There is a road where even silence has weight, where sound does not merely fade — it is swallowed. It is called the Road of Silent Stone.
It begins in a canyon carved not by rivers but by stillness, where walls of granite rise higher than the eye can follow. The stone here is pale and without blemish, as though no chisel of time dared to touch it. The path between these walls is narrow, laid with slabs of rock smooth as glass, yet marked by no tool, no hand. Each step upon them vanishes without echo. Even the strike of heel against earth dissolves before it can be heard.
The silence is complete. Not the quiet of night, nor the hush of dawn, but a deeper absence — the silence of stone that has waited for ages without moving. To walk here is to feel words dissolve on the tongue before they can form. Breath falls into the throat like swallowed secrets. Hearts beat, but their rhythm cannot be heard. The road does not allow noise; it devours it.
The air is heavy, as if the canyon itself presses inward. Yet in this weight lies a strange peace. The absence of sound sharpens the sight, and every line of the stone becomes clear: fissures fine as threads, grains like frozen waves, crystals hidden within the rock that glimmer faintly as if remembering light from long ago.
Legends say that the stones themselves are alive, not as creatures but as keepers. Each block of silence carries memory — of mountains that crumbled, of rivers that dried, of voices once raised in song but now stilled forever. To press one's hand to the stone is to feel a faint vibration, like the memory of a voice speaking from a thousand years ago. But no word can be understood, only the weight of something once said, now preserved.
The Road of Silent Stone is not empty. Though sound is lost, presence fills the air. Shapes move upon the canyon walls, shadows without source, bending like echoes that have taken form. Some claim these are the remnants of voices devoured — turned into figures that wander, forever unheard. They drift along the cliffs, watching but never speaking, guardians of silence bound to the road.No turn, no branch, only the straight path through stone. Time seems to falter here. A step may feel like a moment, or an eternity. The traveler cannot mark distance by sound, cannot measure progress by echo. Only the unyielding stone gives proof that the path continues.
At the heart of the road lies a chamber: an open circle where the canyon widens, the stone walls soaring upward like pillars of a temple. Here, silence is thickest. Even thought seems to falter, as if the mind itself is muffled. In the center stands a single monolith, taller than towers, carved not by hands but by silence itself. Its surface is flawless, yet within it glimmers faint veins of crystal that pulse like stars hidden in rock.
They call this stone the Listener. It hears all that is swallowed. Every cry, every word, every whisper devoured by the road is gathered here, stored in its heart. Some say that if one places a hand upon it with enough stillness, the stone will yield a fragment of what it remembers — a voice long lost, a truth once spoken, a prayer buried by time. Others say it shows nothing, for the silence is jealous, and will never return what it has taken.
The Road of Silent Stone teaches nothing gently. It strips sound so that sight may deepen, and strips speech so that the soul may listen. Those who endure it emerge changed: some broken by the weight of stillness, others tempered into clarity sharper than the edges of stone. Yet all who walk it carry its silence within them forever, a silence that cannot be shaken, no matter how loud the world beyond may be.
For the road does not end. Even where the canyon breaks, even where the stone yields to plain or mountain, the silence follows. It is said the Road of Silent Stone continues everywhere beneath the surface of the world, an eternal foundation. To walk it is to touch the bones of the earth. To leave it is to carry its silence in one's own bones, a reminder that beneath every sound lies the eternal hush of stone.
The road stretches endlessly forward