Chapter 8: The First Trial: Echoes

Chapter 8: The First Trial: Echoes

The moment Leo stepped past the broken fence line, the world changed. It wasn't a gradual transition; it was a switch being flipped. The damp, chilly air of the desert night was instantly replaced by something heavy, still, and unnaturally warm, like the held breath of a massive lung. The familiar sounds of dripping rain and the distant hum of the town’s power lines vanished, swallowed by a profound, humming silence that was more unnerving than any noise.

He was in a corridor of the thorny, spiky bushes that Lily had always feared. They weren't just bushes anymore. They were gnarled, blacker-than-night things that seemed to writhe in his peripheral vision. Above, the overcast sky was gone, replaced by a strange, bruised-purple ceiling that felt both infinitely far away and pressing down on his skull. He was no longer outside. He was inside something.

He risked a glance back. The Watchers, the fence, the lights of Whisper Creek—all gone. Behind him was only another endless, twisting path of thorny black growth. There was no way out but forward.

A thought, cold and alien, bloomed in his mind. It wasn't his own thought; it felt implanted, a piece of code inserted directly into his brain.

A debt is owed. A token must be claimed. Something lost, for something taken. Find the Locket. Do not linger. The Host is ever watchful.

The Locket. That was his goal. A trial, Henderson had called it. This felt more like a game, played on a board with rules he didn't understand, where the penalty for losing was annihilation. He clutched the small, plastic butterfly clip in his pocket, the sharp edges digging into his skin. It was his anchor, a piece of the real world, a reminder of why he was here. He would not linger.

He started walking. The ground was uneven, shifting from soft, yielding soil to sharp, crystalline rock without reason. Distance was a lie here. He’d walk for what felt like minutes toward a bend in the path only to find it suddenly right in front of him. Other times, a clearing just a few yards away would seem to recede as he approached. It was a place built on the principles of a nightmare.

Then he heard it. A whisper, carried on the dead air.

“…please, just let me go home… I have a family…”

The voice was faint, a man’s desperate plea. It seemed to come from a cluster of thorns to his left. As Leo looked, the air shimmered, and for a heartbeat, he saw a ghostly image superimposed over the path. A man in the worn clothes of a miner from decades past, on his knees, hands clasped in prayer to an unseen terror. The image was translucent, a fading photograph, and it vanished as quickly as it appeared, leaving only the sound of his final, choked-off scream echoing in Leo’s mind.

An echo. That’s what it was. A psychic stain left on the fabric of this place. Abernathy was right. The entity didn't just consume; it absorbed. It kept souvenirs.

He forced himself to walk on, his heart hammering against his ribs. Do not linger.

He passed more of them. A little girl, no older than Lily, humming a nursery rhyme that devolved into terrified sobs. A young woman in a faded gingham dress, calling a name over and over again until her voice was raw. Each echo was a shard of someone else’s final horror, a testament to the town’s long and bloody history of sacrifice. Each one was a temptation, a lure to stop, to watch, to drown in the misery of this place. Henderson’s words came back to him: It finds despair… bland. He had to be better than that. He had to be stone.

He rounded another impossible corner, the path twisting back on itself, and froze. The air grew cold, charged with a familiar, terrifying energy. He could smell it—the sharp, clean scent of ozone that precedes a lightning strike. He could feel the fine hairs on his arms standing on end.

He knew this moment. He had lived it an eternity ago, just a few hours past.

In front of him, the path shimmered with a terrible, vibrant clarity. This echo was stronger than the others. Fresher. It was a perfect, heartbreaking recreation. He saw himself, a younger, more innocent version of himself, his face a mask of teenage skepticism as he scanned the darkening sky. And standing beside him, her small hand clutched in his, was Lily.

“Leo, I’m scared,” her echo whispered, the sound so real it was a physical blow. She looked up at the bruised-purple ceiling of this place as if it were the storm clouds from before. “The spiky bushes are making funny noises.”

“It’s just the wind, Lily-bug,” his own echo replied, his voice a hollow mockery of reassurance.

Leo stood rooted to the spot, a silent observer of his own damnation. He wanted to scream, to run into the memory and pull her away, to tell his past self to turn back, to tell him what was hiding behind the black tarps. But he was just a ghost watching other ghosts.

The air in the field crackled. The violet light began to build, a terrible dawn rising from the ground around the shimmering figures of him and his sister.

“Leo?” Lily’s voice was small, tight with terror. “Your hand is getting all tingly.”

“I know,” his echo said, his own voice strained. “Hold on tight. Don’t let go.”

Don’t let go. The last promise he ever made her. The last one he ever broke.

“Leo!”

Her final scream was not a memory. It was a blade that gutted him where he stood. He saw her hand slipping from his echo’s grasp. He saw the blinding flash of violet light that erased her from the world, leaving his own ghostly image standing alone, stunned and uncomprehending.

He fell to his knees in the dirt, a ragged cry torn from his throat. The grief he had been holding back, the cold rage he had forged into a weapon—it all shattered. For a moment, he was lost, drowning in the echo, the despair the entity found so bland. He wanted to stay here, to kneel before the spot where she was taken for the rest of his short, miserable life.

The Host is ever watchful.

The implanted thought was a spike of ice in his mind. The humming silence of the field deepened, and he felt a pressure building, a sense of immense, ancient attention turning towards him. It knew he was faltering. It was getting ready to collect.

No.

He forced himself to look away from the fading echo. He pushed himself to his feet, his legs shaking. He wouldn't give it the satisfaction. He wouldn't become another sorrowful ghost in its collection. He was here for an answer. He was here to burn this whole rotten system to the ground.

As the last shimmer of the echo faded, his eyes caught a glint of something in the dirt, right where Lily’s ghostly form had been standing. It was half-buried in the strange, crystalline soil, revealed now that the memory had played out.

He stumbled forward and dropped to his knees again, this time with purpose. His fingers dug into the earth, scraping against something cool and metallic. He pulled it free.

It was a small, silver locket, tarnished with age and dirt. It was shaped like a heart, with a delicate floral pattern etched onto its surface. It was warm to the touch.

The Locket.

He had it. He had passed the test. A wave of triumphant relief washed over him, so potent it almost made him dizzy.

He stood up, clutching the locket tightly in his fist. He had done it.

But the path in front of him remained a twisted, thorny maze. The path behind him was gone. The oppressive, watchful feeling wasn't receding; it was intensifying, closing in around him like a fist. The humming silence grew louder, vibrating in his teeth, his bones.

He had the token. He had survived the echoes.

But the trial wasn't over. And now, the Host knew exactly where he was.