Chapter 3 – Part I: The City Without Sound

The world didn't break this time.
It faded.

One moment Yusuf was staring at the altar—its light dying under his fingers—and the next, he was. here.

He stood on cracked cobblestones, alone, in a city where the air itself was suffocated. The sky was weighed down with colorless clouds, gray on top of gray, so low they came almost to scraping against the roofs of the high, needle-thin towers that hemmed him in.

Nothing moved.
Nothing was heard.

Yusuf breathed carefully. He couldn't hear it.
His own heartbeat—silent.
His shoes scraped stone. Still nothing.

Not even a whisper of wind.

This is not silence, he reasoned. This is being cast out of sound itself.

He stepped forward onto the vacant street. The high, spindly buildings stretched out, slanted inward as if they'd been waiting for something that never came. Fragments of broken bells carpeted the corners like fruit dropped from lifeless trees.

And then he saw them.

The people.

They weren't statues—but they weren't alive, either.

Some sat cross-legged in little clumps, mouths open in rigid laughter. Others froze in mid-dance or mid-song on instruments broken long ago.

They all moved in slow, dreamy motions. Again. And again.

A woman stirred a pot that had dried up long ago.

A boy kicked at a ball that wasn't there.

A man struck a copper drum—silent.

Memory loops. Trapped people reliving pieces of their final moments before this crash.

Yusuf's gut roiled. It was as if walking through a cemetery of the mind.

He had walked what felt like an hour. Time didn't matter here. Every corner presented another cold repetition. Every step was too smooth. Too perfect.

And then he saw the towers.
Standing atop one was a figure.

Tall. Armored. Hug in red and black cloth that did not flutter in the air. Its head was a bronze disc with a vertical slit, a sundial divided in two.

A guardian. Observing.

Yusuf's breath colder still.

He rotated slowly—no sudden motion.

But his foot snagged on a piece of broken chime. He lost balance—and fell.

The guardian moved.

Not swift. Not loud. But incorrect. Stuttering forward from the roof to the sidewalk in a frantic bound of distance. A single blink, and it had covered half the block.

Yusuf ran.

He ran between the buildings, trying to stay low, trying not to think. His own pulse ringing back in his ears—not as sound, but pressure.

The guardian followed. Quiet. Unpredictable. Repugnant.

He cut a corner—and someone yanked him suddenly out of a doorway in the wall.

Yusuf fought.

"Ssshh—don't move!" a voice hissed. "You're real. That's all that matters right now."

They huddled in and shut the metal door. The silence muffled even the vibration of it.

The room they entered was dark except for the pale blue glow of smoky crystals.

The man who saved him struck a small chime rod on the wall—Yusuf heard a faint ping. His hearing returned like someone unclogging a blocked ear.

“There. We’re safe. For now.”

He was tall but wiry, with ash-gray clothes stitched with copper wire. His face was streaked with soot and oil, and a broken gear hung from a chain around his neck.

"Name's Kael," he said, brushing dust off his gloves. "Bell-smith. Or was. Now I'm just your average paranoid scavenger trying not to get wiped out."

Yusuf gasped.

"I'm… I don't know why I'm here. But I think I'm supposed to fix this."

Kael looked him over from head to foot.

"You're not from any continent I've ever heard of."

"Cairo," Yusuf said, then paused. "It's. probably not on your charts."

Kael laughed once, dry as papyrus.

"Alright, you fell out of the blue with both legs intact. So let the world require you here. For the time being."

Kael's hideout was little more than a squatting old sub-chamber beneath a forgotten resonance well. But it was safe, and better yet, it had enough wrecked instruments to rebuild a mini orchestra.

Yusuf finally broke his long silence.

"The ones above… are they alive?"

Kael sat cross-legged on an ancient rusty bell casing.

"Matters what you mean by alive. They're there, just. trapped. The previous war used sonic weapons—wiped out memories like pen and parchment. Crashed the city's resonance core. Some of them didn't die—they just stopped changing."

"You weren't injured?"

"Was in a basement tuning a harmonic vault when the wave hit. Guess being in a soundproof room saved me. The others?" He gestured vaguely upwards. "Memory soup."

Kael poured two tin mugs full of water and passed one over.

"You're more than a tourist," he said, after a pause.

"Yusuf stalled. Then drew out the Codex from his coat. It hummed subtly.

"This reminds me of memory fractures. I repair what's been broken."

Kael's eyes widened.

"You've got a weaver's device."

"I believe it's something more than that. It's… like it selects the next anchor."

Kael set his cup aside and unwrapped a worn cloth bundle. Inside were pieces of tuning forks, harmonic stones, and something unusual—a bell-shaped pendant, tarnished with age.

"This was my wife's," he said softly. "She was a sound-weaver. Now she just. tunes a harp over and over in the Plaza of Dissonance. Doesn't even see me."

Yusuf gulped hard.

"Maybe we can restore her.".

Kael did not say a word. He merely looked at the bell. Then tucked it away.

They spent the rest of the night charting the city off rooftops and back alleys. Kael taught him how to avoid the guardians.

"They don't listen, but they do notice movement. Break rhythm, and they know you're not in on it."

"So what do you do if you get caught?"

Kael did not answer at first.

Then:

"You lose yourself. Or worse—your memory shatters. You remember the false version of yourself. I witnessed a man forget that he had legs. Just lie there for days until he looped out."

Yusuf winced.

As twilight fell—though the sky never really darkened—they arrived at an ancient amphitheater overrun by collapsed spires. Shattered murals adorned the walls: images of the Bell of Origin, an artifact said to strike the city's soul.

The Codex vibrated.

"Close of anchor point," Yusuf replied.

Kael frowned.

"That close?"

"Below us. Maybe in the vault under this stage."

A guardian soared overhead, scanning the rooftops.

Yusuf closed his fist over the Codex.

Kael pulled out a pouch.

"We'll leave at dawn. Fewer patrols. If what you have actually works, you might be the first chance this city's seen to wake.".

They rested that night in a cracked bell tower, curled under dusty tarps and forgotten banners. The silence was almost peaceful now.

Before sleep took them, Kael asked:

“Why you?”

“I don’t know,” Yusuf admitted. “I’m not a hero. I’m just someone who remembers things others try to forget.”

Kael stared up at the broken dome.

“Then maybe you’re exactly what this place needs.”