Heartfelt Sounds

by C. M. Estopare

  A haunting moan makes my body tense as I gasp. As my eyes move from the beauty of this small desert town, to a dangerous gathering of gray bodies thronging the town's entrance. High iron gates stand tall—closed to the creatures occupying its space as some wrap brittle hands around the bars and pull. The gate holds closed—but the chanting stops only to be sung louder as the monsters moan their response—a collective cry that's low and dreadful.

  I slap my hands to my ears.

  “Sand wraiths.” Ran hisses beside me as he plops down into the sand. Sitting. Watching. “We'll have to wait till morning.”

  But I can't. I can't sit and wait and run any longer. I stay standing. I clench my fists at my sides and watch the wraiths assault the gate.

  Do something—open your mouth. Maybe you haven't completely come into your power yet—but you can do this. You can at least do this.

  I take a step forward, sands waves shifting beneath the soles of my slippers as I approach the sloping face of the dune. A hand grabs my wrist.

  “Unless you want to end up like your friend—,”

  But I snatch my hand away—I continue my descent. I fall to my back and trip in the sand as I go sliding down the dune.

  “The sun will burn them away!” Ran hisses at me—but it's already too late.

  A single gray head snaps towards me as the buzzing chant in my ears becomes a wailing roar. I shove myself up to standing as I watch the group of wraiths—their stench wafts by me as a breeze picks up sand from the west. Blowing by us—picking up the noise of the chant and forcing it eastward. The smell reminds me of Tsubame's kitchens—when I met Hue and become accustomed to the stench of the mess the cooks would carelessly leave behind. As more heads turn towards me, I remember the card old Vivek showed us. Of a skeleton donning human skin, wrinkled and dry and shriveled, as it held up a sword of sharp obsidian. A sliver of light reaches these ghouls as they moan—as they begin a slow shamble towards me. Shadows dance beneath their ribcages—as bones protrude out beneath their skin. They are gaunt. Haggard and starved as if the sands have taken every ounce of water from their bodies. Black caverns darken the sockets of their eyes as some open jawless mouths and moan—shambling towards me.

  When I open my mouth—it is natural. When sand hisses behind me as Ran skids to the bottom of the dune, the creatures gain leverage in the sand and sprint towards me. Charging with screeching cries as they scream at me. As they howl at the starlit sky and race for me as I open my arms and sing.

  Sing like everything depended on this moment.

  Because it did.

  My voice is carried through the night on a smooth wind that dashes through the desert—blowing my hair to my side as I close my eyes. As sand is kicked up behind me and I feel Ran's presence. The beasts are moaning louder now—trying to drown out my voice as I sing to them. As I entrance them in a lullaby that forces the sands to open up before them—to swallow them as it swallowed my friend. As it swallowed my Shanti.

  I take in a whiff of night air as I plant my feet and feel roots grow from their soles as I stand tall. As I sing and the last of the creatures moan—calling out to the skies as the ground swallows them whole.

  I catch my breath. My heart slams against my chest—and it constricts painfully. I choke—I cough as my eyes snap open and warmth dribbles down my bottom lip. I hunch over as the sand closes. As black fades back to dark red, and my blood begins to stain the dark grains. I cough—and blood erupts from my mouth like a geyser.

  The chanting has stopped, but the fire burns on. It feels close—as if it's roaring right in my ears.

  As I take my hand away from my chest.

  And there, beats my heart—thumping in my palm. Convulsing. Spurting blood.

  “It's back.” I murmur as my vision fades. “Yarne—she gave it back.”

  The organ hiccups in my hand as it cries red. As the iron gates at my side squeal open.

  When I fall into the sand—I'm still clutching it—my heart.

  I'm still clutching it. As everything fades to black.

  52. Smothering Destiny

  I hear a flute from somewhere. It is a breathy sigh of air that touches my skin like cool vapor. I feel for my arms and legs. I imagine opening my eyes—but my body feels weightless. I am a feather in a cool drift of wind and air as I take in the floating breaths of a melodic flute.

  My heart thumps in a chest I cannot feel.

