It was a buzz.
An annoying sound of thousands of mosquitoes beating their wings in a silent void. The sound stirred something in him. Eyes tore open.
Darkness surrounded everything, engulfing his sight and his sense of touch, except for that low buzz.
Memories crashed into him.
A man. Otherworldly in presence, draped in gold cloth sewn together from stars... galaxies... universes. Bright golden hair and a pair of eyes that dug a pit within him. Gold surrounded the figure like a profound witness muttering his purity. There was laughing. And then a great sadness. The man plunged his hands into him. Caught off guard, he only stared.
Then a flicker. The scenes shifted sporadically. Memories of power and a silent divine kingdom that stretched across expanses. The betrayal tasted bitter... like blood.
[CORE SYSTEM INITIALIZING...]
[INTEGRITY CHECK: 0.67% — CRITICAL STATE]
[SOVEREIGN PROTOCOL: ACTIVE]
[NOTICE: YOUR DIVINE KINGDOM HAS FALLEN INTO SILENCE. WELCOME BACK, ANCESTOR.]
What is this?
Lin Wu's vision cleared. Above him, the grain of decaying stone pressed close. Below, his spine sprawled against an uncomfortably hard surface. Based on its molecular vibrations, it was something solid. More stone, he concluded. The same met him on both his left and right. With hands folded to his chest, he found no space to maneuver.
A coffin? I'm dead? No.
The spiraling warmth of his breath bouncing off the lid above him signaled as much. He stretched thin until his fingertips brushed against the stone coffin cover.
To his mild surprise, it catapulted and crashed into something. Its fate was known; it broke apart like simple clay, coloring his vision in spikes of bright colors and a dull ring that raked his ears.
Cold blue flames danced above, held in sets of sconces that lined the upper walls of the space he inhabited. Although unsavory, the meager light revealed the decrepit mausoleum.
Ancient engravings were covered in dust, and cracks populated the four walls.
Tumbling out of the coffin, Lin Wu walked around the small space. He surveyed every inch of it. A gigantic mural to the left of the coffin drew his gaze. For a full minute, he observed every inch of it.
The story unfolded vividly. It depicted a man who rose above the rest and established an organization that dominated eras before he fell from grace. Most of the mural was incomplete; only half of the story was told.
Lin Wu wondered for a moment. Could the man depicted in the mural be him? Was it purely decorative? And if so, what connection was there to the fractured memories he held?
The annoying buzz returned. This time it didn't remain a low hum; it progressed into an aggressive sawing that pierced his hearing. Covering his ears did nothing to mute the noise.
[ALERT: SENSORY FRICTION DETECTED]
"I am the Echo of your Divine Consciousness—the Archive of your fallen state. Do not resist the interference. You are attempting to fight the frequency of a lesser world. This 'Buzz' is not a sound; it is the raw data of the living. To fight it is to create Noise. To accept it is to begin the Audit."
[INSTRUCTION: RELAX THE SOUL-ANCHOR. FOCUS ON THE CORE OF THE VIBRATION. TRANSLATE THE NOISE.]
He didn't question; he followed. Anything that ensured the piercing sensation would stop was fine. Though quite tricky at first, he eventually dialed in on the buzz.
Instead of letting the sound expand outward, he pinpointed its locus of control and zoomed in. Once he reached its kernel, a new world unfolded.
As the voice stated, the buzzing wasn't merely an annoying sound meant to kill him. Rather, it belonged to living beings.
And this particular sound brought him above ground. He saw the world above not through sight, but through sound. Even the colors and fragmentations of light couldn't hide from him.
Some part of him filtered every microscopic vibration into separate bands, filing everything until a vivid picture of the world above him took shape.
Gigantic trees swayed underneath heavy winds that howled like lone wolves. The cloying scent of wet dirt submerged the forest.
Even the moon's silver-blue glow struggled to filter through the canopy, spreading pockets and patches of darkness that engulfed the vegetation.
