The rain tapped softly against the windows of the Department of Unknown Relics, as if someone insisted on entering with cold, patient fingers. Outside, the city of Brell stretched out in perpetual fog, lit by gas lanterns and smoking machinery that never slept.
Inside the building, where steam mingled with the dust of centuries and the hum of archived mechanisms, Elion Grahm patiently copied the details of an unmarked metal dial. His linen gloves were lightly stained with ink, but his strokes remained as clean as the architecture around him.
He was a thin young man with a calm face, eyes the color of cast iron, and chronically dark circles under his eyes. No one in the Department spoke much, but Elion spoke even less. He had learned that in places like this, silence wasn't empty—it was protection.
"Object 1471-RD. Possible artifact without activation. No visible runes. Internal hum detectable in dry environments."
He whispered the record as he wrote it, out of habit. No one cared about his voice, but it helped him organize his thoughts.
When he finished, he placed the artifact on shelf C-9, and that's when he saw it.
An unsealed box, awkwardly placed between two obsidian chests. It wasn't on the list. It had no return address from the Consortium, nor the signature of the central archive.
Just a note pinned to the lid:
"DO NOT OPEN."
Elion frowned. According to Department protocol, any unclassified item was to be inspected. The warning was more of an invitation than a prohibition.
Using the inspection tweezers, he removed the nails and carefully opened the box.
Inside, on a red cloth, lay a single sheet of paper.
Completely blank.
Nothing about it seemed strange. It didn't smell of ink, it didn't react to light or heat, or to basic enchantment tests.
But Elion couldn't stop looking at her.
There was something... deeply wrong with her silence.
He took it cautiously, holding it between his fingers. The leaf was light, lighter than it should be, and its texture was too smooth, as if it didn't belong to the physical world. And then, it happened.
A sudden pressure in his chest. A change in the atmosphere.
The lanterns sparkled. The chime of the wall clock stopped.
And in his mind, with the clarity of a voice spoken in his ear, he heard:
"Listen..."
Elion froze. It wasn't a hallucination. It wasn't a thought.
Someone—or something—was speaking to him from within the leaf.
The word hung suspended in his mind, vibrating like a trapped echo. A second voice, more distant, darker, followed it:
"You have been chosen to hear what others fear to name."
In that instant, his vision blurred. The sheet seemed to absorb all the light in the room. The objects in the display cases creaked. A jar exploded silently. Shadows lengthened and twisted like smoking snakes.
Elion fell back, still holding the sheet.
He woke up hours later, alone, the paper still between his fingers… and throbbing.
But the worst was when he looked at the window of his desk. On the glass, fogged by moisture, a word had been written from within, with a thin, trembling stroke:
"Listen."
He didn't write it. No one else had access. There was no way…
Unless…
No. It was absurd.
But that night, in his dreams, he dreamed of clocks hanging in the void, cracked mirrors, and a solitary chair in the center of an infinite room.
And when he approached it, his reflection didn't look back.
Someone else was sitting in his place.
The silence had ended.
Now the whispering had begun.