The scream never came.
That was the problem.
Where the Echo Should Be
Across layers of reality Kairo had never seen—realms stitched together by law, divinity, and violence—there existed a system older than gods.
Not mercy.Not justice.
Response.
Whenever a human soul fractured under divine pressure, something always followed:a surge, a ripple, a scream that tore through the unseen lattice binding worlds together.
Hunters tracked those screams.Gods fed on them.Monsters found their way by them.
But this time—
Nothing.
A boy faced abandonment, isolation, and absolute pressure.
And reality heard… silence.
The First Disturbance
In a city Kairo had never known—one still ruled by laws pretending gods did not exist—a diviner dropped to his knees mid-ritual.
Blood ran from his nose.
"No resonance," he whispered. "There should be—there has to be—"
The circle beneath him shattered.
Across the chamber, instruments cracked. Sigils went dark.
Something fundamental had failed to trigger.
Hunters Without a Trail
Three layers up, in a domain where Hunters were forged rather than born, a tracking array froze.
Its operators stared in disbelief.
"Target K-031 confirmed trauma event," one said. "Loss of bonded variable."
"Then why isn't the mark flaring?" another snapped.
The array showed nothing.
No spike.No bleed-through.No hunt signal.
The silence unsettled even them.
"He should be screaming," the commander muttered.
A God Hesitates
A lesser god—one who fed on despair—leaned forward on its fractured throne.
It had been waiting.
Waiting for the collapse.
Waiting for the familiar taste of grief.
It tasted nothing.
Its many eyes narrowed.
"That human…" it murmured. "He balanced."
Gods hated balance.
Balance meant something was being withheld.
Back in the Hollow
Kairo felt none of this.
He stood at the center of the Hollow as it continued to perfect itself around him.
The second heart beat calmly.
Too calmly.
The Fringe hovered near, trembling.
They noticed, it said.
"Who?" Kairo asked.
Everyone who relies on suffering to find their way.
Kairo considered that.
"Then they are inefficient," he said.
The Hollow pulsed approval.
A Disturbance in Law
Reality attempted a correction.
A pressure wave rolled in—subtle but invasive—testing Kairo's limits.
Normally, this would cause pain.
Panic.
Reaction.
The Hollow absorbed it.
Redirected it.
Fed it back into its structure.
Kairo felt only a faint pressure in his chest.
Like an unanswered question.
The Fringe screamed internally.
That should have hurt.
Kairo frowned. "Then something is wrong with the system."
The First Record
Somewhere impossibly far away, a ledger updated itself.
Not by hand.
By rule.
ANOMALY DETECTEDSUBJECT: Human / UnclassifiedEVENT: Trauma without collapseSTATUS: UnresolvedACTION: OBSERVE
The page burned itself into existence.
Then sealed.
When Silence Becomes a Threat
Back in the Hollow, Kairo finally noticed something strange.
The darkness beyond the stabilized zone felt… attentive.
Not hostile.
Not hungry.
Curious.
Like something listening for a sound that never came.
Kairo spoke into it.
"Is someone there?"
The Hollow didn't answer.
The Fringe whispered:
When the world cannot hear you scream… it starts asking why.
Kairo's eyes sharpened.
For the first time since Eli left, something inside him stirred.
Not grief.
Not fear.
Interest.