There are moments when silence is sacred—
When the quiet holds space for healing, for breath, for reflection.
But there are other moments when silence is a warning—
A hushed tremor in the earth, a tightening of the air, the stillness before a storm.
Obade had just begun to breathe again.
The fire that once raged within its heart had cooled, leaving behind embers of hope instead of ash.
The river, once wild and screaming with the weight of secrets, now sang softly—its voice returning to the people, threading through their lives with gentle insistence.
Echo had come back with the songs the sea had swallowed—threads of sound woven back into the fabric of the village's soul.
But peace, as always, was brief.
It started with a shadow at the edge of the sky—something dark and shifting, too quick for the eye but heavy enough to be felt.
A tremor passed through the dreams of the oldest elders, stirring unease beneath their closed eyelids.
By dusk, the first of the Ghostwalkers arrived—not on feet, but already inside the village's sleep, a presence that folded through the spaces between thought and reality.
Ola woke suddenly, fists clenched tight enough to leave pale marks in his palms.
The dream lingered, thick with symbolism.
He had seen a boy standing in the market square—yet the boy's face shifted endlessly.
One moment a child, wide-eyed and unsteady;
The next, an old man, wrinkles etched deep as riverbeds;
Then flame—dancing and flickering, wild and alive;
Then mask—smooth, blank, and unreadable.
The dream spoke not in voice, but in symbols—echoes he could not fully grasp but knew were urgent.
He stumbled from the hut where he had slept, sweat glistening on his brow despite the cool night air.
The world outside was too still—wind held its breath, trees frozen as if waiting.
And there, standing silently at the gate of Obade, was a woman.
No guards had seen her enter.
No footprints marred the earth beneath her.
She wore a long black robe that shimmered with an oily gleam, reflecting the moonlight like spilled ink on water.
Her hair was bound in seven tight knots, each knot glowing faintly with an eerie blue fire.
She stepped forward without a word, eyes sharp beneath heavy lids.
"Ola," she said, voice soft but firm.
"You must gather the Keepers. Now."
By dawn, the Keepers were assembled once more.
Echo stood beside Ola, her figure wrapped in a shawl woven from threads retrieved during the journey into the river's depths—a tapestry of light and shadow that still shimmered faintly with the pulse of the river's song.
Her eyes held the weight of all she had heard and seen, fierce and calm all at once.
Iyagbẹ́kọ arrived next, barefoot as always, leaning on her gnarled staff.
Her face was a mask—unreadable and ancient—yet her gaze carried a sharp edge that cut through silence like a blade.
"You," Iyagbẹ́kọ said, turning toward the visitor who had come with the night, "are not from this place."
The woman bowed once, the glow in her hair pulsing with each breath.
"My name is Ayomira."
She spoke deliberately, voice layered with echoes of distant places.
"I am from the Shoreless Sleep."
Echo's brow furrowed with skepticism.
"That's a myth."
"No," Ayomira corrected softly.
"It is a place—outside of time and land. A realm where dreamwalkers gather what others bury."
She turned her gaze toward the gathering Keepers.
"We heard the Hollow King fall. We felt the river shift. So we came."
Ola stepped forward, eyes narrowing.
"We?"
Behind Ayomira, six more figures emerged from the mist that curled like smoke around their feet.
A man whose gold eyes seemed to burn without casting shadow.
A child whose skin hummed faintly, like storm clouds gathering before a tempest.
An old woman whose body fractured into countless mirror shards, reflecting light in fractured patterns.
They did not come as invaders.
Nor as conquerors.
They came as warnings—silent messengers riding the breath between worlds.
Ayomira stepped into the center of the village, where the altar still smoldered faintly from the recent fire.
With deliberate calm, she withdrew a small pouch from deep within her robes and poured ash onto the stone surface.
But this ash was no ordinary dust—it seemed to move on its own, swirling and twisting as though alive.
The swirling ash began to coalesce, taking shape in the form of a door.
The sigil carved into the ash-door made Echo's blood run cold.
It was the symbol of the Hollow King—but older, far older.
Not carved from stone or wood, but from bone.
"You believed him to be the final threat," Ayomira said, voice low and fierce.
"But the King was not the prison."
She paused, eyes flickering with a warning.
"He was the key."
The wind shifted sharply, scattering the ash in a violent gust.
"Behind that door lies something far older, something that has been held shut for generations."
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"And now… it stirs."
Ola sat on a low rock nearby, head bowed, hands pressing into his face.
