The book fell.
It hit the floor with a soft, final thud. The sound was swallowed by a silence so complete it felt like the world had been wrapped in cotton. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. My heart was a trapped thing fluttering against my ribs.
The solid shadow that had delivered it was already receding, its form melting from substance into mere darkness before vanishing entirely. It left behind only the chilling absence of its presence and the book, a stark black rectangle on the wooden floor.
Terror held me frozen. The hollow ache in my chest was a yawning chasm. Then, a warmth bloomed against my back.
It was her.
The shadow. The one who had held my hand in the hospital, who had cradled my hollow spaces. She wrapped around me from behind, not a smothering weight, but a shield. A wave of memories washed over me, her cold, familiar grip, the path she had shown me in the dark. It felt like coming home.
I smiled. It was a small, broken thing, but it was real. And I felt her warmth shift in response, a silent, happy echo.
Then, a warm breath brushed my ear, carrying a whisper that was less a sound and more a thought planted directly in my mind.
"Do you know me now?"
Her emotions bled into me. A heartbreaking mix of sorrow and a joy so sharp it was like a shard of glass. I didn't know her yet, but I knew her soul. I wanted to scream, Yes! I know you! You are a part of me!
But my jaw was locked, my body still paralyzed. All I could manage was a choked mumble, my voice thick with a feeling I didn't understand.
"You are… mine."
The moonlight cut through the window, and for a fleeting second, it caught on a mark on her shadowy form. A twisted, silver symbol, exactly like the one that had been on my mother's wrist. Then it was gone.
I slid out of bed, my feet cold on the floorwood. The book was simple, bound in black leather that felt strangely alive. It was worn at the edges, as if it had been rescued from a fire, yet it felt new, pulsing with a latent energy. The cover was embossed with a beautiful, intricate design that wasn't just a pattern. It was a landscape the same impossible one from my dream. I could make out the suggestion of endless bookshelves, a star-dusted sky, and a ocean, all woven together.
When I brushed the surface, dark ink rose like smoke, twisting until it formed words I could finally read:
The Lexicon of Absence.
My breath caught. This was it. An answer. A weapon. A curse. I didn't know, but the hollow in my chest gave a single, painful throb of recognition.
Back in bed with the moon as my lamp, I opened it. My hope curdled into confusion. The pages were a fill with jagged lines, spirals that looked like staring eyes, and geometric patterns that made my head ache. It was a language of madness. A brick wall of secrets.
Frustration boiled over. I threw the book onto my mattress. It landed with a soft thud, and a single, brittle page, a loose sheet of old, yellowed paper slipped out and fluttered to the floor.
I snatched it up. This, I could read. It was in my language, written in a frantic, spidery hand, the ink faded to brown.
Entry: Exiomic Resonance
The persistent echo of that which has been wholly erased. Not a memory, but the ghost of a presence; the shape left in the water after the stone has vanished. The Resonance carries the emotional weight of the lost thing the love, the terror, the longing without its substance. It is a soul-hunger.
I swallowed hard. A soul-hunger. That was it. I wasn't missing a memory. I was living the echo of my own erased life.
I turned the page. The next lines were darker, smeared like written with something wet.
I turned the page. The text here was different, jagged and scrawled as if written with something dark and wet.
" They think the erasure is clean. A single cut. It is not. It is a shattering. The soul breaks like glass. Pieces fly, lost in the blur. Some pieces remember. Some pieces wait. I am a piece that remembers. I am waiting for you. "
- L
Lyria.
Her name was a key turning in a lock deep inside me. The shadow, the voice it was a piece of her. A piece of me. The book was a lock, but this page was a key. I folded it and slipped it into my pocket. The hollow feeling now had pointed at her.
---
I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, sunlight was painting my room and my mother's voice floated up from downstairs.The world was completely normal. The smell of toast, the chatter of the radio.
I walked downstairs, the Lexicon hidden under my mattress feeling like a radioactive core in the house.
My mother stood at the stove, flipping a paratha. And she was humming.
It was the siren's melody. The beautiful, haunting song from my dream.
My blood ran cold.