  “I never hated you.” a thick voice swims by. “I felt betrayed—but I'm over it now. Everything. All of it. I'm over it now that I'm here. And I want you to know—,”

  Tiny scratches rip through the skin of a smooth face. Mismatched eyes, one blue and another black, smile into mine. They twinkle as the hair of her bob hugs her face. Her nose is like a button and when she smiles it spreads with the shape of her lips.

  Chima.

  “—I want you to know that I'm happy.”

  Blood powers through me, surging through the fingers of one hand. Roaring beneath the skin of another. My heart sings as blood descends to my pelvis and legs, bringing my toes to life as I float. As I lie here weightlessly, staring at Chima's smiling face.

  You haven't changed.

  She blushes, “And neither have you.”

  Her face begins to fade into the dark—and I try to grab it at. Try to pull her back to me and make her stay. But in this form, I am helpless. My limbs don't work. My heart beats and its blood is alive inside of me, but my limbs do not work as she fades. As she hopelessly fades away.

  “You must keep going.”

  Go where—what is happening to me?

  Have I died?

  I remember singing—the ground opening beneath those wraiths and blackened sand swallowing them whole. I remember blood dribbling from my mouth as my heart returned to me. As it convulsed in my hand—and then I fell. I fell into the black.

  Have I followed them?

  Have I fallen into a fate similar to Shanti's?

  Am I dead?

  Deep voices murmur overhead, and I snap my eyes open. A blue sky stares down at me as water wets up my back. Dry air chokes me and everything—everything hurts. Crimson stains the front of my gown and I turn my head to the left. White marble surges upwards—the delicately carved head of a tall fountain sprouts overhead. Water dribbles down its smooth side and I watch tiny sprinkles of water trickle down the fountain's white neck.

  A figure splashes into the water before me and I strain to turn my gaze towards it. A woman stands tall, long arms limp along her sides. The large skull of a beaked animal sits atop her head, covering her eyes and nose. Red lips are mashed into a solid line.

  She comes closer, hunching over me as she squats in the water. She brings her hands to her knees and looks at me beneath that huge bird's skull. She looks at me and murmurs: “Go back.” rough hands reach towards me before she grabs me by the shoulders. I feel paralyzed as my limbs become heavy and tight. Pain rockets through my shoulders as she touches me. As she forces pressure onto me and the water begins to rise above my chest. “You must go back.”

  I gasp—I breathe before I'm submerged beneath the murky fountain water. Her hands continue to press on me. Continue to force me deeper and deeper until I'm sure I've hit the bottom—but it doesn't matter. I'm drowning as water surges into my nostrils. As blood thumps in my ears and all I can hear are my panicked gasps flooding to the top of the surface as wobbling bubbles. Water displaces around me as my limbs refuse to work—and she's still pressing. Forcing me deeper and deeper into the fountain's water until I can no longer see the sky through the water's clear surface. Until my gasps no longer become clear bubbles—and just sit there. Anchoring themselves to my nostrils as I sink. As her hands reach from the water—freeing me—as water yanks me down. As I fall farther and farther, clear water fading to a murky black, as everything feels weightless. As I search for the sky above—but it's not there. All I see is water—water and an all-encompassing darkness as I sink.

  Sinking to the bo
ttom of nothing.

  53. Cageling

  My arms open as I fall back and back and back. My chin tilts upwards as my chest heaves and my hair flows around me. The black strands climbing the still current of the murky water as it spreads out around me. A single beam of watery light breaks beneath me, flowing upwards. Fighting to be seen within the water as the surface above becomes darker than night. A current pushes me up—makes me ascend towards the surface, and my body slowly turns. I am pushed and pulled by uncertain waters as my body swirls around.

  And my watery world contorts—the world flipping. As the surface I fell through becomes enshrouded in darkness, and water's bottom shines with uneven light. My body inches towards this new surface and my hands reach—fingers stretching for this new world. Fingers stretching as my body becomes choked for air and my head becomes light. When my fingers break through this new surface, my head plunges forward. My chest following. My body following as I break through the surface of the water with a gasp and a moan. I break it. I breathe.

