Chapter 4: Whispers in the Stillness

The faint sound Avra had noticed earlier didn’t fade—it grew louder. Not in volume, but in presence. It was subtle at first, like the distant hum of a machine barely audible over the silence. But the more she listened, the more it seemed to shift and change, as though it were alive.

Devereux stood motionless, his back turned to her now, staring at the horizon where the faded path stretched into the void. His stillness only amplified the strange sound, which began to feel less like a hum and more like a whisper.

Avra turned in a slow circle, her pulse quickening. The landscape hadn’t changed, but it felt different somehow. The dull, muted colors of Wonderland seemed to ripple ever so slightly, like the world was holding its breath.

“Do you hear that?” she asked.

Devereux didn’t turn to her, but his shoulders stiffened ever so slightly. “Ignore it,” he said flatly.

“What is it?” Avra pressed, her voice sharp despite herself.

“It’s nothing,” Devereux said, his tone more curt this time.

Avra frowned, taking a tentative step forward. “Nothing doesn’t make a sound.”

She moved toward the treeline where the whispers seemed to be coming from, her feet crunching softly on the brittle grass. As she approached, the sound grew clearer—not louder, but sharper, more distinct. It wasn’t just a whisper; it was multiple voices, overlapping and intertwining, as if a crowd were speaking just out of sight.

“Don’t.”

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Devereux’s voice snapped through the stillness, and Avra froze mid-step. She turned to look at him, startled by the sudden force in his tone.

“Stay where you are,” he said, finally turning to face her. His expression was hard now, his earlier calm replaced by something darker.

“Why?” Avra asked, her voice steadier than she felt.

Devereux’s eyes narrowed, his gaze piercing. “Because the whispers aren’t for you. They’re for Wonderland. And if you listen too closely, they’ll start to listen back.”

The cryptic warning sent a shiver down Avra’s spine, but it only made her more curious. “What are they saying?” she asked, her voice dropping to a whisper, as if the voices might hear her.

Devereux sighed, his shoulders slumping as if the weight of her questions was too much to bear. “They’re the echoes of those who came before you. The ones who didn’t leave. Their thoughts, their fears, their regrets… Wonderland absorbs them all. And when it’s quiet like this, it spits them back out.”

Avra swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry. “So they’re… people? The whispers are people?”

“They were,” Devereux said, his voice hollow. “Now they’re nothing but pieces of what they used to be. Memories without bodies. Echoes without purpose.”

The ground beneath Avra’s feet felt less stable now, as though it might crumble if she stood still too long. She glanced back at the trees, where the whispers continued to weave their strange, haunting melody. She could almost make out words now, though they didn’t make sense. Fragments of sentences, broken thoughts, overlapping and colliding like waves crashing against each other.

“Help us… find the door… it’s dark… it’s so dark…”

Avra’s breath hitched, and she took a step back. The whispers weren’t just voices—they were pleading.

“What happens if I follow them?” she asked, her voice trembling despite her best efforts to sound calm.

Devereux’s expression hardened further, his jaw tightening. “You don’t want to find out.”

For a moment, they stood there in silence, the whispers swirling around them like a faint, chilling breeze. Avra felt trapped, caught between her growing curiosity and the gnawing fear that Devereux might be right.

Finally, she turned back to him, her gaze steady. “Why do you stay here?” she asked. “If you know what this place does, why don’t you leave?”

Devereux’s lips twitched into a humorless smile. “Because Wonderland isn’t just my creation—it’s my cage. The moment I step outside, it’ll collapse, and everything inside it will vanish. The whispers, the echoes, the memories—they’re all tied to me.”

Avra stared at him, her mind racing. “So you’re the key,” she said slowly. “If you leave, Wonderland ends.”

Devereux nodded, his eyes glinting with something she couldn’t quite place. “Yes. But Wonderland doesn’t like to be forgotten. And neither do the ones who’ve become part of it.”

The whispers grew louder now, sharper, as if they were reacting to his words. The trees seemed to shift slightly, their dark branches reaching toward her like skeletal hands.

Avra took a step back, her pulse pounding in her ears. She didn’t know what was worse—the idea of being trapped in Wonderland forever, or the thought of what might happen if it all came crashing down.