Whispers Beyond the Skyglass"

hey said the Skyglass had always been there — a vast, shimmering dome stretched over the city of Caerthwyn, reflecting the pale suns and the endless twilight sky. To look up was to see yourself, stretched and twisted among clouds that never moved. No one knew who had built it, only that it protected them from what lay beyond.

Arlen had always been fascinated by the Skyglass. As a child, he’d sneak onto rooftops, lying back on the tiles for hours, staring upward, searching for cracks, imperfections, anything that might reveal its secrets. The Elders warned against such curiosity. The Skyglass watches, they whispered. And sometimes, it whispers back.

He didn’t believe them — not until the night the whispers found him.

It was the Festival of Moons, and the city was alive with lanterns, songs, and the sweet tang of roasted persimmon in the air. Arlen, now seventeen, had climbed the tallest spire of the old cathedral to get a better view. The city glowed like a river of fireflies, and above, the Skyglass shimmered, strange and alive.

That’s when he heard it: a soft, melodic voice, almost inaudible over the festival’s din.

"Arlen..."

He spun around. No one. Just the cold wind whistling through broken stone.

"Arlen... come find us..."

The voice came from above. Heart pounding, he looked up. The Skyglass rippled like water, and for the briefest moment, he saw a dark hand press against it — slender, five-fingered, but not quite human.

He stumbled backward, nearly falling off the spire. When he looked again, the Skyglass was smooth and still. The whispers faded into the night.

Most would have run. Most would have forgotten. But Arlen was not most people.

The next day, he sought out the only person he thought might understand — Lady Vestra, the mad astronomer who lived at the edge of the city, her tower filled with strange lenses and forbidden books.

He found her hunched over a brass contraption, peering into a thin crack in the Skyglass through a spyglass as long as she was tall.

"You heard them," she said without looking up.

Arlen’s blood froze. "How did you—?"

"You wouldn’t be here if you hadn't," Vestra muttered. She beckoned him closer. "The Skyglass is failing. Slowly, but surely. Cracks forming like spiderwebs. Through them, the whispers seep in."

"What’s beyond it?" Arlen asked, barely breathing.

Vestra’s eyes gleamed in the low light. "Not death. Not life, either. Something in between. They are waiting, Arlen. Waiting for someone to let them in."

Arlen shivered. "Why me?"

"You heard them. You’re... receptive." She placed a small, metal shard in his hand. It was cool, vibrating faintly. "This is a piece of the Skyglass. It will lead you to where the barrier is thinnest."

"And then what?"

"Then," Vestra said, smiling sadly, "you’ll have a choice."

For days, Arlen wandered the city, guided by the shard. It pulled him eastward, toward the abandoned quarter where the walls crumbled and the streets drowned in ivy. No one lived there anymore. Or so they thought.

The shard grew warmer, thrumming with urgency.

Finally, he found it: a mirror-smooth crack snaking across the Skyglass where it curved down to meet the ground. It wasn’t much — just a hairline fracture, almost invisible unless you knew to look. But standing there, he could hear the whispers clearly, calling him by name, promising wonders, begging for release.

"One touch," they pleaded. "Just one touch, and we will show you the stars beyond the stars."

Arlen hesitated. What if they were telling the truth? What if beyond the Skyglass lay a world brighter and freer than this twilight cage?

He reached out.

The moment his fingers brushed the crack, a surge of visions slammed into him — stars collapsing, worlds unspooling into ribbons of light, creatures vast and terrible swimming through the void. He saw Caerthwyn swallowed whole, the Skyglass shattering into dust, and from the rift, beings neither dead nor alive flooding into the world.

He pulled back, gasping.

The whispers screamed.

"Please... we are lonely... we are yours..."

Tears streamed down his face. Their sadness was a living thing, wrapping around him, dragging at his soul.

But he remembered Vestra’s words. The Skyglass was failing. If he gave in now, there would be no stopping it.

Steeling himself, Arlen took the shard and pressed it against the crack. A blinding light flared. The whispers shrieked and recoiled as the fracture sealed itself, the Skyglass knitting back together with a sound like a sigh.

Then silence.

The shard crumbled into ash in his hand.

Arlen slumped to the ground, drained. The city behind him still glittered with festival lights, unaware of how close it had come to falling.

Above him, the Skyglass shimmered — whole, for now.

But deep in the corners of his mind, he could still feel them, waiting. Watching.

And whispering.