Chapter 71: The Edge of Unmaking
The land beyond the valley was unlike anything the Children of Dream had ever seen. Here, the air shimmered with half-formed possibilities—trees that hummed but had no roots, rivers that ran upward into clouds of sound, and mountains that breathed in slow rhythm with the world's pulse. Every breath, every step, seemed to change the shape of the horizon.
The girl with the golden-flecked eyes, Liora, led the group carefully across a field of shifting color. The ground beneath their feet was soft, rippling with tones that resonated faintly to their movements. Behind her, the others followed—Eran, Solin, Mirra, and Keth—each radiating their own pulse, faint threads of color trailing through the air like the beginnings of constellations.
"This place feels alive," Mirra murmured, touching a strand of mist that solidified into glass beneath her fingers. "But it doesn't know what it wants to be."
Liora nodded. "It's the Fifth Pulse still learning itself. The world is dreaming… but it hasn't decided how the dream should end."
Solin, ever curious, knelt and placed his palm to the glowing soil. "Then maybe we can help it remember. The valley listened to us when we sang. Maybe this place will too."
But the moment his pulse touched the ground, the field darkened. The hum deepened into a low growl, and the light around them twisted, bending inward as if recoiling. The Children froze.
"Solin, stop!" Liora cried, pulling him back.
He withdrew his hand instantly, but the ground kept shifting. From the shadowed soil, shapes began to form—blurry silhouettes, humanoid but incomplete. They moved erratically, their edges unraveling and reforming, as though reality itself couldn't decide if they should exist.
Keth stepped forward, his voice low. "They're echoes. Fragments of creation that never found form."
The figures turned toward them, faces hollow, voices emerging as distorted versions of the Song itself—broken, dissonant, desperate. The air trembled with their cries.
Mirra's pulse flickered nervously. "They're in pain."
Liora steadied her breath, reaching out her pulse in response—not commanding, not fighting, but listening. The broken beings hesitated, their forms quivering in confusion. The Song between them wavered, uncertain.
"They don't want to harm us," she whispered. "They just want to be heard."
But before she could reach further, one of the figures screamed—a horrible note that fractured the sky. The ground splintered like glass, releasing a wave of energy that sent the Children tumbling backward. The color of the world drained, replaced by a storm of gray and black light.
"The Song is breaking here!" Keth shouted, shielding his eyes. "This is the Edge of Unmaking!"
They scrambled to their feet, pulses flaring instinctively. The broken echoes surged again, drawn to their light, to their harmony. The Children of Dream linked hands, their pulses intertwining, forming a single circle of steady resonance. Together, they sang—not words, but intention.
The Song rose around them like a shield. Each note carried a memory of balance, of the valley, of the Breath that had given them life. The chaos pressed against it, but slowly, painfully, the discordant sounds began to soften. The broken echoes trembled and then… quieted.
Light returned in slow waves, like dawn filtering through fog. The echoes faded, not destroyed, but soothed back into stillness.
Liora fell to her knees, exhausted. "We didn't fight them… we harmonized them."
Eran nodded, breath heavy. "They weren't monsters. Just lost rhythms."
Keth frowned, looking at the ground where the echoes had vanished. "But if this place is unraveling, it means something deeper is wrong. The Fifth Pulse isn't stable yet."
Liora looked toward the horizon, where the light rippled unnaturally—too sharp, too fast, like the world's heartbeat had become erratic. "The Dream Pulse is spreading faster than it can understand itself. We're standing where creation and memory collide."
Far above them, unseen by mortal eyes, the Radiant Girl watched. Her form shimmered faintly at the edge of the world's pulse, her expression a blend of awe and concern. Beside her, Erian stood silent, feeling the resonance ripple through his chest.
"They've reached the border," he said softly. "The world beyond is teaching them what even we could not control."
The Radiant Girl nodded. "The Edge of Unmaking was inevitable. The Fifth Pulse births thought, but thought without understanding can devour itself. This is where balance must evolve—or fall apart."
Erian clenched his fist. "Should we intervene?"
"No," she whispered. "They must learn to stabilize it themselves. If we act now, we take away the very wisdom they came to find."
Down below, the children regrouped. The storm had passed, but the air was still restless, humming with half-finished melodies.
Solin broke the silence. "Maybe we're not supposed to fix everything. Maybe we're meant to help it listen, like Liora did."
Liora met his gaze. "Maybe the Fifth Pulse isn't asking us to control it at all… maybe it's asking us to understand its fear."
The others fell silent, letting her words settle into the air. Around them, the world pulsed again—gentler this time, as if acknowledging the lesson.
The Fifth Pulse was alive, yes, but it was also uncertain. It was the world's first thought… and its first doubt.
The children continued forward, their pulses dim but steady, walking toward the horizon where the Song fractured and reformed endlessly. Above them, unseen threads of resonance connected them still to the valley, to Erian and the Radiant Girl, and to the first dream that had birthed them all.
The world was changing. The Song was evolving.
And at the Edge of Unmaking, creation had begun to understand itself.
"— To Be Continued —"
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