Elegies of the Void

The marble is a frozen blade beneath your bare feet. Your toes twitch, grazing the polished surface stained with a fine grit of ash. The stench of sulfur stings your lungs, needle-pricking your nostrils with the scent of a forge-fire. «The air is heavy. It’s like breathing molten lead.» Before you, the Echoing Wall stands like a wounded titan driven into the crust of the world. Black fissures writhe across its face like agitated vipers. From those cracks, distorted sounds leak out—the overlapping whispers of a thousand dead, humming in a singular, sickening vibration. Wzzzzzzz. «The breach is widening. The toll is coming; I can feel it gnawing at my spirit before it even touches my skin.» Hannah stands directly behind you, her frame racking with violent tremors. She clutches the hem of your tattered cloak, her grip small and failing. Her eyes are wide, drowning in an unspeakable terror, yet her lips are clamped shut like a rusted lock. Silver strands of her hair lash out with every gust of poisoned wind. Heavy footsteps approach, severing the tension of the wall’s whispers. High Priest Akram emerges from the thick fog, his face a landscape of shifting shadows. His massive co…