The first time I heard the Dome sing, I was just a child.
It was a summer night, one of those where the air seems to stand still, heavy with the scent of night-blooming flowers. My father had taken me to the highest terrace of our home in Olkaris. The moons were full, casting their silver and amber light over the sleeping city.
"Listen," he had whispered, his hand warm on my shoulder. "Listen beyond the silence."
I didn't understand what he meant. How could one listen to something beyond silence? Silence was, by definition, the absence of sound. But I tried, closing my eyes as he instructed, focusing my attention on the night around us.
At first, there was nothing but the familiar sounds of the city: distant conversations, the occasional laughter, the soft rustling of leaves in the royal gardens below. But then, as my breathing slowed and my mind cleared, I began to perceive... something else.
It wasn't a sound, not exactly. It was more like a vibration, a rhythm that seemed to pulse through everything — the stone beneath my feet, the air in my lungs, even the blood in my veins. It was as if the world itself were breathing, following a pattern too vast and ancient for human comprehension.
"I feel it," I had whispered, afraid that speaking too loudly might break the spell. "Like a heartbeat, but... bigger."
My father had smiled then, his eyes reflecting the starlight. "That's the Dome, Karel. That's its song."
The Dome. The invisible barrier that surrounds our world, protecting us from the chaos beyond. Every child in Inhevaen learns about it in their earliest lessons. It has always been there, will always be there. Eternal. Immutable. Sacred.
Or so we were taught.
That night was the first time I truly felt its presence, but it wouldn't be the last. Throughout my childhood, my father would take me to different places — high mountains, deep forests, quiet lake — always encouraging me to listen, to feel the Dome's song. It became our secret ritual, a bond between us that I cherished above all else.
Then, on my tenth birthday, my father disappeared.
There was no warning, no explanation. One morning he was there, helping me practice with my training sword in the courtyard; by evening, he was gone. The official story, delivered by my uncle Rael with a grave face and formal words, was that my father had embarked on a diplomatic mission to distant territories. A mission of great importance that required immediate departure.
I didn't believe it then. I don't believe it now.
That night, I climbed to the terrace alone, desperate to feel the connection my father had shown me, as if the Dome itself might whisper his whereabouts. I closed my eyes, focused my breathing, and reached out with my senses as he had taught me.
The song was there, but it had changed. No longer a gentle, rhythmic pulse, it now seemed discordant, almost agitated. And beneath the familiar vibration was something new — a sense of urgency, of warning.
That was the night I first dreamed of the Dead Zones.
In my dream, I stood at the edge of a barren wasteland where nothing grew and no animals ventured. The ground was cracked and gray, as if all life and color had been leached from it. And above, the sky seemed... wrong. Thinner somehow, as if the very fabric of reality was wearing away.
In the center of this desolation stood a figure, too distant to identify but somehow familiar. They were looking up at the sky, arms outstretched, as if reaching for something just beyond their grasp. When they turned toward me, their eyes glowed with an unnatural light, and their voice, when it came, seemed to bypass my ears and speak directly into my mind:
"The Dome is breaking, Karel. And when it falls, everything changes."
I awoke with a start, my heart pounding, the words echoing in my mind. Outside my window, the night was calm, the moons had set, and the first light of dawn was just beginning to color the horizon. Everything was normal. Everything was as it should be.
Except for the faint, discordant song that still seemed to vibrate through my bones.
In the eight years since that night, I've had the same dream many times, always with slight variations but always with the same message: The Dome is breaking. Sometimes the figure is clearer — a man with my father's build but obscured features. Sometimes the wasteland is larger, spreading like a disease across familiar landscapes. And sometimes, most disturbingly, I'm not observing from the edge but standing in the center myself, my own eyes glowing with that strange light.
I've never told anyone about these dreams. Not my mother, who retreated into a quiet grief after my father's disappearance. Not my uncle Rael, who became my guardian and mentor, grooming me for my eventual role in the Olkhar leadership. Not even Tharolis, the elder who has been preparing me for my Awakening ceremony.
The Awakening. The ritual that every Olkhar undergoes upon reaching adulthood. The ceremony where our latent gifts — abilities inherited from the other races of Inhevaen — manifest and determine our place in society. Most Olkhar awaken one or two gifts. The most talented, three or four. The royal line, to which I belong, traditionally manifests five — a pentadon, master of all fundamental aspects of power.
My Awakening is scheduled for tomorrow, on my eighteenth birthday. The preparations have been underway for months. The sacred circle has been cleansed and empowered. The witnesses have been selected from among the elders and nobles. The ceremonial garments have been woven with threads of Shyrr, the crystallized fragments of the Dome itself that enhance magical conductivity.
Everything is ready. Everything is as it should be.
Except for the dreams that grow more vivid each night. Except for the Dome's song that grows more urgent, more discordant. Except for the feeling that has been building inside me for years -that something is coming. Something that will change everything.
Tonight, on the eve of my Awakening, I stand once more on the highest terrace of our home. The city of Olkaris spreads below me, its crystal spires catching the moonlight, its streets quiet as most citizens sleep. In the distance, the sacred mountain of Ilhyr rises against the star-filled sky, its peak glowing with the eternal flame that marks the Awakening circle.
I close my eyes and listen beyond the silence, just as my father taught me. The Dome's song comes immediately now, no longer requiring effort to perceive. It pulses through me, around me, its rhythm faster than I've ever felt it, its tone almost frantic.
"What are you trying to tell me?" I whisper to the night. "What is coming?"
There is no answer, of course. Only the song, insistent and alien. And beneath it, a new sensation —a pulling, a calling, as if something beyond the Dome is reaching for me specifically.
Tomorrow I will Awaken. Tomorrow my gifts will manifest, and my path will be set. Tomorrow I will take my place among the Olkhar leadership, as is my birthright and duty.
But tonight, as I listen to the Dome's increasingly desperate song, I can't shake the feeling that what awaits me is something far different from what anyone expects. Not even me.
The Dome is breaking. And when it falls, everything changes. Including me.