🎵I heard a song…

🎵And the song was god.

——

Elias, a pale-looking boy with unkempt hair, walked through the bustling streets of Glasslight Avenue, his broken glasses barely clinging to the bridge of his nose.

"How gross," he muttered, leaning against a lamppost that glittered faintly with drifting blue fireflies.

A carnival had swallowed the street whole. People dressed like clowns and absolute idiots shoved past one another, hoisting resonance speakers and roaring at the top of their lungs. The noise scraped at Elias's nerves. Worse was the smell. Thick. Human. Suffocating.

His stomach turned.

He clapped a hand over his nose and tried not to breathe too deeply while waiting for the group of psychos to move on.

"Do these bastards even bathe…" he mumbled.

A small voice cut straight through his thoughts.

"Hey, big guy!"

Elias glanced down.

A girl—maybe four years old—stood in front of him, staring up with huge puppy-like eyes and cheeks that practically begged to be squished.

"I need your shoulders to be my cushion so I don't miss the Giggler when he arrives," she declared proudly. "Don't worry, I'm rich, so I can pay you for your services!"

Elias's eyebrow twitched.

First, at the audacity. Second, at the fact that the kid had just announced herself as a walking bag of money to a complete stranger.

Either she was insanely stupid… or someone was watching from the shadows.

The second option felt far more likely.

Elias studied her for a moment, quietly weighing his choices.

Kidnapping her was tempting.

But yeah—probably not worth the risk.

"Where are your parents?" he asked, more out of habit than concern, eyes still tracking the carnival as it slowly crawled past.

"Oh, you don't have to worry about them," the girl said cheerfully. "I ran away from home, so they can't find me. That means you won't get in trouble!"

She pointed proudly at herself, like she'd just announced a world-changing achievement.

Elias stared at her, slack-jawed.

Did she seriously understand how dangerous that sounded? It was practically an invitation to get mugged badly!

Raising an eyebrow, Elias turned and started walking toward his house a few meters down the avenue.

"Little girl," he said flatly, "you need to be spanked."

Her face went red—cute fury, embarrassment, or maybe both. She immediately chased after him, smacking his knees with her tiny fists in a full-blown tantrum.

"Bully! How dare you say that to me!" she yelled. "I'll tell Daddy when I get home! He'll deal with—he will—hiccup—wahh!"

"WAHHH!"

Elias kept walking.

She clung to his shirt, her tears soaking into the fabric until it started to look like an overused tissue. People turned to stare at the ridiculous scene, some amused, some judgmental, but Elias ignored them all as he moved down the sidewalk, brows drawn together in thought.

In two weeks, he would turn sixteen.

That was the age one was supposed to awaken. If you didn't, you were labeled defective.

Yet no matter how hard he tried, no emotion had ever resonated deep enough inside him to produce a string. Nothing. No pull. No response.

It was wrong.

By his age, he should've already awakened and become a Chordbearer.

He'd tried to deny it for as long as he could—but at this point, the signs were impossible to ignore.

At this rate, he wasn't going to become a Chordbearer.

He was destined to remain mundane—another word for weak, pathetic, and cannon fodder in a dogshit world.

His fists clenched without him noticing as he fought to keep the boiling mess inside his chest under control. The blaring music and clashing sounds pouring from the plaza at the center of town didn't help. If anything, they made the dull ache in his head throb harder.

"By the gods," he muttered, teeth grinding, "what will it take to get some quiet? I wish you'd all die."

Quietly, of course. He wasn't suicidal.

"SNIFF… SNIFF…"

Elias stopped and looked down.

The girl was still there, thumb shoved into her mouth, tears clinging stubbornly to her cheeks as she sucked on it like that would fix everything.

He exhaled sharply, patience already burned to ash.

"Don't you have something better to do?" he snapped. "Like fawning over that Giggler bastard every kid your age seems obsessed with?"

She froze.

Slowly, she pulled her thumb from her mouth, her face twisting—lungs filling, eyes watering—gearing up for what promised to be a spectacular meltdown.

Elias raised a hand.

"Okay. Fine. You win," he said flatly. "Do whatever you want."

Defeated, he shoved his hands into his pockets and resumed walking toward his house. This time, the girl followed in silence, sulking a few steps behind him.

Elias quietly resisted the urge to grimace. He had a nagging feeling that he had been conned.

***

They made it the rest of the way without incident.

