Chapter 2: The Chords of the Forgotten

Rain drizzled steadily on the cracked pavement of Virellan Square, the rhythm as erratic as the tune coming from a battered guitar held by a man named Joss.

Most people passed without looking at him. Those who did saw only a lean street musician with tangled dreadlocks, mismatched gloves, and a voice too soulful to belong to someone hunched under an awning, strumming for coins. His guitar case sat open at his feet with a few pounds and scattered copper coins inside. His dog, Leo, a loyal mutt with one ear up and the other down, lay curled at his side.

Joss sang every day. Not for fame. Not for food. He sang because the music wouldn’t let him sleep otherwise. And lately, the songs weren’t his own.

They came to him in dreams-haunting melodies and words in a language he couldn’t name. His fingers knew chords he’d never learned, and his voice could hit notes that made people pause, weep, or shiver. One day, a woman dropped to her knees in front of him, sobbing. “That song… it was what my father used to hum. He died ten years ago.” Joss had never seen her before.

That night, he didn’t dream. He remembered.

Fire. Temples. Oceans parting. A crown of light. And a name lost to time.

He woke gasping in an alley, heart hammering like a war drum. Leo whined at his side.

“Something’s wrong,” Joss whispered. Or maybe right.

Weeks passed, and the changes deepened.

Birds followed him during the day. At night, cats gathered where he played. People dreamed of ancient cities after hearing his music. One girl whispered to her mother, “The guitar man walks like the sun.”

Joss began hearing voices when no one was around. Not madness-memories.

“You were Aeltharion, the god of echoes, once worshipped by the first singers of stone.”

“You fell when mortals turned to steel and forgot the sky.”

“But every god who is named lives again.”

He stopped performing for a week, terrified. But the music clawed at his throat. It wanted out. The god wanted out.

So he returned to the square.

It was the winter solstice when everything changed.

Joss stood in his usual spot, shivering in a coat too thin for the cold. The clouds churned above like boiling smoke. People hurried past, heads down-until he began to play.

The first chord split the air like thunder.

The sound was not just heard-it was felt. Deep in the bones. As if the city itself stopped to listen.

Crowds gathered as his fingers danced across the strings. His voice rose in a melody too vast, too ancient to be human. His eyes glowed faintly gold.

And the sky opened.

A shaft of pale light struck Virellan Square. The rain stopped. Wind circled like a spinning veil. Everyone fell silent.

Joss’s feet lifted an inch off the ground.

A booming voice came-not from above, but from within him.

“I AM AELTHARION, LORD OF THE LOST VERSE.”

People screamed. Phones were dropped. A child clapped, thinking it was a show.

Joss’s mind was still his, but not alone. He felt the god fully now-titanic, ancient, compassionate and wild. Not a god of war, but of memory. Of sound. Of resonance.

Aeltharion had once been worshipped by an ancient civilization that communicated through music. Their cities had no walls, only singing towers. When they were lost to fire and forgetting, so too was he. Until Joss-touched by music, lost to the world-sang a song no one had sung in eons.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Joss whispered aloud.

“Nor do I,” the god replied. “I want only to remind them.”

The crowd stood entranced. The square pulsed with a golden hue. Every brick, every lamp post, every window shimmered with some long-lost energy.

People saw visions.

A woman saw her grandmother singing lullabies long forgotten.

A man saw the day his wife said yes at the altar, her voice trembling on a winter wind.

An old homeless veteran saw a battlefield where a friend died, whispering a song of home.

They remembered. And for a moment, the modern world cracked open to reveal a deeper rhythm beneath it all-a timeless harmony.

Then the music stopped.

The light faded.

Joss collapsed to his knees, exhausted. Leo barked once and ran to him. The crowd didn’t move at first, unsure what had happened.

Then someone clapped. Then another. Applause rose-staggered, confused, reverent.

Joss opened his eyes. He was himself again. Almost.

Inside, Aeltharion rested, quiet, watching.

The government came days later. Not police, not military-but men and women in gray suits and calm smiles. They called themselves the Harmonic Commission.

“We monitor phenomena like yours,” one agent said. “Events of divine resonance.”

“I’m not trying to start anything,” Joss said. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“We know,” the agent nodded. “But gods are like echoes, Mr. Adelson. They come back when called. You called one. And now, the world will listen.”

Joss stayed in the city. He kept singing.

Not every song glowed or made people cry. Sometimes, it was just a lullaby. But more often than not, those who heard him felt more-more present, more alive, more connected to something vast and ancient.

Rumors spread of a god who lived in a street singer’s chest. Some feared him. Some worshipped him. Most just stopped and listened.

And Joss, the forgotten orphan, became the voice of a forgotten god.

Not because he wanted to be.

But because sometimes, the world needs to remember what it lost.

And sometimes, a god just needs a second verse.