Delphi, Greece.
The ruins attract tourists. Backpackers. Instagrammers. All looking to touch something ancient, something sacred. But some truths don't want to be touched. They want to be buried.
And some mouths were never meant to speak again.
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Theo Anastas, a Greek-American archaeologist, returned to his father's homeland to study the lesser-known shrines beneath Delphi. While the world marveled at the famous Oracle's temple, Theo was drawn to an older cave beneath it — uncharted, unlit, and sealed since antiquity.
Locals called it To Stoma, "The Mouth."
They said it never gave prophecies. Only commands.
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Theo ignored the warnings, even when the dig team refused to go deeper.
He entered the cave alone, flashlight flickering, air thick as ash.
Inside: carvings of gods with no names. Symbols that shifted when stared at. A pool of water that whispered in ancient Greek.
His recorder picked up something else:
A voice.
His mother's voice.
But she had died in Brooklyn fifteen years ago.
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The cave didn't echo.
It listened.
And when Theo spoke into the dark — "Who are you?" — it replied with his own voice, speaking words he didn't understand.
The next day, Theo didn't remember coming home.
But he had pages of notes.
Drawings.
Prophecies.
All in blood.
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His colleagues thought he'd gone mad. They filmed him reciting verses from forgotten epics. Languages no one had taught him.
He said the cave wasn't a mouth.
It was a throat.
And something ancient was trying to speak through him.
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That night, his hotel room was found torn apart.
No signs of a struggle.
Just the word "ΑΡΧΗ" — Beginning — scrawled across the mirror in teeth.
Not written.
Pressed.
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Locals now report strange dreams.
Visions of a figure with many mouths. Each one speaking truths too loud to hear. Each one calling Theo's name.
They say the cave has reopened.
And it's hungry.
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A new team arrived from Athens last week. They haven't been heard from since.
But villagers swear they've heard whispers on the wind.
And in those whispers: every prophecy the Oracle never dared speak.