  A silver sky hangs low. It opens before me with clouds rushing south. Rushing towards a watery horizon painted pale.

  “Have you come for what you've lost?”

  Lore's voice, and I snap my face towards it. A gnarled tree, its bark dead and ashen, rises from this endless sea like the mangled hand of a drowning man. The branches reach and curve, the twisted things contorted and diseased as my eyes rove over bulbous boils hiccuping through the bark. Lore sits on a thick branch shaped like a curved L. Her single arm wraps around the piece of the branch that curves upwards, as her legs dangle beneath a luminescent gown of emerald silk. Pale green eyes narrow when I meet them. She no longer looks old. “Look,” she says—pointing towards the water beneath her with her chin, “look there. If you see it, would you bring it to me?”

  Floating upon the surface of the sea is a pale arm, fingers splayed. The limb lies beneath her, laying upon the water like a dead boat.

  I swim towards it.

  “You won't find what you're searching for here.” she tells me as I swim. “We've all lost something to her—the dark god. We've all lost something.”

  “And what did you lose?”

  “Your love.” Lore hisses—her kicking feet dangling above me as I wrap my hands around her listless limb. As I grab its hand and feel it grab mine in turn. It squeezes my fingers and, for a moment—it doesn't feel strange. It doesn't feel strange that a limb—Lore's lost arm—is holding my hand like she used to so long ago. When we worked at the Orthella and I regarded her as sister. As my big sister. For a moment, it seems attached to something.

  Attached to a spirit. A ghost.

  The white outlines of a slender figure trace through the blue of the water as a torso curves—the hand attached to it. The hand holding mine as an ethereal face studies my own, wide eyes unblinking. Wide eyes glowing. Glowing leafy green.

  Can you see me?

  Its melodious voice reverberates within my head—and without thinking, I nod. I nod and clutch the fingers harder.

  Good. It murmurs. Do you see the woman up there?

  And it looks towards Lore—as Lore stares down at us. Her legs hook around the branch of the tree as she lets her arm go. She balances on the branch as she reaches her one arm towards me. Pale eyes flash.

  “Give it to me.”

  Do not let me go.

  “Give it to me!” Lore roars—maintaining her balance as her whole body trembles. “Make me whole again, Naia. Reconnect what I've lost with your voice.”

  The spirit holds my hand, digging her fingertips into my knuckles.

  “Open your mouth! Sing!”

  My face is blank as I stare at her. As I look. “How long has it been?”

  Lore's face twists. Pale eyes flash with rippling lightening as she fights to maintain balance upon the branch with the raw strength of her curved legs. Thin lips contort into a snarl that mars the beauty of her slender face. Of those high cheekbones and wide eyes.

  “How long has it been since Yarne inhabited you?” my voice is cool. Almost deadpan. “How long have you kept my sister from me?”

  And the spirit beside me murmurs: I died in that alleyway. When I sang to you so long ago and you responded back. I died there. Waiting for you.

  “She called for me—for my help. For my life. She was on the brink of death when I inhabited her. When I sent her soul to the Void and parted with the only piece of her that wouldn't obey my will. That wouldn't obey the will of a titan.”

  Thunder crows overhead—but I am not afraid.

  Lore is here, holding my hand. Lore is here.

  She'll protect me.

  But the strength of her solid arm wanes. The grip of her fingers upon my own weakens and her fingers slip. They slip away and I watch as silver traces disappear. She takes her arm with her—and bit by bit it fades away. Skin vaporizing. Bones disappearing.

  As she murmurs, I am sorry. But I cannot.

  I cannot interfere any longer.

  The woman above me cackles. Her voice bursting through the sky above before it claws at my ears, making my spine tingle. Making the hairs on my neck rise as my gaze snaps towards her.

  But she is no longer there, hanging on the tree. She is no longer there.

  And the tree bends. Gnarled branches contort as if they are alive and they spiral towards me. Ashen branches swirl around me like hungry vines searching for a place to lay their roots before they constrict around my waist. Before they lift me up and cocoon me. Encasing me in darkness. Encasing me in a prison of wood.

