Chapter 5: The Uninvited Audience

Chapter 5: The Uninvited Audience

The dissonance had a face now. It was Rose’s. Every time she hummed that warped, microtonal tune, Luka felt a physical jolt, as if a wire connected to his own trauma had been plucked. He saw the corrupted spirals in her mural even when he closed his eyes. The beautiful art she was creating had become a monument to his failure, a public broadcast of the very horror he was trying to contain.

He had to end it. The thought was a shard of ice in his gut. Every moment he spent with her, every shared laugh, every quiet touch, he was exposing her to the plague in his soul. The Man in the Suit’s silent watch from across the street was a constant reminder: he was an experiment, a contamination, and he was letting the infection spread. The rage he’d felt was gone, replaced by the cold, heavy dread of a surgeon who knows he must amputate a part of himself to stop a gangrene rot.

The break-up was a clumsy, brutal act of self-preservation. He met her after she’d packed up her paints for the day, the afternoon sun casting long, ominous shadows. The clock in his mind was already ticking down towards 4:42.

“I can’t do this anymore, Rose,” he said, the words tasting like ash. He couldn’t meet her bright, green eyes.

Her smile faltered, confusion clouding her features. “What? Luka, what are you talking about? Did I do something?”

“No. It’s me,” he said, falling back on the oldest, cruelest cliché because it was the only truth he could offer. “I’m not… right. I need to be alone.”

“Alone? We were just getting…” Her voice was thick with hurt. “Talk to me. Whatever it is, we can figure it out.”

“You can’t fix this,” he snapped, his voice harsher than he intended. The panic was rising, the familiar pre-echo tension coiling in his stomach. He glanced at his watch. 3:50 PM. He was running out of time. “You need to stay away from me. Just… go.”

He turned and walked away, not daring to look back, the sound of her calling his name chasing him down the street. Each step was a hammer blow against his own heart. He had chosen his prison over her, the only sliver of light he’d found in his endless night. It was the right thing to do. It was the only thing to do.

He locked himself in his apartment, the triple-bolt on his door sliding home with a sound of grim finality. He leaned against it, breathing heavily, the silence of the room pressing in on him. He had done it. She was safe now. He was alone again, as he should be.

He began his preparations. The familiar, grim rhythm of the ritual. At 4:41 PM, he stepped into the foam-lined closet, the sanctum he had built from his blood money. He pushed the waxy earplugs deep into his ears, pulled the industrial headphones over them, and secured the blackout mask over his eyes. Darkness. Silence. A self-imposed oblivion.

4:42 PM.

The echo hit. The muffled storm. The vibration in his bones felt different today, sharper, charged with the fresh agony of his choice. He imagined Rose’s hurt face, and the silent scream that built inside him was one of grief as much as terror. The presence in the abyss felt… closer. More attentive. As if it had been waiting, listening. He gritted his teeth, his fists clenched, riding out the eternal sixty seconds of torment.

4:43 PM.

It was over. The vibration receded. He remained motionless for a long time, letting the adrenaline drain away, leaving him hollowed out and shaking. He slowly removed the mask, the headphones, the earplugs.

He stood in the thick, dead silence of his padded sanctuary, ready to face another 23 hours and 59 minutes of waiting.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Luka froze, his blood turning to ice.

The sound was soft, but terrifyingly close. It wasn't coming from the apartment. It wasn't Mrs. Schmidt next door. The sound was coming from the other side of the closet door. A soft, insistent pounding, inches from his face.

His heart seized. It was impossible. He was locked in. The apartment door was bolted from the inside. No one could be here.

With a surge of adrenaline-fueled terror, he wrenched the closet door open.

Rose stood in the dimly lit hallway.

But it wasn't Rose. Not his Rose. Her eyes were wide, her pupils so dilated they swallowed the green, leaving only black, shimmering pools of madness. A smile was plastered on her face, a rictus of ecstatic fervor that showed too many teeth. Her body was coiled with a frantic, unnatural energy, like a predator about to spring.

“I heard you!” Her voice was a high, strained whisper, breathless with excitement. “Oh, Luka, I finally heard it clearly!”

“Rose?” he choked out, stumbling backward into the foam padding. “How… how did you get in here?” The bolt. The locks. It didn’t make sense.

She took a step closer, ignoring his question completely, her head cocked as if listening to a distant melody. “Your singing! I knew it! It’s so beautiful! It’s not just a hum, it’s a song! A hymn! It called to me, all the way from the mural.” She gestured wildly back toward the living room. “It came right across the city and whispered to me. It told me where to find you. It told me you were sad.”

His mind reeled. Across the city? The closet was soundproofed to an almost perfect degree. His scream had been an internal, strangled groan. It made no sonic sense. The echo wasn't just sound. His worst fear solidified into a horrifying certainty: it was a beacon. A psychic broadcast, and his ritual didn’t stop the signal; it only protected the transmitter.

Her manic grin widened. “He loves it. The Lord. He’s listening!”

The word struck Luka with the force of a physical blow. Lord. It gave a name and a hierarchy to the seething, cosmic chaos he’d glimpsed. The presence wasn’t just an indifferent force of nature. It was an entity. It had a title. And it had followers.

“He told me you were the key,” Rose whispered, her eyes glowing with a terrifying, unholy light. “You are the Voice that opens His door. He’s so pleased with your music.”

Luka stared at her, at the woman he loved, twisted into a manic prophet for an entity from a dimension of madness. He had tried to push her away to save her, but he had only pushed her directly into the path of the thing that haunted him. He had made her a target.

He saw a flicker of something behind her eyes—not madness, but a predatory cunning. She saw his terror, and it seemed to fuel her fervor.

“Don’t be afraid,” she hissed, the words a mockery of comfort. “He wants us to join the choir.”

Before he could react, she moved. It was a blur of unnatural agility, a fluid, scrambling motion that was not quite human. She darted past him, her shoulder brushing his, and he felt a shocking, electric coldness from the contact. She didn’t head for the door. She scrambled into the living room.

Luka lunged after her, his mind screaming. He heard the sharp, grinding screech of his old, warped window frame being forced open. By the time he reached the room, she was already gone. He rushed to the opening, looking down into the grimy alley three stories below. It was empty. There was no way she could have climbed down so fast. No way she could have survived the fall.

He was alone. The apartment door was still locked, still bolted. The window hung open, a gaping wound in the side of his sanctuary. And her last words echoed in the sudden, crushing silence, a promise and a death sentence.

His echo was a beacon. And he had an uninvited audience.