Chapter 1562: Story 1562: The Hollow Chorus

The storm broke not with silence, but with a deeper roar. The fissure widened, vomiting smoke that twisted into shapes half-formed—faces without eyes, bodies without bones, voices without mouths. The shadows did not fall as shards this time. They sang.

A hollow chorus, empty and consuming.

The sound seeped into the lattice, gnawing at its jagged light. The boy flinched, his glow faltering as if every hollow note tore a piece from his song.

Kael gritted his teeth, swinging his fused blade through one of the figures. It dissolved, reforming instantly, its hollow song louder for the strike. “We can’t fight them,” he growled. “They’re not flesh—they’re echoes.”

Elara held the boy tighter, her voice trembling but resolute. “Then we must outsing them.”

But already, the hollow chorus was spreading, drowning their jagged harmony. The widow clasped her ears, screaming as her voice was dragged into the hollowness. Her light flickered and dimmed, pulled thin as thread.

The scarred woman staggered, her spear slipping from her grasp. “It’s… emptying me. Taking what little I have left.” She gasped, eyes wide with terror. “I can feel myself unraveling.”

The farmer fell to his knees, his grief spilling raw. “I can hear my boys… but their voices are hollow now. Not them—never them!” His cry bled into the choir, weakening it further.

Kael’s chest burned as the hollowness gnawed at his marrow. He forced himself forward, planting his blade into the ground, anchoring himself against the tide. “No. They are not us. They are reflections. Starving reflections.”

The boy’s small body arched, his mouth open, his voice nearly smothered by the hollow choir. Elara pressed her forehead to his. “Sing, my son. Sing louder than their emptiness.”

And he did.

A note cut through, thin but piercing. It did not banish the hollow voices—it filled them. Each echo twisted, reshaped, no longer empty but threaded with the survivors’ own scars. The widow’s grief, the farmer’s shame, the scarred woman’s rage—woven into the boy’s song, reclaiming what had been stolen.

The hollow chorus faltered, their forms flickering as if caught between being and nothing. The fissure screamed, shadows writhing in fury.

But the cost was immediate. The boy’s glow dimmed, his body trembling violently. Smoke rose from his skin. Every voice he reclaimed, he carried.

Elara sobbed, holding him close as her own voice cracked into the lattice. “Not alone. Not yours to carry alone.”

The scarred woman, breathing ragged, bent to lift her spear once more. But her voice entered the choir differently this time—no longer sharp with blame, but steady with grim acceptance. “Then we carry him, together. Even if it burns us.”

Their jagged harmony swelled, weaving into the boy’s note, forcing the hollow chorus back into the fissure. The Unborn howled, its voice breaking like glass. “You feed him with yourselves. Foolish. I need only wait until nothing remains.”

Kael staggered, sweat and blood running down his face, but his voice did not falter. “Then wait. We will not give you silence.”

The lattice blazed once more, scarred light holding the dark at bay.

For now.