CHAPTER 1574: STORY 1574: THE SPLINTERED SONG

The cavern shook like a wounded beast, its veins pulsing erratically. Every strike the survivors had landed now echoed back inside them, as though the hollow doubles were stitched into their very marrow. The air quivered with fractured sound, half scream, half silence.

Kael staggered, clutching his ribs where invisible wounds burned. His hollow had dissolved, but its shriek still lived in him, rattling his skull with each breath. His blade trembled in his grip, not from weakness, but from resonance—the song of the cavern trying to bend it into silence.

Elara rocked the boy against her chest, her voice fraying. The child’s glow had dimmed into a pale flicker, his chant collapsing into half-formed syllables. Each unfinished word snapped back as a lash of static, scarring the air. “Stay with me,” she begged, pressing her forehead to his. “Don’t let it swallow your voice. Don’t let it make you hollow.”

The widow lay on her side, blood seeping from her lips. Her double was gone, but its mouthless scream lingered inside her chest. She clawed at her throat as if trying to rip it free, then forced a jagged laugh through the blood. “If it wants to keep screaming... it can do it from me.” She tried again, dragging sound out of ruin, and the cavern twitched like a muscle spasm.

The scarred woman staggered forward, ribs visibly shifting under her skin. Each breath sounded like broken glass. Yet she refused to bow. Planting her spear into the ground, she let the pain steady her, muttering through clenched teeth: “Every scar... a story. Every story... a weapon.” She carved a shallow line across her own arm, letting blood drip onto the cavern floor. The echo that followed bent the fog, making it shudder.

The farmer, pale and trembling, struck his drum once more. The hollow rhythm still lurked in his chest, threatening to pull him under. He closed his eyes, listened to the chaos, and deliberately slowed his beat. Not defiant this time, but steady—like a pulse found in the middle of collapse. One... two... three. The echoes faltered, unsure how to mimic something so simple yet alive.

The cavern howled, the maw flexing wide. The fog thickened, and from its depths rose fragments of the shattered hollows, recombining, reshaping—not full doubles this time, but fractured pieces of memory and voice. A widow’s scream stitched to Kael’s scars. The farmer’s heartbeat echo inside the scarred woman’s broken ribs.

The Unborn’s voice tore through it all, vibrating like marrow breaking:

“You unravel yourselves for me. You carve wounds, and I drink. You make songs, and I wear them. You cannot silence what you are.”

The boy stirred, glowing faintly, his chant trembling but stubborn. Elara’s tears streaked his face as she whispered, “Then sing broken. Sing wounded. Sing wrong. He can’t steal what’s already shattered.”

Kael gritted his teeth, raised his bleeding blade, and looked at the others. Every scar, every scream, every broken beat—they were unraveling, yes. But perhaps unraveling was the only way through.

The survivors turned toward the maw, their fractured voices threading into a splintered song, one jagged enough to wound the Unborn itself.