They should have. Thatâs how it worked. You disobey, you get punished. But this time, after that last note faded, the aliens just... stared.
Their blank facesâusually so sharp, so cruel, so quick to correctâlooked haunted. One even reached toward him, like in a trance, then pulled back like the air around Till burned.
Not a word. Not a command. Not even a warning.
No one spoke. No one dared.
Noâstumbled. Half-aware, chest still heaving from the song that wasnât his. He didnât even remember it. The voices were still inside him, thrumming through his bones like a heartbeat that wasnât his.
It had torn out of him, each note blooming with something too large for his lungs.
He turned down some side hallway off-stage, the flickering lights too bright, too close. He didnât recognize the path, didnât care. Just needed to get away before someone changed their mind.
Somewhere quiet. Somewhere toâ
Till made it to a shadowed corner, some unused corridor beyond the stage, the noise and light swallowed by metal and dust. The walls bent sideways for a momentâno, his vision did. He pressed his palm to cold steel and let himself slide down.
He stayed down, one hand bracing the wall, the other gripping his shirt like he could pull himself back to normal. His heartbeat sounded wrong. Not fast. Just... deep.
He froze. His head snapped up, eyes darting around the empty hallway.
Yet voice like cracked strings and golden sorrow, layered over his thoughts.
"You carry a fierce spirit. You will remember, even if the world does not."
âShut up,â he muttered, pressing his palms to his ears. âShut up, shut upââ
He didnât believe in ghosts. Didnât believe in gods or fate or whatever this was. That was all Earth junkâburned, erased, deleted like everything else. Humans forgot their own stories. The aliens saw to that.
So what the hell was this voice doing in his head?
"The Throne calls. Humanity is not dead. Not while all of you breathe and fires fuel your souls."
His breath rasped, throat raw.
Visions hit like a flood behind his eyes. His head ached, temples pulsing. Light flickered at the edge of his sightâfaces, lyres, rivers, lands.
A man walking into the realms of death.
A woman calling from behind him, begging for him to turn around.
A world full of green and oceans and sunlight filtered through real trees.
Music played for the sake of love, of hope, of determination, of beauty, of rage, of simple pleasure instead of a cruel idea of entreteniment.
And heâd never heard those lyrics before. But they had tasted like honey and flowers in his mouth.
He saw a lyre strung with gold and grief. A mouth singing in defiance. A hand reaching back through the veil.
His skull throbbed. âNo. No.â He clenched his fists. âIâm not going insane. Iâm notââ
He curled in on himself, pressing his hands over his ears.
But the static grew louder. No, not staticâstrings of a harp. Twisting around his thoughts, tuning his nerves like an instrument. A deep pressure behind his ribs like something old was knocking from the inside.
His eyes flutter, barely open.
The images were getting sharper. Cracks of a world he didnât knowâan endless dark river, voices like instruments without mouths, a beautiful cities full of humans. None of it made sense. None of it was his. And yetâ
He blinked hard, trying to anchor himself, but something shimmered at the edge of his vision. No...
Not alien, a man â a humanâ stood before himâtall, draped in flowing fabric that looked too comfortable for any stage costume. His hair was dark silver, almost glowing, and his eyes burned gold. A strange crown of golden twisted leaves circled his head, and Till couldnât tell if it was metal or plant or something in between.
He only knelt, placed a hand against Tillâs chestâgently, like tuning a string.
Till flinched. The touch wasnât cruel, but it feel cold.
He tried to ask, Who are you?, but the words caught in his throat.
Then came the voiceânot the manâs, but his own. Yet not. Echoing inside his skull like a thought he didnât make.
âSing for what was lost.â
And then he collapsed fully, giving out to his sideways, cheek pressed to cold metal. The world spun and dimmed, and still the music echoed in places no one had names for anymore.
And in the quiet of that empty corridor, Till closed his eyes and tried to undertand the things Earth had already lost.
