The next morning, the coastal town of Vermila appeared quiet as usual, misty and unsuspecting. But for Lyra, everything felt different. The haunting whisper from the night before lingered on her skin, like sea mist, and Ethan’s sudden disappearance left her with more questions than answers.

The air was filled with the scent of salt and something ancient, something hidden under years of silence.

Sitting on the wooden steps of her aunt's house, Lyra sipped her bitter tea and watched fishermen push their boats into the fog. Their figure looked more like ghosts, caught between reality and imagination. Her hands shook as she held the cup.

"You look like you’ve seen a ghost," Aunt Renna remarked, stepping outside with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. "Did you sleep at all?"

Lyra didn’t respond right away. Instead, she ran her finger along the rim of her cup. "Do you believe in legends, Aunt Renna? In curses? The Whisperborn?"

Renna's expression changed, turning serious and a little sad. "Some stories are meant to be remembered, not to be told."

"But they're real, aren't they?" Lyra insisted.

Renna took a sit beside her, she allowed a moment of silence to pass. "Your mother used to ask the same questions."

Lyra’s heart raced. Her mother had drowned when she was ten at least, that’s what everyone said. Yet, even then, something about it didn’t feel right, as if the ocean had taken her on purpose.

"She believed there were things under the tides," Renna whispered. "Things that whispered not just to frighten, but to summon. Your father tried to dismiss it, but even he feared what your mother discovered."

"What did she find?" Lyra pressed.

Renna shook her head. "That's a truth I can't tell you. You’ll have to find out about it yourself. But be careful, dear. Whispers might call to you, but not everyone who responds comes back whole."

Later that afternoon, Lyra felt a strong pull to the shore once more. The sea was restless, grey, and foamy. Each wave seemed to carry hidden secrets. When she reached the cave, it was empty, no sign of Ethan, no glowing symbol, nothing.

But something caught her eye.

Half-buried in the sand was a pendant, made of black stone and shaped like a twisted tear. As she picked it up, a bump ran through her, bringing flashes of shadows, a city beneath the ocean, and Ethan’s troubled eyes.

He left this. On purpose.

A sudden rush of wind blew past her, carrying a voice that didn’t come from the sea, but from within her mind.

Lyra… don’t forget who you are.

She staggered back, her heart racing. She recognized that voice. It wasn’t Ethan’s or her mother’s voice.

It was her own voice.

It felt as if something deep inside her was beginning to awaken.

That night, Lyra had another dream.

She stood on a cliff overlooking a submerged city, with towering structures made of coral and bone, glowing symbols floating in the air, and a huge gate pulsing with silver light.

And there stood Ethan.

But his once-kind eyes were filled with darkness now as if he was been controlled by an evil spirit and behind him loomed shadowy figures without faces.

You opened it, he said, his voice layered with others. You called them.

She reached out to him, but as soon as their fingers touched, everything shattered, Cold, Darkness, Endless.

She woke up, breaking down in a sweat and screaming.

Meanwhile, far under the ocean, the Council of the Murkborn met.

They sat in a circle of living stone, throbbing like the gills of a breathing creature. Each member wore robes made of seaweed and pearls, their eyes glowing with a spiritual blue light.

"The girl has returned," one member whispered, a woman with translucent skin and visible gills.

"She bears the mark," another said, running a clawed hand over a map carved into a shell.

"If the Whisperborn awakens completely, they will bond."

"And what about the boy?" 

A tense silence followed.

"Ethan is... unstable."

A low murmur spread among them.

"If he remembers who he was before, everything will be undone."

"We must intervene."

Back in Vermila, Lyra paced anxiously in her room, holding the pendant tightly. The dreams were becoming clearer no longer just sounds, but something guiding her, pushing her forward.

She didn’t understand why she felt so drawn to Ethan. Now, she barely knew him because they had been apart not like the friend she once knew, yet there was an unexplainable connection, like they were two stars circling the same fate.

Her mother's journal was on her table, half-burned and wet. She hadn’t looked through it in years, too afraid to open it, but now, her fingers flipped through the pages like a compass finding true north.

“The Whisper is not a curse it’s a calling. We are not meant to fear it. We are its children.”

She gasped.

The next line was in a different handwriting. “Lyra must never know. Not until it’s too late.”

She could still make out the signature.

Her father.

Her hands shook.

Just then, the pendant beamed again.

She turned around and found Ethan standing at her window, soaked with rain, bleeding from his shoulder, and barely conscious.

"Lyra," he whispered, his eyes flickering silver. "They're coming. They know what you are."