The silence didn't last.
Not after exile.
Not after Varo.
Not after the mark.
It began like roots — splitting beneath the surface. Quiet. Invisible. But spreading.
Ash was the first to notice.
He'd been training the young apes near the central wall — simple drills. Balance. Focus. Stance.
But their hands were slower. Their eyes shifted. They glanced behind him more than at him.
When he asked a question in glyphs, they responded with signs he didn't recognize.
Not from Caesar's teaching.
Not from Maurice's scrolls.
New shapes.
New glyphs.
He came to me that night.
Dirt on his arms. Fur matted with dust.
He handed me a piece of bark.
𐍘 — Fear
𐍪 — Memory
𐍵 — Freedom
The last was new.
Not part of any sanctioned glyph set.
Not one we had taught.
"Who showed them?" I signed.
Ash's hands stayed still for a long moment.
Then:
"No one."
"They say they found it."
"In the walls."
Maurice confirmed it the next day.
Old bricks pulled loose from tunnel corners.
Inside: scraps of burned bark, traced in charcoal.
Glyphs. Koba's. Rewritten. Re-shaped.
Dozens of them.
Some were broken.
Some were lies.
But the idea was clear:
A second language was forming.
Caesar's glyphs were built on unity, order, memory.
These new ones were faster.
Rougher.
Built for rebellion.
I didn't erase them.
Not yet.
Erasure makes martyrs.
I made copies instead.
And gave them to Maurice.
We met in the shadows of the ventilation towers.
He set the glyphs on a stone slab and began decoding the syntax.
"These aren't wild," he signed. "They're deliberate."
"Teaching glyphs?"
Maurice nodded.
"Someone is passing them."
Rocket found more proof a day later.
Near the edge of the southern tunnel — just above Koba's exile gate — fresh dirt had been disturbed.
Not dug. Just shifted.
Buried.
He unearthed a hollow reed filled with folded bark.
Three new glyphs:
𐍩 — Obey
𐍫 — End
𐍳 — Break
The meaning was clear.
Obey, or it ends. Break the chains.
Not from Koba's hand.
Koba had never used reed tubes.
That meant followers.
Inside the shelter.
I called the council that evening.
Maurice, Rocket, Flint, Tao, Ash.
No votes.
No firelight.
Just cold eyes and fast signs.
"We're losing grip," Rocket signed.
"Not all," Maurice countered.
"Enough," Flint added.
I said nothing.
Until the glyphs were set in front of me again.
That last one—𐍳—the split circle.
"Break."
Not just of law.
But of Caesar.
I signed:
"This is not a challenge."
"It is a fork."
Maurice looked puzzled.
Flint frowned.
I clarified:
"We are splitting."
"Two roots. One tree."
Not war.
Not yet.
But a choice was growing inside the shelter.
And I would not wait for it to sprout into blood.
I began making changes.
Small at first.
Glyph lessons were revised.
I brought in only the youngest for morning instruction. Gave them simpler glyphs. Clean ones. No doublespeak.
Ash was reassigned to food distribution. Close to more apes. Closer to whispers.
Maurice opened a hidden archive: a tunnel chamber lined with etched stone and old scrolls. I ordered him to start a new wall.
Two sets.
True glyphs
False glyphs
Let the apes see both.
Let them choose.
I didn't hide what we found.
I didn't erase Koba's marks.
I let them exist.
Side by side with mine.
And I watched who touched what.
The first to lean into the old glyphs was Flint.
He wasn't disloyal. But he liked force.
Liked order by fear.
He began tracing Koba's glyphs during spear drills — not as teaching tools, but as warnings.
I confronted him privately.
In sign, I asked:
"What are you building?"
He replied:
"Discipline."
"Through memory."
Then: "Through fear."
I didn't punish him.
But I removed him from the youth lessons.
Put him on tunnel maintenance.
Where his signs would be seen by stone, not by children.
Two days later, a crate was found smashed open.
Rations gone.
A single glyph left inside:
𐍭 — Hunger
Ash was furious.
Maurice told him to wait.
But Ash didn't listen.
He caught a young ape named Ka'shar trying to sneak fruit from the cache room.
Ash cornered him.
Signed fast:
"Why?"
Ka'shar stared.
Then slowly traced one glyph on the wall behind him:
𐍪
Memory.
That night, Ash came to me again.
"Was exile enough?" he asked.
In sign. But it hit like sound.
I didn't answer right away.
Because I wasn't sure.
The truth was: Koba had won something.
Even in exile.
He'd planted something deeper than anger.
He planted doubt.
Not just in the law.
But in me.
So I made my own move.
I called in Tao.
Quiet. Observant. Trusted by both sides.
I gave her no title. No task.
Only instruction:
"Watch."
"Listen."
"Write."
The next phase wouldn't be decided by leaders.
It would be shaped by the silent hands of followers.
And the fracture…
Had already begun.
In the dark, I returned to the council chamber.
Alone.
I stared at the etched wall.
At the glyph we had once carved together.
𐍊 — One.
Then I picked up a shard of stone.
And beneath it, I carved another.
𐍳 — Break.
Not to worship it.
Not to teach it.
Just to remember.
Because if we forgot what we were breaking from…
We would never build anything better.
https://www.patreon.com/enragedseaurchin