Chapter One : The First Whisper
"What was stolen from you… shall return, but with a new face."— A voice without a mouth
The morning felt strange in a way that couldn't be touched.The air refused to move, the leaves made no sound, and the birds had fallen into an unnatural silence. It was as if the world had abruptly chosen to fast from movement.
Lucien sat by the riverbank, where the water flowed as if too shy to make a sound. He had come to this place since childhood, but never had he felt silence this thick. It was not mere quiet—no—it was presence. As if the silence itself was a creature, crouched low, hiding behind every detail of the landscape, watching.
He wasn't thinking of anything in particular, or perhaps he was thinking of too many things at once, all piling over one another like stones at the bottom of a stagnant stream.Everything around him seemed... incomplete. As if someone had muted the soundtrack of the world.
For the past three days, he had been hearing a voice. Not the kind that comes from outside, nor the internal voice of thought. No, this was a third voice. One without direction, without tone, without human warmth. Whispers that weren't spoken, but sewn into his nerves like a fine thread of frost, slipping in uninvited and leaving a trace no eye could see.
At first, he thought it was leftover dream matter. Then he blamed exhaustion. But the whispers persisted—and changed.Last night, they were so clear he nearly responded out loud, before remembering he was alone in his room. No one speaks from the dark… except the dark itself.
When he closed his eyes, he saw himself standing before a mirror—not one that reflected his face, but his back. And that back was smiling.A coldness crept from his toes to the top of his skull.He didn't know whether it was a dream or a vision, but he woke gasping, staring at the ceiling, convinced something was breathing beside him despite the emptiness of the room.
A voice within him muttered sarcastically that he'd probably lost his mind. He answered it aloud:"The mind is overrated anyway."
He took a deep breath. That was his way of reminding himself he was still alive. But even that... he wasn't sure of anymore. After all, the living don't hear voices from nowhere or see their reflections grinning from the wrong side of the glass.
He was about to stand when he felt a strange weight in his pocket.He hadn't placed anything there when he left the house.He reached in and pulled out a small, black stone, triangular in shape, smooth and warm… pulsing, almost like a heart.
As soon as his fingers closed around it, the world changed.The wind froze.The river stopped.Light itself seemed to fold.It was as if someone had paused the universe.
Before him, a translucent screen appeared in the air, like a page torn from a dream.
❖ System: [Protocol of the Nameless Void]Condition: Desire for truthOffer: Forbidden abilities, absolute knowledge, liberation from human limitationPrice: Your humanity
Do you wish to proceed?[Yes] [No]
He didn't feel fear. That, above all, disturbed him.He reread the final line.Then smiled faintly, like a man signing a contract he couldn't read, simply because he had grown tired of silence.
He whispered to himself, "I don't really have much to lose."And he touched Yes.
The moment he did, his knees gave way beneath him.Something burst inside, not pain—but something deeper.It was as if his soul had been torn apart, rearranged by invisible hands.
Images flooded his mind:
A child crying within a mirror that showed only darkness.A sky cracking open like an eggshell, revealing a faceless grin.His own hands moving against his will, writing in a language he had never learned, yet understood.A creature sitting above nothing, smiling with too many teeth.
Then silence returned.
Lucien opened his eyes. He was still by the riverbank.Everything appeared unchanged. But something fundamental had shifted.
He felt nothing.No fear.No anxiety.No surprise.
It was as if a thin layer—his humanity—had been peeled off.
The stone slid back into his pocket without his touch.A new window appeared before him, smaller this time:
❖ System activatedStage One: CompleteLost Emotion: FearGained Ability: Second Sight"You will see what should not be seen."
He looked up and saw a man standing a short distance away.He hadn't heard his approach. Hadn't felt him arrive.The man's face was perfectly familiar. Too familiar.So familiar that it became featureless—crafted to be normal beyond belief.
The man spoke:"Hello, Lucien."
Lucien replied quietly, "Do I know you?"
The man nodded once. "You always ask that, at this point."
Then he smiled.The smile stretched too far, trembling at the edges like an overextended mask.Muscles in his face twitched, but the smile held.
Lucien muttered under his breath, dryly,"Great. A side character from my nightmares. Just what I needed."
The man said nothing more.He simply stared, then vanished—dissolving into the air like smoke.
In his place, a small piece of paper fluttered to the ground.
Lucien bent to pick it up.The writing on it was jagged, like claw marks across the page:
"The more you look, the more they see you. Preserve your ignorance."
A subtle chill crept over him again.There was something breathing within the fog.He couldn't see it, but he could feel it—watching from a place that had no name.
If he still had the capacity to feel fear, he might have run.But he didn't.
He folded the note, slipped it into his coat, and whispered to himself with a crooked smile,
"Well then. Looks like today won't be so boring after all."