"Write the symbols, unravel the maddening whispers, break the future, and become one—"
That was the incomplete phrase that stayed in Elliot's mind that morning. He could not quite remember why, but his dream had been strange. Instead of just flying around or finally getting a girlfriend, it had been a weird conversation with himself...? As each second passed, it became harder to remember. Was it a conversation? Who was he talking to? Why was he so obsessed with the details of a dream when he had more important things to worry about?
A third of humanity had vanished. Strangely, it wasn't because of wars or aliens, like Cass believed, but something far stranger. Whispers. Yes, thousands of humans in a certain time of year began hearing whispers in an unknown language with a terrifying voice, and after a few days, they simply disappeared.
Surprisingly, Elliot didn't care that much. Neither did humanity, for that matter. Of course, at first, everyone panicked and tried to find answers to these mysterious disappearances.
But after six years, everyone just gave up. At least that was the impression Elliot had when he himself became one of the "Tormented." The voices had started to disturb his mind a few days ago. The government had just done some tests and ensured his family got a discount for a burial, no coffin, of course.
Shaking off the uncomfortable memory, the boy brushed his teeth. His reflection in the mirror stared back at him. A boy with tanned skin, deep brown eyes with dark circles, and black wavy hair, some rebellious strands hanging over his eyes.
"You should take better care of your appearance, my friend. I know not having a girlfriend is kinda discouraging, but that's no reason to look like a zombie," his reflection didn't reply as usual. Only his mind seemed to want to talk, with its constant whispers. Normal people would already be on the brink of madness if they weren't used to their consciousness talking nonstop.
"I'm rambling again," Elliot finished brushing his teeth and explored his small government-issued apartment. Since no one knew if these whispers could spread, it wasn't recommended for the Tormented to be around others. Elliot didn't mind. In fact, it was a relief. He wouldn't have to hear his parents arguing all night.
"Being a walking corpse has its advantages," he sat down on the luxurious red sofa in his living room. The room was a bit empty due to the sudden move, but soon enough, he wouldn't be there to notice.
A noise coming from his pocket interrupted his planned nap. Elliot grabbed his cell phone.
"Hello?"
"We're at the door, open up, man!"
"Why the hell didn't you ring the bell?" Immediately after Elliot's question, the doorbell rang impatiently, more times than it should've been used.
"Cass, I'm gonna punch you in the face!" Elliot quickly opened the door, and there stood a guy about 1.90 meters tall with short light brown hair, green eyes, wearing jeans and a blue shirt.
"Noah?"
"Hey, Elliot," a short redhead boy stepped out from behind Noah. His messy red hair looked like a rat's nest, with a single white strand swaying with his fidgeting. He stared at Elliot with one brown and one green eye; the heterochromia didn't exactly help hide that he was a lunatic. The short guy immediately hugged him.
"Helloooo, Elliot, did you miss me?"
"Oh, yes, as much as I would miss a knife in my throat," the sarcasm didn't seem to bother Cassius.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" Cass walked to the fridge without ceremony. Noah sighed and looked at Elliot seriously.
"So, El, you said you had something to tell us?" The zombie-like boy quickly grabbed a notebook from under the sofa.
"Yeah, but before anything, let me state the obvious. This is our last day here, on Earth, or alive, whatever is going to happen to us," Noah's gaze darkened, but Cass didn't care. He had found lemon sorbet and was eating it as he went back to the sofa where they all sat.
"I understand, well, the government already told us that," Cassius tapped his head with the spoon he was using to eat his sorbet. Elliot shrugged.
"You never know. I researched everything on the internet about the 'Tormented,' and none of them lasted more than seven days after they started hearing the voices. But there are other things I've been thinking about."
"And what would those things be?"
"Nothing much, Noah. Just that we have ten minutes to get ready, because it's in that time we're going to disappear. See, all the 'Tormented' disappeared at times like 7 AM, 2 PM, or 9 PM. The important thing is that the voices started at those times too, and I remember starting to hear them in the morning."
"I see. I also started hearing them in the morning. That's pretty weird. I didn't think it was that punctual."
"It's much more than punctuality, Noah. People don't just disappear. The clothes they wear and things they were holding also disappear with them. If the goal of this thing whispering in our minds was just to kill us, we could've just died of a heart attack, don't you think?" Noah's eyes slowly widened.
"Elliot, don't tell me you think…"
"What!? You guys are talking too fast!" Cass suddenly dropped the sorbet, realizing that the conversation was getting darker by the second.
"We're not going to die. It's more likely we'll be transported. That's why I asked you guys to prepare backpacks with all the things that would be vital for survival," Noah had left his backpack on the floor next to the sofa, but as he started to understand what Elliot meant, he grabbed it.