His home came into view—an ordinary building that leaned neither toward extravagance nor poverty. Just… there. Elias lifted his hand to knock—

"Launder! H-how did you find me?!"

He froze.

"Go away! Shoo!" the girl yelled, spinning around. "Go tell Daddy I'm not coming back until he admits he stole all my Giggler collections!"

Elias turned toward whoever she was shouting at.

He didn't need to see them.

He felt it first.

A ripple of grief rolled through the air, heavy and suffocating.

A Chordbearer.

The kind who didn't need to pinch his fingers to end Elias's life—only decide to, like swatting a fly.

It was a man with half his face hidden behind a black mask. The faint outline of a scar ran beneath it, proof enough of why the mask existed at all. He was dressed entirely in black, not a single inch of skin exposed, one hand gripping a black umbrella above his head.

A gloomy presence clung to him.

It felt like the shadows around him had grown darker just to make room.

Elias wiped his face, staring at his damp fingers in mild shock.

"I'm… crying?"

"Miss Aurelia," the black-clothed man said. His voice sounded strained, twisted, as if something painful was gnawing at his mind. "Go to sleep."

"You and Daddy will pay for this!" the little girl screamed.

Her eyes fluttered, then shut against her will.

Before she could collapse, Elias caught a glimpse of something illusory tearing through the air at impossible speed, lifting her mid-fall.

A phantom.

The Echoform of a massive bird.

That part didn't surprise him. Some Chordbearers—those who specialized in grief—could resurrect Echoforms of creatures they had slain. Hollow copies of the dead. Weaker than the real thing… but still terrifying.

"Boy," the man said, turning to him. "What's your name?"

He walked closer, his steps making no sound as they touched the ground. The ripple around him deepened, thickened, and Elias's chest burned as raw emotion flooded in—grief sharp enough to sting.

"Are you that bored, senior?" Elias said.

Tears streamed freely down his face as he smiled.

"That you'd play around with a little boy like me?"

The man stopped.

For a brief moment, he seemed genuinely caught off guard.

"Tch. Such a glib tongue," he scoffed.

He turned toward the phantom bird. It lowered its neck obediently, allowing him to climb onto its back, Aurelia already secured safely behind him.

"You and your family should leave this city," the man said as the bird began to rise. "Or you will perish in the orchestra of desire."

The Echoform climbed higher.

"Death," the man murmured, inhaling deeply as if savoring a scent. "How delicious."

His voice faded as the bird shot into the sky.

Elias staggered back, slamming into the wall, heart pounding violently in his chest.

"What the hell was that…?"

His breath hitched.

"Wait. He said to leave the city. He said—"

He raised his fists and pounded on the door with desperate force.

"Hey! Open up! Open the damn doors!"

They swung open immediately.

His sister stood there, one side of her face smeared with ice cream, staring at him with mild annoyance.

"Big brother?" she said in surprise. Her head tilted, confusion melting into excitement. "Where is it? Where's the resonance flute you promised to give me when you got home?"

"Not now, Lizzy!" Elias snapped. "Where's Mum? Dad? Are they home right now?!"

"Hmph." Lizzy folded her arms in a pout. "Mum and Dad are in the sitting room with a scientist from the Concordia Labs. They look like they're waiting for you."

"That's good," Elias muttered, dragging in a shaky breath. "That's very good."

He bolted past her, sprinting toward the sitting room.

Lizzy watched him go, tapping her chin with a finger.

"Why is he acting weird?" she mumbled. "Bleh… Big brother is a weirdo. My little brain shouldn't think too hard about such a simple matter."

Elias burst straight into the sitting room, urgency written all over his face.

"We need to leave Avenelle. Right now!" he blurted out. "A Mirrorth is going to open—there's going to be an Echoform invasion! Dad, Mum, we have to leave the city this minute!"

His father froze, the cup of coffee hovering just short of his lips. Slowly, he lowered it without taking a sip, shaking his head in something that felt a lot like disappointment.

Beside him, Elias's mother looked up, her initial confusion hardening into worry.

"Elias, honey," she said carefully, "what on earth happened to your glasses?"

Heat rushed to his face. The memory of being beaten like a dog all because he tried to steal a stupid flute clawed its way back into his mind.

"That doesn't matter," Elias said quickly, dragging in a breath, forcing himself not to ramble. "What matters is this—there was a very powerful Chordbearer. I met him by chance. He told me to leave the city, that Avenelle is going to perish soon. I know it sounds insane, but it's true. You have to believe me. Please—just this once."

