Whispers in Stone

The cave walls had always been silent, even when everything else screamed.

Bexley ran her fingers across the rough stone, following the ancient etchings that glowed faintly when her skin met them. They hadn’t been there yesterday. She was sure of it. The symbols pulsed with a warmth that wasn’t quite fire, wasn’t quite magic, but something stranger—conscious.

“They're talking again,” she whispered.

Luca, crouched beside her with a flickering lantern in hand, leaned in. “You mean you're talking to them again.”

Bexley didn’t answer. She hadn’t told him what the rocks had said last night while they camped in the chamber below. The voices were fragmented then, more echo than meaning, but now they formed sentences. Cracked phrases. Directions.

“He waits beneath the oldest stone,” the wall had murmured.

She’d felt it, too—not just sound but pressure in her bones. Like the rocks were reshaping her from the inside out.

---

They followed the tunnel deeper, the lantern casting their shadows wildly against the walls. Each step down was like walking through time. The cave was older than the mountains above it, older than the first songs of men. It wasn’t a place people discovered—it was a place that chose when to be found.

“Do you think it’s connected to the Tablet?” Luca asked.

Bexley nodded slowly. The Tablet had been stolen, or so everyone believed. But Bexley was beginning to think it hadn’t been taken at all. It had returned. Home.

As they moved deeper, the air grew heavier—denser with silence. Even their breathing felt muffled, like the cave wanted quiet to listen better.

Suddenly, the passage opened into a vast chamber—smooth walls arched into a dome high above, and in the center stood a single monolith of shimmering black stone. It hummed.

Bexley took a step forward. Her vision narrowed. Everything else—the echo of their footsteps, Luca’s breath, even the lanternlight—faded to nothing but that low, ancient vibration.

The stone spoke.

But not in words.

---

Visions crashed into her mind like waves:

A city in flames, not yet built.

A girl with silver eyes standing at the mouth of a river made of stars.

The Tablet breaking—no, being broken—by a hand that looked too much like hers.

She stumbled back, gasping.

“Bex!” Luca caught her. “What happened?”

She shook her head. “It’s not just telling me things—it’s showing me futures. Or maybe warnings.”

He helped her sit, and the silence stretched between them like a third presence.

Finally, Bexley spoke. “The stone… it remembers everything. It holds the weight of what was said, what was done. All of it. Even things not yet written.”

Luca raised an eyebrow. “You mean it’s alive?”

She looked at him, her eyes reflecting something distant and luminous. “Not alive. Awake.”

---

Night fell above them, though the cave had no windows to notice. The temperature dropped, and they lit a second lantern. Around them, more symbols began to appear—tiny, glowing threads weaving across the walls like veins of thought.

And then came the voice again. This time, it was clearer.

> “She who broke it must return it.”

Bexley froze.

“I didn’t break the Tablet,” she said aloud.

> “Not yet.”

Her pulse pounded. The Tablet had always been a mystery—a powerful relic meant to connect the voices of the Ancients with those willing to listen. But something about her blood, her voice, her name—it called to the stone in ways she didn’t understand.

Luca looked at her differently now. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“I think…” She paused. “I think my family didn’t just guard the Tablet. I think we made it.”

Luca’s eyes widened. “But that would make you—”

“Part of its purpose. Part of why it broke.”

---

The whispers returned. Faint. Urgent.

> “Three days. Return before the sun bleeds.”

> “Do not let him reach the Mouth.”

> “The stone remembers. The stone forgives nothing.”

---

They made camp near the monolith. Bexley couldn’t sleep. She traced the etchings again, now glowing brighter in her presence. When her fingers brushed a particular curve—an upside-down spiral—the room shifted. Not physically, but perceptually. Like something tilted behind her eyes.

Suddenly, she wasn’t in the cave anymore.

She stood on a cliff above the sea. The waves whispered her name, and in her hand was the Tablet—unbroken, alive with shifting light. A man waited at the edge, hooded, faceless. He held out his hand.

But when she tried to give the Tablet, it cracked in her grip.

And the sea screamed.

---

Bexley woke gasping. The cave was still there. So was the monolith. And so was Luca, asleep against his pack.

She stood and looked at the stone.

“I won’t break it,” she said. “Not again. Not ever.”

And the cave, in its ancient, weary voice, answered.

> “Then hurry. The Mouth has already opened.”

---

To be continued...