Chapter 4: Whispers Beneath the Skin
The Whispering Lot wasn't a place.
Not really.
It was a scar on the city. An empty stretch of cracked concrete behind the abandoned train depot—long-forgotten, wrapped in rusted fences and caution tape. No one went there after dark.
But Jason wasn't just anyone anymore.
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He arrived at 11:58 PM. The air felt thicker, like breathing through wet cloth. The shadows curled around the corners of the lot unnaturally, moving in ways they shouldn't. And somewhere in the windless dark, Jason heard whispers—not in his ears, but in his bones.
Then the mark on his chest began to glow.
He took a breath and stepped forward.
And the world shifted.
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The sky blinked out.
The stars vanished. The moon cracked. The ground beneath him split into dozens of jagged platforms floating in a void of purple storm clouds and swirling, echoing screams.
This was no longer Earth.
This was a Trial Plane—a shard of the Abyss pulled into physical space.
Jason's feet landed on one of the platforms just as something burst into existence across from him—a pulsing cocoon of black-veined crystal.
It cracked once.
Twice.
Then shattered.
She fell out of it like a whisper in reverse.
A girl—about his age—hit the ground hard, coughing, her long black hair matted with sweat, skin wrapped in hospital bandages that steamed as the abyssal air touched them.
Jason rushed forward, but stopped when her body jerked violently.
She screamed.
Her back arched, and black fire exploded from her arms.
A mark burned across her collarbone—different from Jason's. It spiraled like a serpent swallowing its own tail, bleeding white flame into her veins.
Her eyes opened—two silver irises glowing with raw Echo light.
Then she looked at him.
> "Who the hell are you?" she gasped.
> "Jason," he said, stunned. "Who are you?"
> "Kassandra. I think I'm dying."
A violent tremor shook the platform.
From the void, it emerged—drawn by their awakening Echoes.
A creature stitched from screaming shadows and writhing limbs, wearing the face of someone Jason once knew—his mother.
But her eyes were empty.
> "First Trial," Kassandra whispered, struggling to stand. "It's a mimic-wraith. It'll use your pain against you."
> "How do you know that?"
> "I dreamed it," she said. "Every night since the fire."
Jason turned to the mimic-wraith as it dropped onto the platform with a wet, hollow thud. Its arms unspooled into blades. Its voice was jagged glass.
> "Jason. Why didn't you save me?" it hissed in his mother's voice.
Jason flinched. His knees buckled.
But then—Kassandra grabbed his hand.
Her grip was weak, trembling—but it grounded him.
> "It's not her," she whispered. "Don't let it in."
Jason rose.
The mark on his chest flared again—brighter than before.
His skin hardened. The bruises from earlier vanished. A pulse of gravity pushed outward, and the mimic staggered.
> New Trait Unlocked: "Anchor Pulse"
"Your body now emits shockwaves of weighted will when emotionally provoked."
Kassandra's mark began to glow too—her burned arms igniting with silver-white fire.
> "I've never fought before," she said.
> "Me neither," Jason replied, lowering into a stance. "Guess we learn now."
The mimic screamed and lunged.
Two broken kids—one with the weight of the world, the other burning from the inside—charged to meet it.
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And in that moment, in that terrible place…
Jason didn't feel alone.