The Day the Sun Was Eclipsed, the Silence Carried Me to Another World

The heavens once trembled with the powerful voices of the gods; each spoken word was a law, each soft chant a thread that bound fate and brought about order in a chaotic world. Against Kotoba naki Mono–The Wordless One–however, their divinity faltered. Their commanding voices faltered and faded, falling away and scattering like ash on the wind. But even the wind could not carry the words of the gods far, for it too grew still as the Silence devoured their orders.

The gods hurled their power, crying out until the taste of copper was thick in the backs of their throats. Every spoken word grew quieter and less powerful. And at the center of it all, the Wordless One remained unwavering, a shadow without sound. It was Shijima no Kami, Lord of Silence, and a god forged in the same flame as The Wordless One, who remained. His hands spread wide, swallowing the battlefield into stillness as an eerie darkness fell over the land. His actions required no sound as his hands weaved a prison of silence to bind the other half of himself within the Silent Veil, a realm between two worlds. Using his voice for the first and last time, he spoke a prophecy to his fellow gods, now powerless, and any mortals that may hear:

“Silence has taken the power of the gods, but it also has the potential to create. When the blackened sun returns, the hands of silence shall awaken. Not to destroy, but to teach the gods anew.

And with those words, the gods were left scarred, their voices painfully mortal hollow echoes of what they once were. Many retreated to their temples, never to be seen again.

—

2000 years later, silence lingered on the lips of a young woman - as it had for the last 20 years.

On the rooftop of her Tokyo University, Shion Takahashi sat cross-legged alongside another 50 students or so. Much like her classmates, her grey eyes were turned upward, watching the moon pass in front of the sun from behind dark lenses as the eclipse reached its peak. Darkness spread across the Tokyo skyline in a matter of minutes, the gentle summer breeze taking on an autumnal bite.

Around her, other students murmured in excitement – some whispering conspiracy theories while others waited excitedly to be told it was safe to remove their glasses. Others took extra eclipse glasses, holding them over the cameras on their phones to snap photos. The voices carried on around her but no one bothered speaking to her. She understood them but they did not understand her.

“Alright. It is safe to remove your glasses now,” the biology professor informed them.

Shion did just that. She slowly pulled away the paper glasses and let her gaze rest on the backend sun with its ethereal crown of silver-white fire. She heard murmurs about how amazing it was and she could not agree more. Something about the site made tears well in her eyes. It was then that she noticed something strange. Perhaps it was the tears in her eyes, making the corona appear as though it was rippling, in much the same way that a pond would when disturbed. She ripples moved outward, becoming thin threads that seemed to be invisible to everyone around her. Her chest felt tight but her hands rose from her lap without a thought. “Beautiful,” she signed at no one in particular.

The air stirred slowly, becoming even more chilled. The light stirred alongside it, flowing down to her and across her fingers as if the sky itself had been waiting for centuries to “hear” her answer. Shion’s heart hammered hard; nobody around her seemed to notice. They were oblivious, chattering excitedly as she watched the sky tremble, the black sun becoming wider.

The world faded around her; voices faded first, swallowed up in an unseen tide. Shion’s hands gripped the front of her sweater, but even her heart was giving her the silent treatment. The last thing Shion saw before the world was swallowed up around her, was the black sun flaring with white fire before splitting open and drawing her in.

For the first time in Shion Takahashi’s 20 years of life, silence did not mean absence. Instead, it symbolized arrival.

–

Shion’s eyes opened slowly, frantically surveying the area around her in bleak darkness. The rooftop below her felt cold…No, it wasn’t her university’s rooftop at all. The fractured tiles and thick smell of dust and old incense, long since faded, was enough to tell her that she was no longer at the University.

She turned her head to take in more of her surroundings; the sight of looming, pillars with carved symbols and broken walls surrounded her as she lay on shattered tile. Half-words, broken verses were scrawled across the walls. They were completely unreadable, as if the walls themselves had been silenced. Her hands shook softly and her gaze fell upon them. There was a soft, silvery flow around her hands, traces of silver still wrapped around her fingers, fading quickly like the tail of a shooting star.

Shion slowly sat up, taking shallow breaths. “Where am I?” she signed to no one but herself. She was the only one that listened anyway, she thought bitterly. The feature hung in the air, however, and to her horror–or perhaps wonder–the symbols carved into the worn down and forgotten pillars flared to life, flowing faintly with pale light.

Her pulse quickened. Ah…she could hear her heart again; that was a good sign. She clutched one hand to her chest with the other as she slowly stood. The ruined temple seemed to respond, not to voice, but to the words she weaved with her hands.

A deep stillness bore down on the temple; its suffocating grip loosened only by the sound of her own uneven breathing. Though the temple halls appeared to be empty, it felt as though several sets of eyes were on her.

Stone statues lined the inner walls of the temple, displaying tall figures with either serene or pained expressions. These deities had their mouths sealed by stone bands and the fact that they had been robbed of their voices weighed on her deeply.

And yet, in the vast and hollow temple ruins, these stone figures made her feel less alone.

Shakily, she brushed dust from her jeans. The eclipse was over and the school rooftop was gone, having transformed instead into the set of something out of a fantasy game. Her legs felt unsteady as she moved forward, hands faintly shimmering. The prophecy’s final verse had been forgotten by many, but not all. It was waiting for her, and only her.