He took a step forward.

"We pack our bags, leave the city for a few days. If nothing happens, we come back and treat it like a short vacation. That's all I'm asking."

"Elias, that's enough."

His father's voice cracked like a whip.

Elias flinched.

"You expect me to believe," his father continued, eyes hard, "that a Chordbearer—someone powerful enough to sense an Echoform invasion—just happened to approach you out of everyone in this city, and then, out of pure goodwill, decided to warn you?"

He scoffed.

"What are you supposed to be? The chosen one?"

"But—"

"No more about this, Elias," his father cut in, waving him off with a tired sigh. "This is Mr. Ferborn, a scientist from the Concordia Labs. He's considering taking you on as an apprentice after you pass his evaluation. Your past results at the Elementary Symphony School impressed him greatly."

Elias frowned and turned to the man lounging across from them.

Mr. Ferborn sat comfortably on the opposite cushion, his body draped with multiple pieces of flashy equipment strapped across his coat. His monocle gleamed faintly under the room lights. He was bald—plainly, unmistakably bald—his shiny head reflecting the light, with neatly groomed gray beard lining his jaw.

Elias looked back at his father.

His fists clenched… then unclenched.

His eyes burned red.

"You think I can't awaken."

His mother shook her head quickly, pain flickering across her face.

"Oh, Elias," she said softly, "the probability of a child awakening a resonance string and becoming a Chordbearer is one in a thousand. It's not that you can't awaken. Nature is just… unfair."

"Listen, kid," Mr. Ferborn chimed in, clearing his throat like he'd practiced this speech a hundred times. "Science syndicates like ours can reach power equal to—sometimes even greater than—ordinary Chordbearers, with the right dedication and research."

He tapped one of the devices strapped to his chest.

"With amplifiers, harmonizers, null engines, and more, we weaponize frequencies just like they do. Take our director, Mr. Kieran Solvane, for example. He replaced his string with an artificial prototype."

Ferborn smiled.

"Who needs to be a Chordbearer when you can simply create your own strings anyway!"

"But some kids my age have already become Chordbearers," Elias said, his voice tightening. "I saw it on the news. It shouldn't be impossible. I should be able to do it too. I should—"

"You seem to suffer from a disease," Mr. Ferborn cut in calmly, sitting up straighter, eyes narrowing as he fixed Elias with a cold stare, "one that makes you believe the world owes you something."

The room went still.

"We should address that before you get yourself killed doing something stupid."

Elias froze.

"Those children you saw on the news?" Ferborn continued, his tone unbothered, almost instructional. "They are people you can only look up to. With how weak and pathetic you are right now, they will always stand above you. They'll step on you, treat you like dirt by the roadside—and the gap between you will only widen as time goes on."

Elias's fists clenched… loosened… then clenched again.

His teeth ground together.

"Your generation is being called the Chord Generation," Ferborn went on. "The number of awakenings is five times higher than previous eras. And yet, even with all those extra chances…"

He shrugged.

"You still failed."

Silence swallowed the room.

"You are still pathetic."

Ferborn didn't pause. He didn't care how his words landed. He simply spoke, certain of his own correctness.

"You've heard of them in the news, haven't you?" Mr. Ferborn said casually. "The children blessed by the Song. The apex of your generation."

He rolled a small metallic sphere between his fingers. "Lirae Calden—the Voice of Heaven. Every time she sings, her allies are healed and her enemies reduced to ash.

Cael Avon Rehn, the Resonant Prince. Capable of manipulating multiple harmonic fields at once. A never-before-seen anomaly.

Sera Myllan—the Blade of Justice. Able to reflect incoming attacks and return them with amplified force."

The ball clicked softly as it spun.

"And you?" Ferborn asked, eyes lifting to Elias. "What exactly can you do?"

A short laugh escaped him.

"Ah. I suppose I've said enough." He waved a hand dismissively. "But you understand my point, don't you, little one? You're not coming with me because you want to."

His gaze hardened.

"You're coming because nature has placed you in a position where you cannot refuse."

Ferborn leaned closer.

"Wake up to reality. This is your only choice."

Elias drew in a shaky breath.

His head hung low. His hands trembled at his sides.

"Elias…" his mother whispered, fear threading her voice.

"You'll come around," his father said with a sigh, turning his eyes away.

Mr. Ferborn suddenly stiffened.