"You're humming a nice tune," I said, my voice carefully casual.
She stopped instantly. A faint line appeared between her brows. "Was I? It's nothing. Just a stray thought." She forced a smile, but her eyes were distant, confused. She had no idea. The erasure wasn't perfect.
I ate my breakfast, the food like ash. The Lexicon had given the void a name. I was an Exiomic Resonance. A ghost in my own life.
I needed to think somewhere they wouldn't find me. I grabbed my school bag, slipped the heavy Lexicon inside, and told her I was going to study at the library.
The public library was a sanctuary of quiet ordinariness.I found a corner desk between shelves about geology and forgotten gods and history. I laid the Lexicon on the desk. I traced the strange symbols, feeling nothing but the cold, slick page, hoping for a spark of understanding. None came.
A shadow fell over the book.
I looked up. But it wasn't a person. Outside the large window, the hawk stood on the stone ledge, its golden eyes fixed on me. It was so close I could see the delicate patterns of rust and dried blood on its feathers. It wasn't threatening. It was waiting.
Tap.
Its beak struck the glass.
The symbol my finger was resting on a complex spiral was a perfect match for the pattern in the hawk's iris. And as I made the connection, the ink on the page seemed to writhe. It felt like the book was reading my mind, translating itself.
Anchors.
"Objects, beings, or memories with a strong tie to a pre-erasure state. They can provide stability to a Resonance on a Shatterline... An Anchor can be a place, a sound, a person... or a creature."
My heart hammered. The hawk was my Anchor. A piece of my old life, left to guide me.
I looked back at the window. The hawk gave a soft, chittering sound, then took flight. I watched it soar across the street and land on the low, moss-covered wall that bordered the old cemetery. It stood there, a silent sentinel.
I packed the book away and followed.
The hawk watched me approach, then hopped down from the wall and disappeared into a thick curtain of ivy covering its base. My fingers pushed the vines aside. There, tucked into a crevice in the cold stone, was a small, rusted tin box.
Inside, nestled on a bed of faded velvet, was a child's hairpin. It was tarnished silver, shaped like a little bird in flight. It was simple, cheap, and it made my throat tighten with a grief I couldn't place.
Beneath it was a folded piece of paper. A pencil sketch, smudged with age. It was the girl from the file, Lyria. But this time, her face wasn't erased. She was laughing, her eyes bright. And she was holding hands with a boy.
It was my face. Younger. Softer. But undeniably me.
The world tilted. The hollow space in my chest screamed. This wasn't just about a missing girl. It was about my own missing life. We were connected. We were together.
---
I ran home, the hairpin and sketch burning a hole in my pocket. The house was silent. Too silent.
My mother was gone.
The kitchen was spotless, empty. The only thing out of place was on the dining table.
A single, pristine white business card.
I approached slowly. It was thick, expensive cardstock. Embossed with the familiar, twisted symbol of the Weavers. And a name, etched in stark black ink.
Dr. Alistair Kael.
The man from the hospital. The one who wasn't there.
It was an invitation. A threat. A confirmation. They knew about the book, about the hawk, about what I was learning. The game was over. The hunt had begun.
From the dark hallway, a soft sound. A whisper.
"The words are not for reading."
It was a different voice. Not Lyria's. It was the another shadow from my room.
The yellowed page from the Lexicon fell from my pocket. As it fluttered to the floor, the edges blackened and curled, burning without flame until a single word was left glowing in the center of the ash.
ELARA
"They are for remembering," her whisper coiled through the silent house. "The factory is the keyhole. You are the key."
I stood there, frozen, the business card in one hand, the memory of Lyria's smile seared into my mind. The hollow ache was no longer just an empty space. It was a drum, beating a single, relentless command.
Find me.
Lyria's voice echoed, a desperate pull from the past. But beneath it, a new frequency hummed by Elara. She knew something, wanted to guide me, but she was different. A observer in the shadows, not a participant in the memory. The fullness I'd felt from finding Lyria's name bled away, leaving me empty and uncertain again.
Then, a new sound from the front door shattered the silence. A man's voice, smooth as oil, laced with concern.
"Are you lost, kid?"