The explosion was silent.
There was no concussive boom, no shattering roar. Instead, the air filled with a sound like a thousand crystal chimes struck at once, a harmony so pure and complex it felt like it could break your heart. The glass that erupted from the brick wall wasn't a weapon of jagged edges and violent force. It was a creation.
In the space of a single, frantic heartbeat, a delicate, crystalline lattice grew from the grimy brick, branching out like frost on a winter window. It formed a barrier of impossible geometry, each pane of glass no thicker than a sheet of paper, yet humming with a resonant energy that made the teeth ache. Light from the alien lamppost refracted through it, splintering into a kaleidoscope of colors that had no name in this reality. It was a shield, a cage, and a work of art from a world that had loved beauty more than survival.
The memories flooded Elias's mind, a brutal tax for the miracle he had just performed.
…the crystalline spires of Aeridor, catching the light of the twin suns… the gentle hum of the city's song as the solar winds blew through its architecture… a memory of watching a lover's face reflected in a thousand different hues through a window pane…
He gasped, staggering back. The grief that came with the memories was a physical blow, a phantom weight on his soul for the loss of a home that was never his. His vision swam, the rain-slicked alley blurring with the image of a city made of singing glass. He had to move. Now.
The Librarian had stopped its advance. It stood perfectly still, its head tilted not at Elias, but at the crystalline structure. The black umbrella it held was a void against the sudden, vibrant light. For the first time, Elias sensed an emotion from the creature—a faint, cold flicker of… annoyance. This was an anomaly it hadn't expected. An unscripted variable in its clean, orderly equation of erasure.
That was his chance.
While the enforcer was focused on the fragment, Elias shoved himself away from the wall and ran. He didn't look back. He couldn't afford to. He sprinted down the street, away from the lamppost, away from the Librarian, his worn satchel bouncing against his hip. His lungs burned, and his head felt like it was splitting in two, the song of Aeridor a piercing keen behind his eyes.
He risked a glance over his shoulder as he rounded the corner back onto the main thoroughfare. The Librarian hadn't moved, but its head was now turned in his direction. It hadn't forgotten him. It was merely prioritizing its tasks. Erase the fragment first, then the witness.
He blended into the sparse late-night crowd, pulling up the collar of his jacket, trying to look like just another man hurrying home from a long day. But his heart was a frantic drum against his ribs, and he could feel the Librarian's sterile presence like a cold spot on the back of his neck, a promise of impending erasure. Every shadow seemed to lengthen, to coalesce into a tall, grey-coated form. Every person who glanced his way felt like an agent of that silent, implacable order.
It knows what I am, he thought, the panic a coppery taste in his mouth. It knows I'm the one who remembers.
His apartment was six blocks away. Six blocks of open ground. It felt like a thousand miles. He ducked into a side alley, a shortcut he knew well, the stench of dumpsters and damp cardboard a welcome, grounding reality after the ethereal beauty of the singing glass. He leaned against the wall, chest heaving, and squeezed his eyes shut.
The backlash was getting worse. The memories of Aeridor were sharp, vivid, and they felt like his own. He remembered the taste of sky-fruit, a delicacy that grew only on the highest crystalline peaks. He remembered the complex, seven-note scale that formed the basis of their language. He remembered the terror as the sky cracked and the world began to un-exist, the city's beautiful song turning into a final, discordant shriek.
He slammed his fist against the brick, the sharp pain a welcome anchor. "They're not my memories," he whispered, his voice ragged. "They're not mine."
But the denial was a lie. Once he accessed a forgotten reality, a piece of it became a part of him. He was no longer just Elias Thorne. He was also a citizen of a dead city of glass. He was a scholar from a library burned by a nonexistent sun. He was a collection of ghosts, all crammed into one body, and the seams were starting to tear.
He pushed himself onward, forcing his legs to move. He made it to his building, a rundown pre-war tenement that smelled of dust and boiled cabbage. He fumbled with his keys, his hands shaking, convinced the Librarian would appear at the end of the hall at any second.
He stumbled into his apartment and slammed the door, bolting it three times. For a moment, he just stood there in the darkness, listening to his own ragged breathing. He was safe. He had made it.
His apartment was his sanctuary, a fortress against the bleed. It was sparse, almost monastic. A bed, a desk, a few chairs. The walls were covered not in art, but in complex diagrams and star charts of constellations that had never hung in Earth's sky. In the center of the main room was his only true defense: a large, ugly, iron-bound chest. It wasn't lead-lined, that was just a comforting lie he told himself. It was something far stranger, built from the fragment of a reality where the concept of "causality" was… optional. It didn't block things out; it simply made the space inside it "uninteresting" to the universe. A conceptual blind spot.
He lurched toward it, his goal to get inside, close the lid, and ride out the mental storm.
But as he passed the small table by the door where he dropped his mail, he froze.
Lying on the worn wood surface, where there had been nothing but a few bills an hour ago, was a single, perfect shard of crystalline glass.
It was about the size of his hand, impossibly thin, and it pulsed with a faint, internal light. As he stared, horrified, it began to emit a soft, clear, and achingly familiar note.
It was the first note of the song of Aeridor.
He hadn't just created a distraction back in that alley. He had brought a piece of it home with him. Or worse, it had followed him. The barrier was breached. His sanctuary was compromised.
And from the shard of singing glass, a whisper that was not his own memory echoed in the sudden, terrifying silence of his apartment.
"Who are you that remembers our song?"
End of chapter 2