The path they chose pulsed with a darker rhythm. Not chaotic, not malicious—just... dissonant. As if the melody there had been fractured and was now trying to knit itself back together, piece by stubborn piece.
The air grew denser the farther they walked, and sound took on shape—threads of music that wrapped around their limbs like ghostly vines.
Rafael tightened his grip on the reed-pipe he had claimed. It still vibrated faintly, matching the strange cadence of the path. Each step felt like wading through a slow, haunting ballad.
He realized he was unconsciously adjusting his breath to the pulse, matching the off-kilter beat like a wounded metronome.
Stanley grunted. "Y'know, for all this music talk, this place doesn't exactly make me want to dance."
Lira didn't respond. She was watching the walls again. They'd begun to shift. Not visually, but sonically—notes bending and twisting into new shapes that only the heart could interpret. Her brows furrowed. "We're being watched. Not by eyes. By memory."
Calyx knelt and placed a palm flat to the ground. Her fingers twitched, reacting to vibrations. "Something's beneath us. Alive. And listening."
Rafael was about to ask what when the floor collapsed beneath them.
They fell—but not fast. The descent slowed by a soundless current of discordant music, lowering them gently into a chamber lit by suspended orbs. They hovered like lanterns, pulsing with muffled rhythms, and whispered as they floated.
One orb drifted toward Rafael.
"Who mourns the unplayed song?" it asked.
He flinched. "What—?"
"You do," it answered for him.
The others had landed nearby, each now surrounded by orbs of their own. Stanley tried swatting his away. Lira stared at hers like it might bite. Calyx just listened, her expression unreadable.
Then the floor beneath them rumbled. A wide spiral staircase unfurled from the center of the room, leading down into a vibrating gloom. Carved into the stairs were words in a language they didn't know—but somehow understood.
To descend is to forget. To forget is to hear.
Rafael hesitated. "We're not really going to walk down into some crypt of memory loss, are we?"
Lira stepped onto the first stair. "Only the useless memories. That's how the Songgrove works. It trims until what's left is you."
Stanley grumbled, but followed. "So... no pressure."
As they descended, the whispers from the orbs faded. In their place rose a soft static, like a radio tuned just off-station. Rafael's head buzzed.
Faces and moments flickered at the edges of his mind—memories of people he hadn't thought about in years. The teacher who once encouraged him. A sibling's laugh. A storm he'd once watched from his childhood porch. All of them dulled, muted.
He tried to hold onto them. But they slipped through.
Midway down, Calyx paused. "These aren't memories. They're expectations. Things we built ourselves around."
Lira nodded grimly. "And now we strip them. Until what remains can sing."
At the base of the stairs waited another chamber, this one circular and bare, except for five chairs. Wooden. Ornate. Waiting. Surrounding the space were tall, arching mirrors, each fogged with breath that wasn't theirs.
Lira paused. "It's a trial."
Calyx nodded. "Sit. Listen. Then speak."
Rafael didn't ask questions this time. He sat.
The moment they all did, the lights dimmed, and a figure formed in the air before them. Not a person, but a shifting construct of light and sound—faceless, humming. A presence, like a conductor waiting for the first note.
"Each of you carries a note of discord," it said. "Together, you must resolve."
Stanley blinked. "I didn't study for this group therapy exercise."
The being continued: "You will speak of your dissonance. If you lie, the note deepens. If you confess, the melody clears. Begin."
No one moved.
Then Lira spoke. Her voice shook, but only once. "I resented my sister. She died thinking I loved her. That's the truth."
The air rippled. The humming brightened.
Stanley huffed. "Fine. I ran away when I was supposed to fight. A town burned because I was scared. I told myself it wasn't my fault. But it was."
Another ripple. A thread of warmth in the static.
Calyx whispered, "I betrayed my master. Not with blade, but with silence. He died, never knowing I doubted him. And I still don't know if I was right."
The construct turned to Rafael.
He hesitated.
"I... I wanted to stay lost. All this time, all this loop, I could've tried to get back home. I didn't want to. Because there, I'm nothing. Here... I might be someone. I might be more than just scared."
The final ripple passed.
And then the construct unraveled into a melody—haunting, aching, beautiful. A lament in four voices, converging into harmony. The room glowed. The chairs folded away.
But the mirrors remained. And now, each showed not reflections—but versions. Choices. Ghosts of paths not taken, each echoing a future they had denied.
One by one, the group turned away.
A new path opened. Not carved in stone or song, but laid in silence. A hallway of stillness, where every step rang clear and unshadowed.
This time, there was no sound at all. Just a gentle, expectant silence.
And they walked into it, uncertain—but together. Their dissonance, for now, resolved.
***