Mouthless Whispers

Chapter Six : The Listening Hall

Lucien landed without falling.

One moment he was moving forward, the next he stood in a vast corridor where sound itself felt heavy. The air buzzed faintly, like a throat clearing in the dark. The walls stretched endlessly in both directions—curved and polished like bone, yet pulsing faintly with veins of dim blue light.

No footsteps echoed. The floor drank sound.

❖ Region: Outer Layer 3 — The Listening HallStatus: ActiveKnown Anomalies: 1Task: Locate the Voice that Should Not Speak

He walked.

There were no doors. Only narrow slits in the walls—too thin for a body to fit through, yet wide enough to hear what should not be heard. From each one, whispers poured—soft, brittle, endless.

They didn't speak languages.

They carried feelings. Thoughts that had been scraped raw. Lucien passed a slit and suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to apologize—to no one in particular. At the next, he tasted blood. At the third, a cold certainty that he had once killed someone, though no such memory existed.

❖ Passive Effect: Emotional ContaminationCountermeasure: System filter appliedResult: 74% efficiency

Lucien placed a hand against the wall. It was warm.

Then, from deeper within the corridor, a voice broke the pattern.

Not a whisper.

Not an echo.

A word. Spoken directly.

"Stop."

He froze.

The sound did not echo. It didn't need to. It existed beyond location, carved into the air itself.

Lucien stepped forward.

"Where are you?" he said.

"You heard me," the voice replied.

It was neither male nor female. Young nor old. It vibrated in his bones but did not belong to his ears.

"Are you the one I'm looking for?"

"You're not looking. You're listening."

Lucien narrowed his eyes.

A figure stood at the far end of the corridor. Featureless. Covered in translucent skin that shimmered like wet paper. Its mouth was stitched, yet the voice came from within it—pouring through the threads.

"You shouldn't be here," it said.

Lucien stepped closer."And yet I am."

"You brought the system with you. It will try to take what remains of me."

Lucien frowned.

"You're not part of it?"

The figure's head tilted. "I was. Then I listened too deeply."

The walls around them pulsed once.

❖ Alert: Hostile Entity DetectedClass: Abandoned ProcessAction: Caution advisedReason: Exposure to unfiltered thought

The figure raised its hand—not threateningly, but slowly, deliberately. In its palm rested an orb of black static, swirling violently, resisting form.

"This is what's left of choice," it whispered.

Lucien looked at it.

"What do I do?"

"No one has asked that in a long time," the figure said. "You must take it, or leave it. But if you take it, you carry the weight of hearing more than you should."

Lucien stepped forward and reached out.

The orb trembled.

❖ Warning: Optional Data FragmentIntegration Risk: HighEffect: Unknown

He touched it.

The moment he did, a scream tore through his mind—not his, not human. A billion words at once, none of them meant for him. Every thought he had ever silenced roared back in unison, demanding to be heard.

Then—Silence.

❖ Fragment absorbedResult: Passive Skill unlocked — Inner EchoDescription: Thoughts within thoughts. Detect the hidden intention behind words.

The figure collapsed without sound. As if it had been waiting to be unburdened.

Lucien stood alone again.

❖ Task completeDirective: Exit the Listening HallNew Objective: Seek the Chamber of Eyes

And just like that, a door appeared ahead—where none had been before.