Chapter 55: Roar of the Forgotten
> "In the place where echoes never die, power waits for those who remember the roar."
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Scene 1 – Where the Roar Sleeps"
The world opens not with breath, but with stillness.
Matthew sleeps, yet he is pulled — not by thought, not by dream — but by remnant instinct, like the bones of extinct things calling home.
He floats in the Void. Colorless. Weightless. Endless.
Four Dragon Spirits form in stuttering shapes — Flame, Water, Acid and Lava.
Flame (speaks first): "You carry a shard."
Water: "But the roar is not whole."
Acid: "The Cradle holds what even death could not consume."
Lava: "Will you inherit extinction?"
They do not wait for answer. They burn away.
Matthew gasps awake — no scream, no words — just silence and the scent of scorched ash in his mouth.
Dawn isn't rising. It's arriving heavy.
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Scene 2 – "The Dream Shared—A Morning Fire"
Fire crackles. Boots are tied. Weapons are checked.
Matthew recounts the dream to the others — and the silence that follows isn't fear. It's reverence.
Jakku listens, eyes narrow, already mapping the route in his mind.
Jakku (excited) : "Yes! That sounds great. Now it's going to be easier to beat those Root-fleshed bastards."
Maiku gives a low nod.
Maiku : "The Cradle exists. I've felt its edge once."
Gift (raises an eyebrow) : "You sure the dragons didn't just bless your fever?"
Matthew (stares at him) ; "It wasn't a blessing. It was an invitation."
Reen doesn't speak. Her spoon stirs her food long after she's stopped eating.
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Scene 3 – "Reen, Fractured"
She walks.
She hates herself for feeling this way, but it's too loud in her chest to quiet.
They're gods now. Or becoming.
And she's a girl with a blade and bone-deep bruises.
She punches a tree. Once. Twice. Third time splits her knuckle.
Reen (thought): "I should be proud of them."
But she isn't. And that terrifies her.
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Scene 4 – "Three Days to the Edge"
A glowing crater yawns in Planet Julio like the world exhaled and never inhaled again.
It pulses. Hums. The air feels like something is thinking about them.
Reen calculates the distance. Three days' travel. They trust her numbers.
They pitch camp ten meters away — no one says why that number feels safe.
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Scene 5 – "Preparations"
Jakku sharpens his blade — once, precisely, and then just listens.
Maiku practices flame loops around his arms, faster, tighter.
Matthew stills his heartbeat — listens to echoes inside the silence.
Gift vanishes, returns, vanishes again — training blink into calculation.
Reen tightens the wrap on her bloodied hand. Still outside the myth. Still walking with them.
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Scene 6 – "Watchtower Confessions"
Reen sits watch. Gift joins. Silence first.
Gift (quiet): "I used to hate myself for being useless."
Reen: "Then your power woke up. Must be nice."
Gift: "It didn't fix anything. Just made it quieter."
Their eyes lock. For a second, neither speaks.
Something almost happens — tension rises—the air feels warm, thry get close.
Then:
Matthew (from tent): "Reen? You got the rations?"
She looks away. Gift leans back.
Reen becomes as red as a tomato.
Narrator : "Another night, then."
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Scene 7 – "The Land That Remembers"
The terrain shifts underfoot, like bones reconfiguring.
Suddenly — silence breaks into Wraith-Drakes: translucent, hissing dragons stitched from smoke and grief.
Weapons fail. Reen slashes — but the blade passes through.
Matthew steps forward. Eyes closed. He speaks the tongue of dragons. Not perfectly. But honestly.
The Wraiths (freeze, whisper):"You carry their roar. You may pass."
They vanish. Matthew almost collapses. Gift catches him. Reen watches — a sliver of awe. A sliver of longing.
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Scene 8 – "Bones Become Gates"
The canyon opens — a dead, mist-wreathed maw of dragon bone and forgotten sky.
It does not welcome. It simply waits.
Jakku places a hand on the gate.
Jakku : "This place... remembers who you were."
Maiku (softly): "Or forgets you if you lie."
Reen steps close — and stumbles.
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Scene 9 – "The Breaking"
Reen vomits. Her skin feels like it's peeling from her spirit.
Gift reaches for her.
She slaps his hand. Hard.
Reen (shouting): "I DON'T BELONG HERE!"
Silence.
Matthew steps forward. Not gently.
Matthew: "You don't. Not yet. But that's what we're all here for."
His eyes meet hers. No pity. Just truth.
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Scene 10 – "The Walk Forward"
They enter.
Dragon whispers swirl like dust.
Matthew's eyes glow faint orange.
Each step feels like wading through eulogies.
Reen walks last. Her blade shakes. But she walks.
Because walking matters.
Scene 11 : "The Root Waits"
Outside, the Root Avatar with an Army of Root-fleshed ones and those two Root Beasts wait outside.
Patiently.
Anticipating.
Ready to attack and devour.
Root Avatar (cold) : "You might have lived the Duel. But I'll make sure you die this time."
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Scene 12 – "Watcher of the Roar"
In the deepest dark, a massive shape stirs.
Bone-crusted scales. Wings made of memory.
A dragon — not dead. Not alive.
It does not roar.
It remembers.
Dragon: "He comes…"
Final Line
> "Ghosts move about... waiting for vessel. To take upon their legacy.
They don't want their roar. Forgotten."
—
To Be Continued....
Narrator :
> "In the place where echoes never die, power waits for those who remember the roar."
— Old Proverb of the Cradle
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The chapter begins not with thunder or blood, but silence — a silence so heavy, so ancient, it feels like the pause before a forgotten god speaks.
Roar of the Forgotten is not a chapter about war. Not yet. It's about what comes before the war: the doubt, the distance, the dream that chooses you before you choose it back.
Matthew is the center, the axis, the boy who heard the dragons speak — not with words, but with memory. His dream is less prophecy and more reclamation, a message burned into his bones by forces older than sky. The Dragon Spirits ask a question with no answer — because the only way to reply is to become.
Around him, the others stir. Jakku sharpens steel not for war, but for meaning. Maiku tightens flame like it's a language he's still learning. Gift becomes ghost and weapon both — blinking not to vanish, but to think. Reen… she bleeds. Not from battle, but from belief.
Reen is the raw nerve of this chapter. Fractured. Bitter. Honest. While the others ascend, she walks — bruised, furious, and real. Her presence is the rejection of legend — and yet, that is what makes her vital to it.
The Wraith-Drakes test them, not with fire, but with memory. The canyon doesn't ask "Are you ready?" It asks, "Are you true?" And for a moment, Reen isn't. And she breaks.
But what matters most in this chapter is not the power or prophecy. It is the walk forward. The trembling step. The cracked voice. The refusal to be left behind.
Outside, death waits — Root-fleshed beasts, avatars of decay. Inside, a dragon stirs, not with hunger, but with remembrance. The Cradle is not a place of battle. It is a graveyard of roars waiting for resurrection.
And so the final line lands like a breath held too long:
> "Ghosts move about... waiting for vessel. To take upon their legacy.
They don't want their roar. Forgotten."
This chapter isn't loud. But it echoes.
Because even forgotten things remember how to roar.