The Echo Gate
1000 Words
The wind shifted on the seventh day.
Not like any usual breeze that danced through Emory’s Field. This one seemed sentient, curling through the golden grasses like fingers brushing a harp. It made the shutters of Liora’s house creak in a pattern that felt almost…intentional.
The townspeople grumbled about the sudden static on radios and the flickering lights. Some blamed early winter storms, others shrugged it off as odd luck. But Liora had stopped believing in coincidence the moment Caerel stepped out of the stars and into her life.
He was waiting for her now at the edge of the trees, where pine and shadow wove a veil between the world she knew and the one she’d only begun to understand.
They didn’t speak—not in the traditional sense. She signed a greeting. He nodded in return, silver eyes reflecting the low sun like mirrors.
She clutched her notebook, fingers curled tightly around its spine. The newest dream symbols were drawn on the last page: four interwoven shapes, braided like strands of sound made visible. She hadn’t told anyone—not even Caerel—that she’d started hearing something when she looked at them.
Not with her ears.
But in her chest. In her bones.
They started walking together into the woods. Past the crumbled gate of the old observatory. Beyond the clearing where birds no longer sang. The forest here didn’t just feel quiet—it felt like it was holding its breath.
Caerel paused beside a tree with scorched bark. He placed his hand on the trunk and closed his eyes.
The earth beneath their feet thrummed once—then again, slightly out of rhythm.
Liora stepped closer, frowning.
She signed: That’s not the same pulse.
He nodded grimly. It’s off. Something is interfering.
With the Gate?
Caerel’s hands hesitated before answering. Yes. It’s trying to corrupt the frequency. Twist it into something dangerous.
Liora felt a cold curl in her stomach. In her dreams, the Echo Gate had appeared as a perfect ring—light braided with stardust, humming with harmony. But last night… it had cracked. And from the cracks, something had leaked. Something black.
Before she could ask more, the air changed again.
The temperature dropped so fast the trees rimed with frost.
A figure materialized in the grove.
It wasn’t like Caerel—who glowed gently, like moonlight through water. This being was darker than shadow, built from shimmering fragments that never settled into shape. No face. No eyes.
Just a presence.
And a silence that ached in Liora’s head like pressure before a storm.
Caerel stepped protectively in front of her, his entire frame rigid. The being tilted its head. Its presence pulsed—not sound, but the absence of it. So deep it hurt.
Liora staggered back. The vibrations within her notebook dimmed.
The Gate was retreating.
The being raised one long-fingered hand and pointed—first at Liora, then at the sky. Then, it evaporated in a scatter of black mist.
Gone.
But the unease remained.
Caerel signed quickly, urgently: That was a silence eater.
What is that? Liora asked.
He looked skyward. A parasite. Born from broken frequencies. They devour resonance. Gateways. Voices. They are drawn to silence—but only to corrupt it.
She swallowed. Then signed, Can we still open the Gate?
He hesitated.
Then nodded.
If we move quickly.
That night, Liora returned to her rooftop. The sky swirled overhead, constellations twisting slowly into unfamiliar shapes. One star in particular pulsed red—then blue—then white.
It matched the final symbol from her dream.
She wrote in her notebook until her hands ached. Diagrams. Arcs. Angles of sound. At last, she found it—the complete tone, built from four harmonic sequences, like a chord for the universe.
At dawn, they returned to the clearing. The ground hummed with tension, as if the forest knew something sacred was about to stir.
Together, they stood hand in hand. Caerel struck the earth in a rhythmic pattern with a stone. Liora signed the tone, her arms carving symbols in the air like spells. The frequency built.
The dirt split.
A ring rose slowly from beneath the moss and roots—carved from crystal, humming with light. Around its edges spun the symbols from her notebook, glowing gold, blue, and deep violet.
The Echo Gate.
It was beautiful.
But the moment of awe didn’t last.
A roar of absence shattered the peace.
The silence eater returned—this time from above, descending in a storm of black mist. Trees bent backward. Stones cracked. The Gate flickered, its light dimming.
Caerel cried out soundlessly and fell to one knee.
Liora stood firm.
She had learned that silence was not weakness.
It was potential.
She raised both hands and signed the full tone—slowly, clearly, each symbol a deliberate motion carved from stillness. The Gate brightened. The eater shrieked, writhing like smoke caught in flame.
With her final sign, she stepped forward and pressed her palm to the Gate.
It sang.
A tone rang out—not sound, but vibration, harmony, light. The eater dissolved into mist and vanished.
And then…
The Gate opened.
A corridor of light stretched into the sky and beyond. Not a tunnel, but a spiral—leading not just to space, but to possibility.
Caerel stood slowly, awe in his expression.
He turned to Liora.
Signed: You are the key.
She smiled gently. I just listened.
He reached for her hand. Come with me.
She hesitated.
Looked back at the forest. Her town. Her mother’s window glowing in the distance.
She signed: Not yet. I still have more to teach. More to hear.
Caerel nodded. A soft sadness in his eyes.
Then he stepped into the Gate—and vanished into light.
The ring faded, sinking back into the earth.
Liora sat in the clearing, fingers restin
g on the grass.
She wasn’t afraid.
She was ready.
The world had changed.
heard it.
- Writer