  “But no matter.” Yarne's voice slithers in between the tiny cracks of my cage. Bringing in light before vines race to fill in the cracks. To take away my light and leave me in darkness. “You will obey,”

  Or, you shall perish.

  54. Endless and Finite

  I am weightless. Tossed around in my wooden cocoon as it drops from the gnarled tree it sprouted from. My back smashes into the wood as the cocoon plunges into the sea, water splashing. Angry waves smacking at the cocoon's tightly weaved sides as it wades through the water listlessly. The vines at my back feel like veins as I struggle to still myself in this wobbling prison. A sudden current pushes me—shoves the wooden cocoon towards the right and I move with it as it's pushed. As it wobbles from side to side before it's pushed once more. Over and over, moving towards a destination unknown to me as I move with it.

  The rough branches that make up the ceiling feel knotty and uneven when I press my palms to them. My elbows can barely lift as I try to press away from the wood surrounding me, but beneath my fingers the vines seem to strengthen as life pulses through them like blood. Wood crackles and moans as the vines elongate, the ceiling growing closer and closer to my face as my hands are pushed backwards. Rough bark bites at my toes and I'm forced to bring my knees up as my cage of vines and branches begins to collapse inwards. Branches croak and creak as they bloat with a pulsating force that makes them thicken. That makes them fall further towards my face, the branches brushing up against my nose as I hug my knees into my chest.

  I feel small, like a child.

  I feel helpless.

  I lay my head to the side and listen to the pouring of the waves outside as they continue to push and pull at my cage. My body moves with the motion, helpless to stop it as the branches continue to encroach upon my space. The wood grows into every portion of my cage until it stops just inches from my skin. Rough wood scratches against my face and I close my eyes.

  As my cage knocks into something. Goes bouncing off and I'm shifted towards the left. The waters become calm beneath me, still rocking the cage back and forth. Still knocking against the obstruction towards my right.

  “There's no way in.” comes a voice. It murmurs from my right.

  “The underworld is full. Heaven's Gate will not open for us.” the voice crawls closer and I listen as it blubbers. As its breath becomes strained.“There is no way in.”

  The Sea of Sorrows.

  The S
ea of Sighs.

  Our gateway is drenched.

  The pools will not open.

  “We are cursed.”

  “I do not understand.” I find myself saying. “Heaven's Gate—are you saying…”

  “Our gateway is the water.” the voice whispers back. “It always has been—always will be. But the underworld is full.”

  “Heaven's Gate…” I murmur. It's the ocean—water. Water has always been the gateway to our world—and the underworld. “But the underworld is…full?”

  “The titans do not belong. They've taken over our world, and now they grow tired. They want to bring chaos to the waking world. To the mortal realms.”

  Free us—please, drain this ocean.

  We have lived and we have died.

  Please—let us pass on.

  “How?” I ask it—shutting my eyes tight. “I am just as trapped as you are.”

  “Listen to her—do as the dark god says.” the voice hisses. “The titan. Do her bidding.”

  Sing, mortal.

  Voice of the East—please, free us.

  Sing. We need you to sing.

  “Sing—bring us peace.” it pleads. “Please.”

  Sing for these wretched souls who wait. Sing, Naia, and bring them to the plains of eternity.

  “This is what you want me to do?” I whisper back, shaking my head. “This is your foul, earth shattering, plan? Freeing the souls of the destitute?”

  Drain this sea. Free my titans. Let us walk freely upon Sorrel again.

  The branches of my cage shudder. “You inhabited Lore so that you could bring forth an army of undead to force open Heaven's Gate—,”

  I inhabited a mortal to find you—

  My only purpose is to find you.

  My only purpose was to find you.

  My only purpose…

  Shanti's voice. The violet eyed songstress's high-pitched, breathy, tones. Her notes are like screams fine-tuned into mindful lullabies. Her voice is like the call of a restless firebird. My eyes widen before I slap my hands to my ears. “Stop it!”