Naira first heard the voices on a Tuesday afternoon while studying for her physics exam. At first, it was just a faint whisper, like distant radio static. "We..." the voice said, clear and unmistakable. She dropped her pencil, looking around her bedroom nervously. "Grandma?" she called out, but the house remained silent.
The psychological toll began almost immediately. Naira found herself jumping at shadows, her concentration shattered. During classes, she'd miss entire lectures, too focused on waiting for the next whisper. Her friends noticed her distraction, her teachers commented on her declining grades. Sleep became elusive - she'd lie awake for hours, straining to hear the voices while simultaneously dreading them.
Over the next few days, the whispers continued, growing more distinct. "We... existence... we..." The words came at random intervals - while she was eating breakfast, walking to school, even in the middle of conversations with friends. She tried to tell her grandmother, but Hana dismissed it as stress from exams.
"Maybe you should see Dr. Tanaka," Hana suggested gently one evening, noticing the dark circles under Naira's eyes. "All this studying might be overwhelming you."
"No!" Naira said too quickly, then softened her tone. "I mean, it's probably nothing. Just... tired."
But secretly, she began documenting every occurrence in a leather-bound journal, her handwriting growing increasingly frantic. She covered one wall of her bedroom with sticky notes, each bearing a word or phrase from the whispers, creating a mosaic of mysterious communication. The pattern emerged slowly: "We... existence... we... be at peace... we..."
The day she heard "Fear not" clearly spoken in her mind, she nearly went to the hospital. But something held her back - a strange comfort in the voice, a sense of familiarity that defied explanation, as if the voice belonged to someone she'd known long ago. Her internet searches yielded nothing but articles about schizophrenia and auditory hallucinations, none of which matched her experience.
The final sticky note she added read: "They're trying to communicate. But who are they? And why me?"
Dr. Chen moved through the hospital corridors with practiced efficiency, his white coat crisp, his demeanor calm but with an undercurrent of authority that seemed unusual for a simple physician. He was examining a patient's chart when Elyra appeared at the nurse's station, leaning on her customized crutch.
"I brought you lunch," she said, holding up a paper bag. "You mentioned you were working through today."
Chen's smile was warm, though his eyes flickered to the clock in a gesture Elyra had come to recognize meant he was calculating his time. "You're too kind, Elyra. I have a few minutes before my next -"
His phone buzzed urgently with a specific pattern of vibrations Elyra had heard before. He glanced at the screen, his expression tightening almost imperceptibly, but she'd learned to read the subtle changes in his demeanor. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice taking on a new, official tone she'd come to associate with his "other" work. "There's an emergency with a... high-priority patient. I need to go immediately."
Elyra watched him hurry away, noticing the two stern-faced men in dark suits who fell into step beside him - men who moved with military precision and didn't look like hospital staff. She'd seen these men before, always appearing when Chen received those specific calls. "What kind of physician has security detail that looks like special forces?" she murmured to herself, the old suspicions stirring again.
At a packed press conference in Geneva, Dr. Amanda Reed of the U.S. Department of Defense stood before the world's media. The American scientist projected confidence and authority as she clicked to the first slide - a detailed molecular diagram that few in the audience could properly understand.
"Our research has confirmed what we long suspected," she announced, her voice ringing with conviction. "The so-called 'void children' are not innocent victims. They are sophisticated biological weapons created by the entity Azar, designed to infiltrate and weaken humanity from within."
The screen changed to show before-and-after images of blind patients, the footage carefully edited for maximum emotional impact. "However, in a stunning breakthrough, our scientists have discovered how to turn the enemy's weapons against them. The unique cellular structure of these beings can be harnessed to reverse the effects of the black rain."
Gasps filled the room as she displayed footage of a formerly blind woman now reading an eye chart, tears of joy streaming down her face. "Not only can we restore vision, but our research indicates we can cure virtually any disease - cancer, Alzheimer's, genetic disorders. The key to humanity's medical salvation lies in understanding and utilizing these biological weapons."
The headlines exploded across news platforms within minutes: "AMERICA DISCOVERS MIRACLE CURES" and "VOID CHILDREN HOLD KEY TO ENDING DISEASE."
As the world celebrated the medical breakthrough, troubling questions began emerging on news panels and social media. The initial euphoria quickly gave way to suspicion and fear.
"How do we identify these void children?" asked a concerned European journalist on a prime-time debate show that evening. "If they look human, how can ordinary citizens protect themselves? Should we be reporting people who seem... different?"
A former intelligence official nodded gravely from the studio panel. "We need immediate screening protocols at all borders and major institutions. Blood tests, genetic markers, behavioral profiling - we must develop comprehensive systems to detect them before they can harm us."
The conversation quickly turned dark across social media platforms. People began looking at their neighbors, their coworkers, even family members with suspicion. Police lines flooded with reports about "suspicious behavior" - a child who healed too quickly from a scraped knee, a coworker who never got sick, a neighbor with unusual eye color or "strange habits." The hashtag #IdentifyTheVoidChildren began trending globally, accompanied by paranoid speculation and dangerous accusations.
High in the Ural Mountains, under a sky blazing with unfamiliar constellations that had appeared since Azar's departure, Dimitri Orlov stood with twelve men on a windswept peak. Each man had undergone the Procedure - their organic arms replaced with sleek metallic limbs that gleamed with an otherworldly light in the starlight, prototypes powered by void energy.
Orlov raised his own cybernetic arm, the joints humming with contained power as energy crackled between his fingers. "My friend," he called to Niu, who hovered nearby as a constellation of dark energy that seemed to drink the light from the stars themselves. "The time has come."
Niu's form solidified into something both magnificent and terrible - a being of woven starlight and primordial shadow, his voice echoing not just in their ears but in their very bones. The pieces are in position. The world fears what it does not understand, and in its fear, it has begun to devour itself. Now we show them what true fear looks like.
The men with metal arms raised them in unison, and brilliant blue energy began crackling between their fingertips, creating a complex web of power that lit up the mountain peak like a beacon visible for miles. The air itself seemed to tear around them, reality buckling under the strain of the unleashed void energy.
Orlov smiled, a predator's grimace that showed too many teeth. "Let the reckoning begin."
The energy web shot upward, piercing the atmosphere and spreading across the sky like a dark aurora, a visible declaration of war against the world below.