"Something's wrong," he said, rising to his feet. His attention snapped to the screen strapped to his wrist. "The dissonance readings in this region are spiking."

The room fell into silence, heavy and suffocating, as if no one wanted to accept what had just been said.

Elias slowly lifted his head, his expression tangled with confusion, fear, and something darker.

His father was the first to break it.

"You don't mean…" His voice was careful as he turned from Elias to the scientist. "You don't mean a Mirrorth is really going to—"

"By the gods, Mr. Verdan!" Mr. Ferborn snapped. "I don't have water in my mouth. The dissonance is rising fast—almost reaching a crescendo. A Mirrorth is about to open in this region!"

Frustration and helplessness bled into his words.

Elias's mother looked up at him, the color draining from her face.

"That should be impossible," she whispered. "A Mirrorth only opens in places suffering from war or extreme human distress. Avenelle is far too peaceful—"

She never finished.

It wasn't the scientist who cut her off.

It was something far worse.

The whispers.

It began as a faint rumble beneath their feet. Then the room started to vibrate, the walls trembling as the voices bled in—countless, overlapping, chaotic. A sound so wrong it felt like it was clawing directly at the mind.

A mundane would go mad listening to it.

Elias watched in horror as blood trickled from both his parents' ears. He didn't need to check himself to know the same thing was happening to him.

Mr. Ferborn paced frantically, the slight tremor in his limbs betraying the calm he was trying to maintain.

From outside, Elias could hear it.

The screams.

Not one or two—the entire town.

Avenelle was already dying.

"EVERYONE HEAD TO THE UNDERGROUND BUNKERS! NOW" his father roared.

Then the lights went out.

Darkness swallowed the room whole.

Five hundred years ago, all of humanity was mundane. People went about their lives quietly, chasing their own interests.

Countries waged war—not with Resonance Strings, but with nuclear bombs and missiles. Cities fell, rose, and fell again under the relentless pressure. The world had become a stage where the rulers were those with the biggest nukes.

Then everything changed.

The change didn't arrive with a massive explosion or a cataclysmic burst of power. No. It came in something deceptively harmless, almost artistic in its execution.

A Song.

Those who lived to witness it said they had never heard a voice so beautiful, so primordial, so wondrous—and yet tinged with sorrow. It resonated in the minds of everyone on Earth, like a lullaby whispered simultaneously into every ear. Sweet. Haunting. Leaving a strange, almost surgical taste in the mouth.

And then it ended.

The realization hit: this wasn't a trick of the mind. Everyone had heard it.

And in that moment, mass hysteria erupted—an uncontrollable, unparalleled wave of chaos the world had never known before.

Citizens began to crumble under panic. Crime surged. Governments held emergency meetings behind closed doors, desperately trying to understand the incident—though no solution presented itself.

Because, for all that was said and done, the power of a being capable of singing a Song to every living soul on Earth was beyond comprehension. And worse, it was a force the world had never seen before.

Cities and nations dissolved into chaos as fear rippled through minds everywhere. The Song felt like a prelude to calamity—a forewarning of something horrific yet to come.

And they didn't have to wait long.

The day arrived.

A day that would be remembered in history as the Inversion Epoch. A catastrophe that destroyed over half of humanity through a broken song.

It began with a crack in the sky. The heavens didn't explode—they fractured. Space itself inverted, reflecting light like a mirror. Humanity barely had time to comprehend the abnormality before creatures poured out from the rift—incarnations of pure nightmare.

These were the creatures that would later be called Echoforms.

They carried no explosives. They wielded no overwhelming physical strength. Yet they conquered humanity with a weapon so unthinkable, so impossible, that no one would have believed it if it hadn't happened before their very eyes.

A Song.

But this one was broken. Wretched. Malicious. A symphony of sound that drove half the world into madness.

The Echoforms fed on humanity's darkest emotions, savoring despair as nourishment. Nuclear bombs were useless against them—they phased through attacks as if they existed in a frequency entirely alien to the world.

Humanity's greatest weapons had failed.

They showed no mercy. Not for children, not for fathers or mothers. All of humanity was food to them, the same as any other.

When they were done, all that remained was humans driven to madness—stripped of emotion, stripped of their very humanity. Survivors named these hollow shells Echolings, and to kill them was considered an act of mercy.

With the momentum of the war, humanity seemed a lost cause.

And yet, before hope vanished entirely, fate finally smiled upon them.

