The journey to the Whispering Dome began with a map etched into Kaelen's encrypted journal. The lines were scrawled like nervous thoughts, winding into a shape that resembled a spiral caught mid-collapse. Ion held the book tight as Luma and Juno trudged through the dense hedgerows of sound-dampened foliage. Even the wind here seemed reluctant to speak.
"I thought it would be louder," Juno muttered, squinting at the shifting canopy. "For a place called the Whispering Dome."
"That's the point," Ion replied, fingers grazing the vines. "The silence is the whisper. A build-up of potential energy. Like a stretched string right before it snaps."
Luma tilted her head. "So it's storing sound?"
Ion nodded. "More than that. It's amplifying it. Every footstep, every breath… it builds inside. And when it's full enough, it pushes back."
They reached the edge by dusk. A natural dome of blackstone, its surface smooth like polished obsidian. No doors. No carvings. Just an archway humming faintly.
Juno approached first, placing her palm against the stone. "It vibrates," she said, eyes widening. "It's like it knows we're here."
Ion activated a pitch stabilizer from his gauntlet. "Stay close. This is delicate physics."
They entered. Instantly, the outside world vanished. The inside was massive and strangely luminous, like moonlight reflecting off water that wasn't there. Echoes from previous centuries danced around them—footsteps long past, half-words, a cough, laughter. The dome didn't forget. It remembered. Sound, preserved like sediment.
"It's beautiful," Luma whispered, then covered her mouth as her voice stretched unnaturally and bounced across the walls.
A ripple began.
A hum in the air intensified.
Ion spun. "The resonance is misaligned. The dome's at capacity. We triggered feedback."
Panels along the walls began to shift. Pressure built with each vibration. The stone started to crack. A shrieking note, barely audible, pierced the space.
"Outside! Now!" Ion shouted.
But the entrance was gone. The archway had sealed.
Juno dropped her pack. "Luma—if sound is the problem, then silence is the key! We need to cancel the harmonics!"
Luma activated her gauntlet, scrolling to the echo-reverse module they had built during their last campfire session.
"On three!" she shouted.
"One!"
The dome rumbled.
"Two!"
Hair floated in the rising pressure.
"Three!"
She pressed the core.
A bubble of anti-resonance expanded outward. The room hissed—like a dragon exhaling steam. The shrieking dropped. Cracks stopped crawling. The dome breathed.
And then—stillness.
The archway reappeared, now glowing with strange runes.
Ion stepped forward. "It reset. We passed."
Luma collapsed onto the ground, panting, then laughed.
Juno flopped down beside her. "So… Whispering Dome. More like Screaming Dome."
They laughed until their sides hurt.
Ion chuckled too. "Kaelen left this here for us to learn something. Not just about physics—about fear. It teaches you to listen."
Luma, still catching her breath, looked up at the glistening ceiling. "Well then… I'm listening."
Outside, the stars shimmered with the echoes of the past—and the pulse of what came next.