I haven't spoken in six years. Not since my brother's voice turned inside out.
He was reading a bedtime story. Something simple—The Wind in the Willows, I think. Then the words stopped meaning what they meant. They bent. They bled. His mouth opened too wide, and I could see the sound curling out of him, oily and bright. He said my name, but it echoed behind my ribs instead of in the air.
By morning, he was gone. Not vanished. Just... misplaced. Like the rest of the world.
Now I don't speak. Not because I'm afraid of what I'll say—because I'm afraid of what will answer.
The world is never quiet. Not anymore. Not since Eichaudh's eye peeled the sky like old paint.
I hear whispers in the wind, but they don't travel with it. They move against it, curling upstream like smoke in reverse. When I close my eyes, I can tell what's watching. Some things stare with intent. Others with hunger. The worst ones stare like they're trying to remember you.
I walk with headphones now. Broken. No power. Just the shape of them, the memory of silence. It helps a little. It tells the world I'm listening on my own terms.
Sometimes I record.
Not to capture anything. That's impossible. Sound doesn't behave anymore. Sometimes a scream will stretch into hours. Sometimes a song plays backward and tells you things you weren't supposed to know. Once, I recorded the ticking of a broken wristwatch. When I played it back, it whispered coordinates. I followed them. Found a grove of trees growing upside-down, roots flowering into bone.
There was a name carved in the dirt.
My name, El.
I left. I didn't cover it.
Some things want you to come back.
I sleep in old cars. They remember motion, even when the wheels don't turn. Once, while camping in the rusted husk of a bus, I heard a voice speak clearly through the radio static. It said, "She listens, and the sea draws nearer."
It said it three times. Then the engine coughed water, and I ran.
Since then, I've been hearing the tide more often. Inland. In my dreams. In my veins, maybe. Some days I think I'm turning into a shell. Empty. Resonant. Ready to be filled with Him.
But not yet.
I keep walking. I keep recording. I whisper the names of those I remember. I never speak them aloud. Just let them linger on my breath.
I think the world wants me to forget them.
But I remember.
I remember everything.