The first generation of Chordbearers awakened. Children who could feel the pulses of strings ignite with emotion. Children who could fight back, strike down an Echoform, and sing the Songs of the gods.

Humanity protected these young chosen as though their lives depended on it—because they did.

In a few years, as most of the generation mastered their Songs, humanity began to reclaim lost territories, pushing back the Echoforms inch by inch.

Humanity finally began to win.

But the war was far from over. New Mirrorths still opened in conquered lands, and half the world remained unclaimed, crawling with Echoforms.

Still, this time, humanity was no longer hopeless. They would fight back. They would survive.

And they would finally show those invaders who was in charge.

***

"MOMMY! I DON'T WANT TO DIE! ARE WE GOING TO DIE?!"

Lizzy's tearful screams echoed through the dark, oxygen-starved bunker for what felt like the hundredth time. One look at her was enough to tell—she was minutes away from a full panic attack.

The bunker shook again.

"Wahh!" Lizzy sobbed. "Wahhhh!"

"Shhh… that's enough, sweetie," their mum murmured, pulling the girl into her arms. "Mummy's here. You'll be just fine."

Elias pressed his fingers to his pounding forehead, the ache worsening with every shrill sob. Come to think of it… was it just him, or were little brats crying around him a lot lately?

"The building's been breached," Mr. Ferborn whispered to Elias's dad.

Elias heard it anyway.

"They're only a few meters above us."

His heart slammed violently against his ribs.

Elias looked at his sobbing sister. Then at his own trembling hands. He bit down on his lower lip until he tasted blood.

This hopelessness.

This despair.

It was happening because he was weak.

It was his fault.

If only he wasn't useless.

If only he had awakened.

If only he—

"The bunker… should hold," Elias heard his dad say. His voice sounded firm, almost convincing—like he was trying to lie to himself more than anyone else.

A hologram flickered to life in front of Mr. Ferborn, layers of complex algorithms and equations scrolling rapidly.

"Calculating the thickness of the steel walls and the intensity of their attacks," Ferborn said tightly, "the bunker will hold for approximately five minutes and thirty seconds."

He paused.

The sound of his teeth grinding echoed through the bunker.

Elias shuddered.

"I refuse to believe—" his dad shouted, voice cracking as it bounced off the walls.

"Dad, shut the fuck up!" Elias snapped.

His hand tangled in his hair as he fought the urge to rip it out.

"We're all going to die pathetically if you don't get your shit together!"

"I—" His dad's voice collapsed. He slid down the wall, shoulders shaking as sobs tore out of him. "I failed to protect you. All of you. If only I had listened… Elias, I'm sorry—"

"Save it for later, old man," Elias growled.

"There's no time anyway. That bastard who warned me? He probably knew we weren't going to make it regardless. The sick fuck just wanted us to struggle a little longer before we get corrupted."

His fists shook.

"By the gods," Elias hissed, eyes burning, "if we make it out of this alive, I swear I'm going to kill him."

"How exactly are you going to manage that with your pathetic—"

Mr. Ferborn stopped.

The look on Elias's face made his words die in his throat.

It wasn't anger. It wasn't fear.

It was something far worse—an expression so disturbingly calm it sent a shiver crawling down his spine.

"Old man," Elias said quietly, "you don't look too scared for someone with a whole community of Echoforms above us, all craving to feast on your darkness."

His eyes didn't blink.

"So I'm assuming you already have a way to save yourself."

It wasn't a question.

Mr. Ferborn hesitated, then studied Elias with renewed interest.

"It's commendable," he said slowly, "that you're still capable of clear thought under such strain. Even more so than your father—"

The bunker shook violently, dust raining down as the walls groaned.

"Aaaah! Mummy!" Lizzy screamed, spiraling into another full-blown hysteria.

Elias didn't look away from Ferborn.

"Can you save anyone else along with yourself," he asked, voice steady despite the chaos, "without risking your life?"

The shaking grew worse.

Ferborn fell silent.

A second passed.

Then another.

In that moment, time seemed to stretch into eternity.

Finally, he spoke—his voice hesitant, yet calculating.

"I can save one additional person," he admitted. "But my own chance of survival drops by three percent."

He paused.

"That's… quite a lot."

"Selfish motherfucker…" Elias muttered, barely holding himself back from giving the old bastard a vicious uppercut.

Mr. Ferborn's eyebrow twitched. He'd clearly heard it.

