Chapter 1616: Story 1616: The Whispering Abyss
The whispers rose like a tide, flooding the graveyard until the air itself seemed to breathe. They weren’t voices in the wind—they were inside the skull, pressing behind the eyes, murmuring in tongues that predated language. Every word dripped with memory, with hunger, with promise.
Zara clutched her ears, falling to her knees. “Make it stop! Damien, please!”
But Damien didn’t move. His body hung between life and death, trembling with every pulse of the wyrm beneath him. His mouth twitched, and then the whispers bent toward him—as though answering their master.
The Keeper stumbled backward, horror widening his eyes. “They speak through him! The abyss has found a tongue!”
The sky bled. The fog turned black, veins of crimson lightning crawling through the clouds. From the split earth below, tendrils of shadow reached upward, curling around Damien’s arms like serpents of smoke. He didn’t resist. He breathed them in.
Zara’s scream cut through the night. “Damien, fight it! You told me once—there’s always a way back!”
For a moment, the shadows paused. His head tilted toward her, eyes dimming, flickering. “Zara...” His voice cracked—human again, fragile. “I can see them... every soul we lost. They’re all calling from below.”
“Then let them go!” she cried. “You don’t have to answer!”
The Keeper’s voice was a snarl. “He cannot! The abyss does not ask—it claims!”
The ground split wider. From the chasm rose figures—faceless, shrouded in mist, outlines of what once were men. Their forms shimmered, breaking and reforming, as though reality itself could not decide if they existed. The whispers poured from them now, louder, unified into one unbearable chorus:
“Feed the chain. Bind the light. Become the hollow.”
The wyrm beneath Damien stirred again, scales groaning like shifting mountains. Its eyes—once red—were now hollow voids. Through them, the darkness gazed back.
Damien’s hand twitched, rising as though pulled by invisible threads. The corpses scattered across the graveyard began to move—not rising, but melting, their flesh unraveling into streams of shadow that flowed into him. His wounds closed, his veins blackened, his skin took on the dull sheen of obsidian.
Zara tried to reach him—but the Keeper’s arm barred her path. “Touch him now and you’ll drown in the chain.”
“I don’t care!” she shouted, breaking free. She threw herself forward, gripping Damien’s face in both hands. “Look at me! You’re not their king. You’re Damien! You’re mine!”
For a breath, the shadows recoiled. His eyes flared bright again—crimson, burning. A strangled sound tore from his throat, half roar, half sob. “I can’t hold it... It’s too deep...”
“Then I’ll hold you!” she screamed.
The fog exploded outward in a shockwave of red light. The Keeper shielded his eyes as the wyrm’s body disintegrated, turning into rivers of dark flame that spiraled into Damien’s chest.
When the light faded, Damien stood alone. The graveyard was gone—only ash remained.
Zara’s voice trembled. “Damien... what did you do?”
He turned toward her. His eyes glowed like dying stars.
“I didn’t bind the abyss,” he said softly. “I opened it.”
And from the horizon, something vast began to move.