THE EVERBRIGHT SHADOW

CHAPTER TWO: VOICE OF THE FORGOTTEN

My body moved before my mind could catch up—ducking sideways, my shoulder slamming into the torturer’s ribs. He grunted, stumbling back, his blade scraping against the stone wall where my head had been a moment before.

I’m strong. How am I strong?

I’d never been more than average—could barely lift a full grocery bag without my arms aching. But now, as the man lunged at me again, I felt power coursing through my veins, hot and fierce. I caught his wrist mid-strike, squeezing until metal clattered to the floor.

His scarred face twisted in shock. “You… you’re not supposed to fight back.”

“Neither are they.” My eyes swept across the room—to the woman curled in a corner, her back covered in whip marks; to the young man with broken fingers, staring at me with something like hope; to all the others who’d been broken into silence.

The torturer spat. “They’re nothing. Failures. We’re purifying them—”

“Purifying?” I shoved him away, my voice rising with rage. “This is murder!”

Before he could answer, the walls rumbled. A low hum filled the air, and shadowy figures began to emerge from the corners—transparent shapes that flickered like candle flames in wind. They were the ones who’d cried out in the dark. The ones who hadn’t survived.

“We didn’t want to die,” a girl no older than fifteen whispered, her form passing through the wall beside me. “We tried to run too.”

“They said we were cursed,” an older man added, his ghostly eyes fixed on the chains that had held him. “Said our voices were poison that needed to be cut out.”

I looked down at my hands. They were glowing now, with a soft silver light that pushed back the darkness. The voice I’d heard earlier—my voice—echoed again in my head, but now I understood: it wasn’t just mine. It was all of theirs, woven together in me.

“You were brought here for a reason, Yemina Everbright,” the voices spoke as one. “On your twenty-first year, the barrier between their world and ours breaks. They’ve been capturing those with the gift of voice—those who can carry the truth. They tried to silence us, but we found you.”

The torturer scrambled to his feet, calling out to others in the shadows. “She’s one of them! The gifted—seal the doors!”

Iron gates slammed shut across every exit, but the silver light from my hands was growing brighter. I could feel the stories of every person in this place flooding into me—their fears, their hopes, their desperate will to live. My resolve hardened like steel.

I stepped forward, and the light exploded outward, shattering the chains on every wall. The prisoners cried out—not in pain this time, but in wonder as their bonds fell away.

“The power you seek isn’t something you take,” I said to the gathering guards, my voice ringing with the strength of a hundred souls. “It’s something you carry.”

One of the doors began to glow, then crack. Beyond it, I could see not stone or darkness—but sky. Real sky, blue and bright.

But as we moved toward freedom, I noticed something else. The walls were covered in names, carved into the stone by trembling hands. Every single one was crossed out—except mine.

YEMINA EVERBRIGHT stood clear and sharp, as if it had been waiting there all along.