"I believe," he said coolly, snorting in mild displeasure, "that I've changed my mind."

Elias dropped to his knees.

His forehead slammed against the cold floor with a dull bang.

Then again.

And again.

He raised his hand and slapped himself across the face.

"Elias! What are you doing?!" his mum cried from across the bunker.

His dad had already collapsed against the wall, muttering incoherently, eyes vacant as he stared into nothing.

"Mr. Ferborn," Elias choked out, bowing his head again. "Please. I beg you. Save at least one of my family."

Bang.

He slapped himself harder.

"Please."

"Elias, stop! Stop this right now!" his mum screamed, her voice breaking as she rushed to him.

She dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight, restraining him as his body trembled violently.

Lizzy's cries rose even louder, syncing with the violent shaking of the bunker as dust rained down from the ceiling.

"Boy," Mr. Ferborn said, his eyes narrowing. "Fine. You've succeeded in getting my interest."

He exhaled slowly.

"But understand this—I can only take the risk of saving one person. I'm not heroic enough to throw my life away for your entire family." His gaze sharpened. "That's why I'm curious. Who will you choose?"

A pause.

"The most reasonable answer would be yourself. But I get the feeling that isn't what you have in mind."

Elias slowly lifted his bloodied head.

A crooked smile tugged at his lips.

"Save my sister," he said. "Please. Get her out of this hell."

Mr. Ferborn raised an eyebrow. "Why not one of your parents? Aren't they important to you as well?"

Elias laughed quietly.

"They won't leave," he said. "Not while Lizzy and I are still trapped here. They'd never accept it."

His smile widened, brittle but certain.

"So the choice was always between the two of us. And I choose her." He glanced toward Lizzy. "Isn't that what a big brother is supposed to do?"

The rumbling intensified.

Dust, stones, and chunks of twisted metal rained down as the bunker groaned under the pressure. From above, hands began to punch through the steel—pale, distorted fingers clawing blindly as broken songs leaked from countless mouths.

Elias's vision blurred as blood streamed from his eyes and ears. He clenched his teeth, refusing to cry out.

His mother's arms tightened around him, trembling violently.

Lizzy had gone still.

Elias looked up just in time to see her—eyes closed, body limp.

She wasn't dead.

He knew that.

She'd simply slipped into unconsciousness, her small body unable to withstand the terror any longer.

"You will die," Mr. Ferborn said.

"I know," Elias replied.

Mr. Ferborn stepped forward and gently lifted Lizzy into his arms. He paused, then looked back at Elias, something solemn settling into his eyes.

"You are wrong, Elias," he said quietly. "Not all big brothers would be willing to do what you've just done. Not when faced with certain death."

There was genuine respect in his gaze.

"I hope that, by some miracle, you survive this calamity. Losing an apprentice like you would be… regrettable."

Elias gave him a bitter smile.

Who the hell wants to be your apprentice, you old fart, his mind screamed.

Then it happened.

The metallic roofing above them let out a long, tortured groan.

And finally—

It tore apart.

Steel, concrete, and nightmare flesh crashed down together, drowning the bunker in debris and darkness.

And with it came hell.

A chorus of broken songs.

The moment the bunker collapsed, Mr. Ferborn shot skyward, propelled by some mechanical contraption. Artificial resonance strings wrapped around him like armor, singing in harmony as he carved a path through the horde, sound clashing against song in a dazzling, terrifying display.

Elias didn't have time to marvel. Seconds from death, he couldn't afford to look anywhere but the threat before him.

The first Echoform had reached him. Up close, its true form was a nightmare he wished he hadn't seen.

Humanoid, translucent skin streaked with the look of blood-soaked glass. Beneath the surface, hundreds of heart-shaped cores throbbed out of sync, flickering erratically like broken machinery. Its face was featureless—except for a long slit stretching from one ear to the other. From it came a song, eerie and fractured, that tore through Elias's skull.

He gagged, spitting blood.

And, horrifyingly, he felt something else—an undeniable, uncontrollable surge of lust, rising with alarming force.

He remembered the man's words—something about the orchestra of desire.

These were Echoforms of desire.

Elias bit his lips, fighting the call of the song, and ran.

His parents were nowhere to be seen amid the chaos. The thought made his chest tighten painfully. The stairs leading out of the bunker were only a few meters away, but each step felt stretched into eternity.

