a subtle distortion of reality.
Kael eased the window open a crack, the silence outside pressing in. One of the figures tilted its head, a slow, deliberate movement that sent a shiver down his spine. Kael didn't speak, his breath catching in his throat, but his thoughts were a frantic barrage: Why are you here? What do you want from me?
The nearest Collector raised a hand, its gesture deliberate and unsettling, and pointed — not at the house, but directly at him. And then, impossibly, it answered. A voice, not heard by his ears, but planted directly into his mind, a cold and invasive presence like a hand on the back of his neck.
"Sound bearer. Carrier of breach. Choose." Kael flinched, recoiling from the mental intrusion.
"Choose what?"
"Silence. Sacrifice." The words echoed in his head, devoid of inflection, yet heavy with meaning.
He gritted his teeth, his jaw tight. "That's not a choice. That's a threat."
The Collector offered no visible reaction. Instead, it raised its other hand and slowly opened its palm. A small spark of black light hovered above it — a fragment, a shard, like a sliver of sound made visible, crackling with unseen energy.
Two-Tap gasped softly from behind him, her breath a faint disturbance in the oppressive quiet.
The Collector extended the hand forward, offering the shard.
Like a twisted gift. Or a sinister deal. Kael stared at it, his mind racing. Is this how it began? Did they accept this before? Sealing their voices away for ever? He turned his gaze back to the other Collectors.
They didn't move, their masked faces impassive. Didn't threaten with gesture or stance. Just watched him with an unnerving stillness. Kael took a slow, deliberate breath, trying to steady his racing heart. And closed the window, severing the visual connection.
The knock didn't come again, the silence outside deepening. By morning, they were gone. No signs of their passing marred the cobblestones. No lingering threat hung in the air, only the heavy memory of the impossible choice.
...
Later that day, Two-Tap finally wrote again, her charcoal scratching against the paper. Her handwriting was shakier than usual, the lines uneven. "They don't want to kill you."
Kael raised an eyebrow, skepticism etched on his face. "Could've fooled me."
She shook her head, her dark eyes intense. She scribbled more, her hand moving quickly across the page. "They want to use you."
Kael paced the small attic room, his movements restless. "Because of my voice? Because I broke their precious silence?" She nodded, her gaze following his agitated movements. "You're the crack," she wrote. "You let sound in. But you could also aim it."
He stopped pacing, the realization hitting him with unexpected force. That made a terrifying kind of sense. The Sibilant being had been locked away by the absence of sound. But Kael wasn't just random noise. He was focus. A direction. Meaning in a world stripped bare. He wasn't just the crack in the dam. He was the potential weapon.
...
That night, Kael's sleep was troubled, filled with unsettling images. He was back in the field of rust-colored flowers, the stiff petals brushing against his hands. The sky above was a flat, lifeless expanse, and the air vibrated with an underlying silence that felt almost sentient. Something moved beneath the parched ground, a subtle tremor he felt more than heard. A low hum rose, not painful or threatening, but deeply personal, resonating within him like someone whispering a half-forgotten memory. Then a voice spoke, clear and distinct. Not the cold intrusion of a Collector. Not the alien resonance of the god. His own voice.
"You can end this." Kael turned sharply, searching the empty field. He saw himself standing across the distance. Older, his features hardened by an unseen struggle. A thin scar traced a line down the left side of his face. But it was undeniably him.
"But not without cost." The dream dissolved, the image fading into the blackness of sleep. He woke up cold, a lingering dread clinging to him, his heart pounding a heavy rhythm.
Two-Tap was already awake, sitting up and staring at him with an unreadable expression. She wordlessly passed him the notebook, her charcoal poised. "It knows your face now."