The mausoleum existed at the center of a series of circling trees that bent inward in reverence to a spot of decayed grass in the middle.
It was a death zone avoided by all, including the ants and critters that scurried in all directions the moment they reached the invisible barrier.
A minute's walk away from the mausoleum, teenagers played. No...playing was inaccurate.
Bullying. One kid, paler than a white wall, stood at the center, surrounded by boys more than half his size again.
"It's deaf and dumb Shen the coward," one of the kids stepped out of the circle and towered over Shen.
"Yeah. Madam Su said that being born deaf means your parents killed innocent people. It's a curse," another boy added oil to the fire.
Shen looked at the assailants with a level of calm that did little to alleviate the situation. His crystal-clear eyes gazed at Mo Lin, the boy who loomed over him.
His lips remained silent, a line thinner than a needle. Angered, Mo Lin pushed Shen into the ground.
Twigs snapped, and a jolt of pain colored Shen's gaze. It traveled from his eyes into his tightly pursed lips.
"Elder Wu said that cursed boys curse other people too. Now that I think about it, he killed your sister, Mo Lin," another boy drifted into his thoughts before coming to that conclusion.
Hearing this, Mo Lin snapped. He threw a devastating punch that clobbered Shen's jaw into the dirt.
Blood from his cut lip sprayed a distance, carried by the wind. Shen shivered, dragging himself away from Mo Lin.
"Say something, you freak," Mo Lin walked closer.
Shen held everything in and moved back until he hit a pair of boots. A moment later, someone squeezed his shoulders, lifted him, and threw him back into the center.
This time he screamed... but nothing came. Just a soundless miming of what should have been a scream, accompanied by a low guttural vibration.
Mo Lin awaited his return with a wound-up fist that landed squarely against his kidneys.
Shen's legs folded and he collapsed. The color of pain painted a vivid portrait of scrunched facial features that twisted and curled tightly against his skull.
Again, he tried moving away, but another boy lifted him up. This time he struggled and squirmed, but the boy's grip was stronger than anything he had experienced. It locked him in place.
Mo Lin used him like a punching bag as the other boys cheered. Held in place with no strength to struggle, Shen just watched as bruises and fractures piled onto each other.
Tears dripped down his cheeks, but even that silent hope that all of it would stop never came. Eventually, his vision blurred until it blackened.
The boy who held him felt Shen's weight collapse as all resistance faded. Fear struck him in that instant, and he let go.
But Mo Lin didn't care and continued pounding into Shen's body.
The other boys quickly noticed that something was wrong; Shen wasn't moving, let alone twitching. Quickly, they pulled Mo Lin off.
When the anger subsided, Mo Lin saw Shen's limp figure sprawled in the dirt, blood pooling underneath him.
For a moment, something flickered in his eyes; a deep fear.
He'd killed someone... with his bare hands. He hardened his gaze and gestured for three boys to pick Shen up.
"He is dead. No one speak of this. Else—" Mo Lin mustered as much bass as he could while pinning needles into the skin of the six boys with his gaze. "We'll toss him by the forbidden part of the forest. No one ever goes there. I'm sure a wild beast will have eaten him before then."
The boys looked at Mo Lin with an emotion that briefly transcended fear and followed through with what was said. One of the stronger boys picked Shen up onto his shoulders.
"Trust me. It's better if we keep this a secret. Mo Lin, Lui Gang, Su Yen, and the rest of you, if this gets out, we'll be tried for murder. Us four will definitely only get off with a light punishment. The rest of you?" Meng Zhang, one of the boys, said.
Those who thought of telling the elders to avoid being implicated had second thoughts. Most of them were mere commoners. Even though Mo Lin dealt the beating and the kill, they were more likely to be blamed for the death.
The boys hiked through the forest until they reached the inner part where the forbidden grounds lay. They tossed Shen into the center and quickly left the area.