Another threat.
Another hidden story unraveling like a loose thread threatening to undo everything.
"Will it ever end?" he muttered.
Echo knelt beside him, steady and certain.
"It's not another story," she said softly.
"It's the same story. Told again and again until someone listens all the way through."
Iyagbẹ́kọ rose slowly and approached the fire.
"What lies beneath the Saltline?" she asked, voice carrying the weight of centuries.
Ayomira hesitated, then answered:
"A song so ancient it was erased from memory itself."
"Buried where no drum could reach."
"The 'First Silence.'"
A being, a force, a god—no one remembered what exactly.
"Because to remember it is to lose yourself."
Echo swallowed hard.
"But it remembers us."
"Always," Ayomira replied.
"And now, it sings again."
That night, Ayomira summoned the Keepers—not in the waking world, but into the dream.
One by one, they closed their eyes and fell into a shared vision.
They found themselves gathered on an island of skulls, each bone worn and weathered by the tides of time.
Around the island stretched waters of forgetfulness—smooth and endless, reflecting stars that shone cold and distant.
They sat together in silence, each holding the other's gaze without words.
And then, from the sky above, descended a single sound:
A drumbeat with no rhythm.
It struck once.
Then twice.
And then it stopped.
The silence that followed was not empty—it was alive, vast and breathing like a living thing.
"This is what stirs," Ayomira said within the dream, her voice echoing in their minds.
"A silence that devours all song."
Iyagbẹ́kọ's eyes narrowed in the shared vision.
"What does it want?" she asked.
"To replace the river's voice with its own."
Ola clenched his jaw, determination hardening his features.
"Then we'll drown it."
"You cannot," Ayomira replied, voice grave and unyielding.
"It has no shape."
She looked directly at Echo.
"It is the song we refused to sing—and now it's coming back to claim its cost."
Back in the waking world, Echo stood alone at the river's edge, the glowing threads still trailing from her wrists like spectral chains humming softly in the darkness.
She reached out, fingers brushing the surface of the water.
"What did we unleash?" she whispered to the river.
The river answered—not in words, but in a tone she had never heard before.
A low, shivering pulse—neither warm nor hostile.
Just waiting.
Images flashed before her eyes.
The First Drowning.
People carrying silence in their mouths instead of names.
A dark mouth opening beneath the ocean floor—filled not with teeth, but with memory too painful to hold.
She gasped, heart constricting with recognition.
The First Silence was not a monster.
It was our forgetting.
By morning, the people of Obade had heard enough to know what was coming.
But they did not panic.
Instead, they moved with quiet purpose.
They cooked meals over open flames, aromas weaving into the morning air.
They gathered cloth, drums, and tools.
They wove new garments, robes dyed with water drawn from the river's deepest pools, threaded with ash, stitched with verses Echo had retrieved from the depths.
"What are we preparing for?" a woman asked softly.
Echo answered simply, eyes steady.
"Not war. Not worship.
But a remembering stronger than forgetting."
Ola carved protective signs deep into the bark of the ancient trees that guarded the village.
Iyagbẹ́kọ traced sigils in salt around the sleeping places of the children.
Ayomira and her kin stood watch on the borders of Obade, eyes sharp, bodies still as the air shifted with unseen forces.
"It is close," the dreamwalker said, voice low and tense.
"Whatever was locked away… is looking for a mouth."
That night, under a sky bruised with stars, Echo lit a small fire beside the river.
Not for protection.
Not for warmth.
But as an invitation.
She sang a single line.
Then another.
Each verse a fragment of something lost, a piece of the forgotten song returning home.
Across the water, a voice answered—low, unformed, unearthly.
Not evil.
Not hostile.
Just… old.
So very, very old.
Ola joined her by the fire, fingers brushing hers in silent solidarity.
Iyagbẹ́kọ lifted her staff, her eyes gleaming with fierce resolve.
Behind them, the village gathered in a loose circle—faces lit by flickering flames, shadows moving with the rhythm of ancient fears and hope.
They stood facing the dark.
Listening.
Not as warriors preparing for battle.
But as witnesses.
As those who knew the cost of silence—and the power of song.
The river's breath held steady through the night.
The ghosts at the gate waited—patient, relentless.
And Obade prepared to meet them—not with swords or shields, but with memory, rhythm, and truth.
Because some stories cannot be silenced.
Some songs will always rise.
And some ghosts must be welcomed home.