Scene 16: Back to the Surface
Carter clawed upward through the rubble with broken fingers, dragging Arjun behind him. They emerged beneath a bruised sky, soaked in cold morning light.
The air was sharp. Birds sang faintly in the distance.
For a moment, it was over.
But neither man spoke.
Because they couldn't.
Their voices had been stolen.
---
Scene 17: The Ambulance
They were found hours later—two men collapsed outside a mine sealed for decades.
Authorities arrived. Paramedics took vitals. No obvious wounds beyond dehydration and shock.
But Carter didn't blink. Arjun screamed silently, mouth wide, until his jaw dislocated.
No one could explain the burns on their tongues.
Or the black veins crawling up their necks.
---
Scene 18: Elise's Camera
Elise's camera was found near the mine's mouth.
Still recording.
When played back, the footage began normally—exploration, tension, descent.
Then static.
And then...
Darkness.
In that darkness, audio experts found a near-silent frequency. A tone so low it was felt more than heard.
Sped up, the waveform formed a shape.
A mouth.
Open. Waiting.
---
Scene 19: Carter's Room
Weeks passed.
Carter sat in a psychiatric ward in upstate New York, eyes always fixed on corners, like he was listening to something others couldn't hear.
He refused to eat. Refused to sleep.
One night, he scrawled something into his wall with a plastic spoon:
> "It doesn't echo because it's listening."
The next morning, he was gone.
No sign of escape. No broken locks.
Only a whisper in the room, caught faintly on a night nurse's recorder:
"…below…"
---
Scene 20: Arjun's Silence
Arjun didn't last as long.
After a failed attempt to cut out his own eardrums, he was placed in solitary for his safety.
That night, they found him dead.
Mouth stretched too wide. Jaw shattered.
Hands still gripping his own throat.
On the wall, drawn in his blood:
"It's louder in the quiet."
---
Scene 21: The Spread
People in the town near Briar Glen began to complain.
Voices in basements.
Radios turning on by themselves.
Children waking up with bleeding ears.
And always, the same thing:
No echoes.
The silence began to spread like a virus—slow, patient, hungry.
---
Scene 22: The Researcher's Tape
Months later, a podcast producer found Carter's field tapes.
He listened.
The audio hissed. Something muttered beneath it—like words rearranged from stolen sounds.
On the final tape, Carter's voice returned for one line:
> "The mine wasn't sealed to keep people out.
It was sealed to keep it in."
The tape ended with the unmistakable sound of breathing.
But no one in the room was moving.
---
Scene 23: Legacy
The mine is still sealed.
But fences can be cut.
The town remains empty. The birds have stopped singing.
Tourists say you can hear your own voice calling you from inside the mine at night.
Sometimes it's crying.
Sometimes it's screaming.
But it never echoes.
Because echoes are answers.
And whatever lives in the silence—
Wants to be heard.