Kapitel 119: 1001st Night

Just before Fanfar's consciousness shut down, the three strands vibrated with three different sounds.

"You did it to him?" the question rumbled.

"'I found this place by chance, actually, and...'" the sentence trembled.

"Fanfar! Fanfar!" the name became a high-pitched scream, causing some of the crystal shards to crumble into dust.

As Fanfar awoke, sprawled on a cold, damp floor, the light faded and the roaring whispers dissolved. His limbs were heavy, the ache in his wrist a ghost of pain from that long-lost night. The air was thin and metallic, echoing with an unnatural silence that made his ears ring. His chest heaved as if he had been underwater too long, swallowing each breath as he tried to piece together memory.

He was no longer in the golden room. He was somewhere between the echoes of his past and the jagged edge of the present overlapped. Fanfar's hand scanned the floor, his fingers found only the wet and slippery.