CHAPTER VII THE DIRGE CHOIR

He didn’t open the chip.

He kept it hidden in his drawer. Sometimes it glowed at night. Sometimes it hummed with that same rhythm, five pulses, silence, five pulses again.

But he wasn’t ready.

Couldn’t be.

The pain of hearing her name like that, spoken from the lips of a monster, it unraveled him. Reina was supposed to be safe in memory. Untouched.

Now even that was cracking.

The city buzzed with rumors. “The Ash-Breaker.” “The Mourner Whisperer.” “The Hollowborn.”

MIND agents followed him in shadows.

But the people?

They stared at him like a myth made flesh.

And still, the hum pulled him.

Every night, he wandered farther from home.

Until, one night, it led him beneath the city.

Through tunnels made of silence and rust.

And into a cathedral of sound.

The chamber was vast.

Lit only by violet flame.

And there, standing in perfect silence, were the figures.

Dozens of them.

Draped in mourning cloth, singing frequencies that bent the air around them.

The Mourner Choir.

And in the center, arms open, voice calm.

Keiro.

 “Welcome home, Warden.”

Noen backed away.

 “This isn’t home.”

 “Of course it is. You were born of grief, same as us. Your scream just took longer to arrive.”

 “I’m not like you.”

 “You’re exactly like me,” Keiro said softly. “And you’ll realize it when the final verse begins.”

Noen’s hands trembled.

The hum inside him grew loud—deafening.

 “You said Reina...”

 “Yes.”

 “What did you do to her?”

Keiro smiled sadly.

 “Nothing she didn’t invite. She heard the song before any of us. She was the first echo.”

Noen lunged forward, but the Mourner shadows rose.

Keiro leaned in, voice low.

 “If you want the truth... you’ll have to survive long enough to hear it.”

He pressed a single finger to Noen’s chest.

 “The Hollowbirth is complete. Now the dirge begins.”

The chamber vanished into darkness.

Noen stood alone.

Pulse trembling.

Hands shaking.

And behind his eyes.

For the first time.

He was singing the second song.

END OF THE MOURNER’S CODE I: HOLLOWBIRTH

TO BE CONTINUED IN THE MOURNERS CODE II: WARDENFALL