The tunnels were too quiet.
Ash muffled our steps. Broken concrete sealed half the passage. Only the boy's faint glow gave us light. Karis cradled him like a mother desperate to keep her child from fading.
The other two survivors had stayed behind in the city. Their minds had cracked in the mirrored halls. I told myself they were dead already, but the truth was crueler: they'd chosen to sit and wait. For the Glasswalkers. For silence.
Now it was just us three.
Or so I thought.
---
The First Whisper
It came like a draft, soft and low, brushing against my ear.
"—help me—"
I spun. Karis was silent, humming faintly to the boy. No one else was there.
The whisper came again, closer. "—behind you—"
My skin crawled. I tightened my grip on the pipe, swinging it into the dark. Nothing.
Karis frowned. "What are you doing?"
"You didn't hear that?"
"Hear what?"
Her voice cracked. Fear was already in her eyes.
---
The Murmurs Spread
The deeper we went into the tunnel, the louder they became.
They didn't speak all at once. Just fragments. A word here, a name there. Sometimes my own voice echoed back to me — but wrong.
"—you should leave them—"
"—he's slowing you down—"
"—look at her, she's hiding something—"
The boy stirred, eyes half open, glowing veins pulsing. "They're talking," he whispered. "They've been talking since we entered."
Karis pressed her palm over his ear, whispering, "Don't listen." But it was already too late.
---
The Sound of Hunger
We passed a collapsed stairwell where bones lay scattered like spilled dice. The skulls were cracked open — not bitten, not smashed. Hollowed, as though words had been scooped out of them.
I covered the boy's eyes, but he peeked through my fingers anyway.
"They eat what we think," he murmured. "They live inside the breath."
That was when the air itself seemed to thicken. Not a wind, not a voice — presence. The whispers filled every corner of the tunnel, circling us, pressing into us.
One whisper spoke my name. My real name, the one I hadn't told Karis or anyone. My legs nearly gave out.
---
The Turning
Karis broke first.
We were making camp, huddled near a cracked pipe dripping water, when she suddenly stood and faced the wall. Her lips moved, answering a voice none of us could hear.
"Who are you talking to?" I asked.
Her eyes didn't blink. "My brother. He's here."
Her brother had been dead for years. I knew this. She knew this. But the way she said it — firm, certain — chilled me.
The boy clutched at my sleeve. "They found her. They're inside her ears now."
I wanted to pull her away. Shake her. But then I heard it too.
"—come with us—"
"—we can take you home—"
And for one terrible moment, I wanted to follow.
---
The Murmurers Revealed
They didn't appear like other creatures. No bodies. No teeth. No claws. Only shadows that shifted at the edges of light, mouths forming in cracks of concrete. Faces half-drawn in peeling paint.
When Karis leaned closer, the shadow-mouth leaned too, whispering promises into her ear. Her eyes glowed faint with the boy's reflected fire.
I grabbed her wrist. "That's not him."
She jerked away, screaming, "Don't touch me!"
The sound was wrong. Her scream split in two — one voice hers, one voice stretched and hollow, echoing into the dark.
That was when I realized:
The Murmurers don't just feed on sound.
They become it.
---
The Fight Against Silence
I shoved my hands against my ears, but the whispers pressed straight through my skull. Thoughts twisted, memories unraveling. I saw my mother's face, but she was whispering words she never said.
The boy clung to me. His glow flickered, then pulsed. "Louder," he gasped. "We need to be louder than them."
I didn't understand until he screamed. Not words — just raw sound. His veins lit fire-bright, the glow flaring through the tunnel. The whispers recoiled, shrieking, fading into the cracks.
Karis collapsed, gasping, eyes wide with horror. Her ears bled.
"They're gone," she whispered. "For now."
But she was shaking. She hadn't come back whole. None of us had.
---
Aftermath
We staggered out of the tunnels hours later, into a night sky washed with ash and faint stars. The air felt thinner here, easier to breathe without voices crawling in it.
The boy lay exhausted in Karis's arms, glow dimmed to embers. His scream had saved us, but it had burned something inside him. His skin looked translucent, veins etched like cracks in glass.
Karis stroked his face, tears streaking her ash-stained cheeks. She didn't speak of her brother again. But sometimes I caught her glancing at empty spaces, lips twitching as though answering voices.
The Murmurers had left their mark.
---