"Oh, about that, I forgot mine," Elliot didn't react to Cass's comment, just sighed and put his hand on his face.
"I was expecting that, so I packed mine with things for us to survive. You guys have your phones in your pockets, right?" Elliot strapped his travel backpack on while looking at his two friends. Both nodded.
"Great, come with me," soon the three of them went to a dark room with some candles on the floor and various inscriptions drawn in white chalk, reminiscent of Norse runes and magical circles.
"Elliot? What exactly is this? You're not going to sacrifice us, are you?" Elliot looked at Noah seriously for a second and then started laughing.
"Of course not. I've been researching nonstop about this voice… about the people who heard it. And I found that, for some reason, some humans started drawing this on the floor before they disappeared."
"And what exactly is this? It's very different from anything I've ever seen."
"If we're lucky, it will take us back to ca-"
They all stopped talking and sat on the floor, screaming in pain. The whispers were no longer whispers, but maddening screams and terrifying noises. The other apartments seemed to be feeling something similar, as it was possible to hear screams from all directions.
"Hold hands, maybe that will transport us to the same place!" Both Noah and Cassius quickly grabbed each other's hands. The trio soon collapsed to the floor from the pain. Not even a police siren in their ear could hurt as much as the screams in an unknown language.
At some point during all the confusion, everything went dark.
Soon, a garden appeared in the middle of the darkness. A small, simple red house emitted a smell of fresh fruit, and laughter echoed from inside the building. Elliot tried to approach, but a shadow interrupted him.
"Sorry, Elliot, you can't enter yet, at least not for now."
"What—"
"Elliot! Elliot!" The young boy with dark circles was shaken violently. He blinked with difficulty until he remembered everything that had happened.
"Right, I started hearing whispers, got ready to be transported to some unknown place, and then I started hearing screams with my friends. Was there a house after that? I can't remember."
"Stop mumbling and wake uuuup!" Cassius spared no effort to make sure his friend was sane and alive, not necessarily in that order.
Forcing his eyes to open, Elliot saw a scruffy redhead and a tall figure looking at him with concern.
"Noah, Cassius, where are we?"
"We should be asking you that. Weren't you the most obsessed with the voices? Now that they stopped, what are we going to do?" Noah asked.
"The voices stopped?" In fact, Elliot couldn't hear anything in his mind except his own voice. So that's it? They were transported to some unknown place and the voices were satisfied? That didn't convince the boy.
"What place is this?" Elliot asked as he looked around. They were in what seemed like an old wooden basement. It was cramped, clearly not meant to accommodate three people. A dead plant was right next to where he was lying. It was unlike any plant he had ever seen. It had red leaves and its stem was deformed in positions that defied logic, positions that looked very much like the symbols he had written on the floor of his room. Now that it had died, the plant slowly seemed to fall to the ground towards its inevitable fate.
"Bizarre."
"Bizarre is when I woke up holding Noah's hand, and even more bizarre was when we woke up and couldn't find you anywhere, until we found this weird basement." Elliot stared at Cassius for a moment.
"We didn't wake up in the same place?"
"Did you hit your head or what? Noah and I woke up higher up in this place. We looked for you everywhere until we found a scary staircase, and you were lying on the floor." Elliot digested his friend's words for a moment, but soon turned back to his main goal: "We need to survive in this strange environment."
"Okay, whatever. Noah, open your backpack and let's make a plan." The two boys looked at Elliot with complicated expressions. Where was Noah's bag? Actually, Elliot didn't even feel the weight of his own backpack, and when he looked back, he realized it wasn't there either.
"Did we get robbed?"
"I don't think that's it. My phone didn't disappear, nor did my—" Noah paused.
"My book," Cass didn't lose his phone or his ocarina either. Elliot looked down thoughtfully after Noah's explanation. Another thing they hadn't lost were their clothes. "Wait a minute, let me see what I didn't lose." Looking around and checking his pockets, Elliot realized that only his red pocket knife and his phone hadn't disappeared.
"Interesting. The only things that stayed with us were our clothes, phones, and one item each. Don't you find that strange?"
"Yeah, but so what?" Cass seemed bored with the conversation, so after poking Elliot, he moved toward a dark opening, probably the exit.
"Only important things to each of us stayed with us."
"Explain."
Noah sighed.
"We're all wearing our favorite clothes, we use our phones all the time, and these items must be our favorites too. I know mine is." Cass stopped abruptly and, along with Noah, stared at Elliot.
"That's... true. How strange."
With fear and a touch of dread, the three friends left the bizarre basement, not noticing that the strange plant, which seemed dead, had spread its branches across the floor of the room, forming the same strange symbols that Elliot had written on the floor of his old room.