Beneath the Silence,

Silence is the oldest lock. Someone beneath that lock heard things they were never meant to hear: cries for help swallowed by iron gates as they clanged shut, whispers seeping through the cracks in stone walls late at night, and unspoken deals amid the rustling clothes in the stands. Then he picked up a knife. Patterns ran along its blade, and light glimmered within them. It was faint, almost nonexistent, but it knew him. Whenever he was on the verge of giving up, it shone. And every time it did, a stretch of time vanished from his memory. He couldn't remember what had happened during it. But something in the darkness was retreating. Eyes from above were gathering. Deeper still, names buried for ages began crawling out of the sand. The veins stood out on the hand gripping the knife, and blood ran down the hilt. He didn't know who he was, where the knife had come from, or what those midnight whispers were saying. He knew only one thing: Silence was cracking. And he stood at the very center of the fracture.