Echoforms swarmed him. Some wrapped tight around his back. Others clutched his arms as he struggled to break free. Their broken songs clawed at his mind, pulling blood from his eyes, ears, and nose. Every fiber of his being screamed to succumb—but he fought.

"Get away from me, motherfuckers!" he screamed, shoving, twisting, punching his way through the symphony of madness. Tears of blood streamed down his face.

It was useless.

Not when he wasn't awakened.

Not when he was barely capable of defending himself.

Not when he was still so weak.

Elias tried to take a step forward. He tried to push, to shove his way out again. But his hands wouldn't move. His mind wasn't responding—not from fatigue, but because its final barriers had shattered. The broken songs had overridden everything.

He fell to his knees, face blank as waves of Echoforms closed in, hugging him from all sides. Their voices rose in chaotic harmony, a maddening symphony.

"Eliiiaas…"

A seductive voice called his name. His head jerked up.

It was Megan—the school's golden girl from Elementary Symphony School. She was dressed in clothes that left her chest and thighs nearly bare. Her golden hair flicked back as she leaned toward him, sky-blue eyes glinting with a teasing hunger. Her hands slid around his neck.

"Tell me, Elias," she whispered, pressing close, lips brushing his forehead. "Don't you want to… touch me?" Her tongue traced the tip of his ear, sending shivers down his spine. "I won't stop you. I'll be obedient… all you have to do is touch."

"Touch…" Elias mumbled, trance-like, his hands lifting almost instinctively.

"Yes… touch me, Elias," her voice stacked on itself, growing darker, hungrier. "I'm all yours. Do with me what you want. You're so close…"

Get the hell away from my son!"

The command ripped through the hallucinatory song like a shockwave. Elias snapped his head up.

His hand hovered midair, trembling, a few meters from the source of the compulsion.

The Echoforms had shifted. They were no longer swarming him—they had gathered around his parents. And his mother and father… they weren't resisting. Their faces were blank, distant, as if the broken songs were already clawing through their minds.

"What are you doing? Get the hell away from them!" Elias screamed, his voice shaking with a mix of rage and helplessness.

He could see it happening. He understood it. But understanding didn't mean he was ready to accept it.

"Elias," his mum called softly, tears streaming down her face as the broken songs of the Echoforms grew louder, faster. "Live on… be happy. And I hope… that one day, you will no longer be cursed with the memory we are about to make today."

His father's voice followed, though barely audible over the cacophony. "Elias… I've never been prouder to be your dad. I wouldn't trade this moment for anything… Run, Elias. Survive. Don't let our sacrifice… be for nothing."

That was the last thing they said.

Then silence.

The Echoforms swarmed them, shrieking in what felt like delight as they closed in.

"No! No!" Elias screamed, collapsing to the ground.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

He slammed his head into the floor again and again, teeth gritted, chest heaving. Pain and fury coursed through him, raw and unfiltered.

Then, with a roar, he forced himself upright.

Bloody tears streamed down his face.

He ran.

The stairs. The exit.

Anything.

The bunker gave way behind him, and he burst into the streets—a world of madness, steel, and the unending, grinding symphony of broken songs.

He walked through the ruined streets like a corpse that hadn't realized it was dead yet, ignoring the humans-turned-Echolings who drifted toward him with twisted smiles and broken giggles, their eyes hollow and unfocused.

At the central plaza, he slowed.

Maddened figures sat or stood in circles, scraping violins with trembling hands, beating drums with no rhythm, producing a discordant noise that clawed at the ears. The music didn't even try to be beautiful. It was wrong—wrong in a way that made the fallen city feel like a graveyard.

"The Echoforms… are gone," Elias mumbled, his voice distant, his hazy eyes scanning the streets.

He didn't question it. Didn't care.

He kept walking.

No destination. No purpose.

"Mum… Dad…" His voice cracked, sobs finally spilling over as he raised his torn polo to his face, wiping away blood, tears, and grime all at once. "I promise… one way or another, I'll save you from the corruption. Even if it's the last thing I do."

Then he stopped.

A smile slowly crept onto his face.

And he laughed.

A dry, broken sound tore out of his chest.

"Wait," he muttered, clutching his head. "What exactly can I do?"

His laughter grew louder, sharper.

"I'm weak. Pathetic. Trash."

"I let you die. I let everyone die." His voice trembled, then snapped. "I am useless—USELESS!"

He threw his head back and stared into the dark, fractured sky, clapping his hands together in mocking applause.

