No one remembers the sound.
Not the sound of footsteps.
Not the creak of old wood.
Not even the screams.
What was forgotten...
was the sound of the break.
The break in reality.
They say it was silent — like a breath drowned in the dark.
But some, the old ones, the ones who live near the edges of what should not be remembered,
they still feel the echo.
A shiver in the veins when the sky is too quiet.
A pressure in the ears when the moon vanishes without a cloud.
It's the Veil, they whisper.
It pulses. It breathes.
And it's weakening.
Kaelyndra — the sacred tree, rooted between worlds — no longer sings as it once did.
Its branches touch bending realities.
And when its leaves fall, they never reach the ground.
They vanish.
Swallowed by an ancient silence made of everything that was never meant to return.
---
Three names.
Three presences.
Three paths that were never meant to cross.
But the Veil has already chosen.
And the Inverse Shadow waits.
Not with hunger.
Not with haste.
Only with certainty.
Because something between the veil and the shadow does not belong to either.
Something forgotten... or perhaps, hidden.
Something that walks.
And it is waking up.
While dreams remain silent for most, there are those who feel.
They live far from each other. They've never met. They've never spoken.
But tonight... something pulses the same in each of them.
📍 Mount Kailash, Tibet
An old monk breaks his meditation.
He doesn't know why. He just opens his eyes.
The ground beneath his knees vibrates — faintly, almost imperceptibly.
But he feels it.
As if the earth is trying to speak.
> — "The sound... before the sound," he whispers.
And returns to silence.
📍 An abandoned cellar in Prague
A hooded woman draws ancient runes into a circle of iron.
The candles begin to flicker without wind.
The black mirror in the center of the room cracks without being touched.
She clutches her wrist.
Something moves in the reflection — not behind her, within it.
> — "It's early," she says. "But it's already waking."
📍 Deep in the Amazon rainforest, Brazil
A boy with golden eyes wakes up screaming.
The village elders say he dreams of the Tree That Never Falls.
But today, he weeps.
> — "She cried for real, Grandpa. She's sad. Really sad..."
The elder looks to the sky.
> — "The Veil... trembles."
📍 Tokyo, Japan
In an empty subway car, the lights flicker.
A teenager watches his reflection in the glass.
For a second, it doesn't imitate him.
It blinks first.
It whispers something he can't hear.
He grips the railing.
His heart pounding for no reason.
> — "Is the world... about to tear?"
---
And somewhere, far away...
a leaf of Kaelyndra falls.
But it does not touch the ground.
It disappears.
As always.
Only this time... it takes something with it.