"Are you finally happy now, you son of a bastard called fate?" he shouted, laughing like a madman. "I'm finally accepting the weakness you shoved down my throat! I bet you're scratching your ass cheeks somewhere, doing a happy little dance, huh—asshole!"

THUNDER RUMBLED!

"That's right! I'm trying to annoy you, motherfucker! Rumble all you want! Scream all you want! But guess what—there's probably nothing you can do to fuck me over more than you already have!" Elias screamed, his lungs burning, voice ragged.

For a heartbeat, the sky went silent.

Then it struck.

Red lightning tore through the clouds, slamming into the ground like a sonic blast, spreading a net of fiery destruction across Arvenelle. Half the city erupted in flames instantly.

The force of the impact threw Elias several meters into the air. He slammed his back against the frame of a wooden shop, shattering it into splinters.

He scrambled to his feet immediately. Another bolt slammed down where he had fallen, the explosion shaking the streets and filling his ears with a deafening roar.

"Wait! You can't tell me that out of billions of people that have cursed you I just had to be taken seriously!" Elias shouted, voice cracking. "Don't be such a petty bastard!"

But the lightning didn't care.

It rained down in endless, merciless torrents.

From that moment, it became a race against instant death. Elias sprinted through the lightning-scorched streets. Explosions tore into the ground around him, some leaving burns, some snapping bones—but he wasn't planning to die. Not after his parents had given everything for him.

"Fuck you, fate!" he screamed, middle finger raised toward the sky. "Is this your pathetic strength, you weak—"

A massive bolt slammed into the ground right in front of him, hurling him meters into the air.

He landed on his shoulders with a sickening crack.

"AAAAGH!"

Pain ripped through him as he screamed until his throat burned raw.

"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!"

He lay there, teeth gritted, muscles trembling, waiting for the agony to ease. Then something caught his attention.

The lightning didn't touch the area where he had fallen. Not a spark, not a flash.

Squinting through the red haze, he recognized the park. The place where kids once gathered to trade notes, play instruments, laugh.

Grunting, he forced himself upright, testing his arms.

He felt nothing.

"Just great," he muttered. "If I was barely managing to survive this place with working hands, I guess broken ones would do wonders."

With a sigh, he was about to collapse to the ground when something caught his eyes—something that shouldn't be there.

"Is that…" he said, swallowing hard. "A freaking Mirrorth!"

It hovered in the middle of the park, its invisible outline marked by glowing veins of black. Unlike other Mirrorths that usually arrived accompanied by broken songs, this one was silent.

Almost… painfully harmless.

But Elias still stepped back, limbs trembling.

Mirrorths are graded by seven colors, representing their level of devastation—the lowest red, the highest known cyan.

But there had never been any record of a black-graded Mirrorth.

Which meant one of two things: the stress of the night had finally begun to warp his vision… or the Mirrorth in front of him heralded an apocalypse.

Elias spun around, half-running toward the park's exit. Anywhere but here—he needed to get as far away as possible from the Mirrorth looming before him.

But he didn't get far before the impossible happened.

He felt himself lifted off the ground, weightless for a brief, terrifying second—then slammed across the broad shoulders of something enormous. Probably an Echoling.

"Put me down, you bastard!" Elias screamed, flailing.

All he got in return were eerie, drawn-out laughs that crawled under his skin and froze his blood.

A terrible premonition clawed at his mind the moment he realized where the Echoling was heading—straight toward the Mirrorth. The thing he wanted to avoid more than anything.

"Hey, good sir," he called, voice trembling, face pale. "I think… I think you're going the wrong way."

The Echoling didn't stop.

And that's when Elias felt it—the full, suffocating grip of a panic attack tightening around his chest.

"Get me off!" he shouted, kicking wildly, cursing the uselessness of his hands. "Get me off right now! No, don't go any closer, you insane bastard! Someone save me! Someone help!"

The Echoling stopped in front of the silent Mirrorth, tilting its head as if studying it. Then, almost casually, it lifted Elias's trembling body higher, holding him in the air while grinning down at him.

"Please…" Elias begged, tears streaming down his face.

The Echoling let out a soft, almost amused giggle, like it found him pathetic—and adorable. Then, with no warning, it hurled him like a ragdoll straight into the Mirrorth.

"FUCK YOU, BASTARD!" Elias screamed midair.

The world vanished as the Mirrorth swallowed him whole.