— Where the Cry Began

【SYSTEM NOTICE】

【Trial Code: The Nest of Echoes | Submodule One: Mistvale】【Module initializing...】

Consciousness unfurled—slowly, like an old letter pried open by an unseen hand.

Ellie felt her memories turning, page after page, until a village formed behind a veil of mist.

Tiled roofs, eaves sagging with years, doors polished to bone by countless hands.

All half-swallowed in a milky, motionless fog—

a place where dream and waking had not yet fully parted.

This was Mistvale.

She knew it.

Her body remembered.

It wasn't in any database. No map could name it.

It was the place she had buried as a child—

locked away, never erased.

Beneath her feet: worn slate stones, gray-blue like fragmented memory.

On each slab, flickers of what had been lost—

an empty dinner table, chairs waiting for no one.

A doll left on a doorstep, eyes unblinking.

A grove of gnarled trees, shadows whispering her name.

No clocks.

No radios, no screens.

Even time seemed adrift here—pale and weightless.

Only birds called, soft and sparse—

as though they, too, obeyed the ancient rule:

Too much noise will wake the mountain spirit.

And in the mist, Ellie saw—not her own shadow—

but a small, frail girl.

Grimy hands. Knees tucked under a faded skirt.

Cloth shoes, laces coming undone.

She was LuLu.

Her seven-year-old self.

Shoulders too slight. A neck thin as a reed.

Eyes wide and unguarded—

the kind that felt every chill, heard every silence,

and spoke from the heart... only to be met with nothing.

She remembered.

Her grandmother had warned her:

The mountain has ears.

It doesn't like noisy children.

So LuLu learned.

To whisper.

To walk without sound.

To cry without a voice.

Even when storms raged in her chest,

she let them pass—like wind through shuttered windows.

Sometimes she wondered—

Was she too loud inside?

Is that why her parents never returned?

They had come back once.

Mother, hair tied neatly.

Father, shoes impeccably clean—like visitors from another world.

They brought candy.

A pink hat.

LuLu ran to hug her father's leg.

But he stepped back.

"Don't get me dusty. I've got a ride to catch."

And time splintered.

They never came back.

Only Grandma remained—

cooking, washing, telling stories at night.

Her eyes clouded with age,

her voice always soft:

"When they've made enough money, your mom and dad will come for you."

LuLu would nod.

Then whisper, just to herself:

"Then I'll grow slower... and wait for them."

She learned to wait.

To wait for homecoming.

To wait for the knock on the door.

But the village door was too old.

Its iron ring hung rusted through.

No sound ever came.

So she went to the hillside instead.

To wait.

LuLu stood motionless—

gazing at the ridge that seemed more mirage than mountain.

Beyond it lay the city.

The place her parents had vanished into.

Twilight fell.

The sky softened, like a memory fading at the edges.

Birds returned to their trees.

Silence settled, patient and complete.

She raised her small lantern—

inside, a stub of Grandma's candle flickered, fragile but unyielding.

A light that waited with her.

Then she turned,

and walked down the slope.

Step by step.

With every step, another lantern drifted from the sky,

settling softly on the path ahead.

Guides. Or witnesses.

And from the mist, she heard a child whisper:

"Mom... I have a fever..."

“You said you'd be back by summer... but it's winter again."

---

Now Ellie stood inside the architecture of a memory.

The child's scream reverberated within her—

until the voice broke, and nothing remained but silence.

No one had ever answered.

Something tightened in her chest, sharp and deep.

She reached out, touching the nearest lantern.

The scene rippled—like water disturbed by remembrance.

She stepped into it—onto that road of silence and waiting—

and walked beside her younger self,

who carried the light as though it were the last piece of hope.

"I remember now... That day, you said you weren't cold.

But your hands... they were shaking."

Ellie knelt, tying the child's loose shoelaces.

But her own fingers trembled—

not from the cold,

but from an emotion long buried, now rising with painful clarity.

Then the final lantern descended.

No cries this time.

No calls.

Only a dim room.

A candle guttering low.

LuLu lay curled beneath a thin blanket, forehead burning,

her eyes open, but voiceless.

She pulled the covers tighter around herself.

Ellie knew that gesture too well.

She stepped into the faint glow, knelt beside the feverish child, and reached out—

not to comfort,

but to confirm.

This had happened.

Her hand rested on the girl's chest.

There it was. Faint—

but steady.

A heartbeat crossing time—

perfectly in sync with her own.

---

"Do you remember this place?"

Trial Cat's voice.

It perched on the eaves, tail swaying softly, ice-blue eyes glowing in the dusk—

no longer just a guide.

Something quieter.

A friend, waiting for her to see clearly.

"This is the core memory extracted by the Nest of Echoes. Untouched. Unfiltered."

Ellie's throat tightened.

"...Untouched?" she whispered, as if the word itself might break her.

"You need to find the moment—the one that bent you, the one that stayed."

Ellie shook her head, a sharp, small motion.

"I... I don't want to see it."

Trial Cat's tail flicked once.

"The moment you first believed: no one is coming."

The words struck. Ellie flinched.

Her breath caught.

She hugged herself tightly.

"...I was only a child," she said, voice fraying.

The cat did not move. Its silence felt heavier than the fog.

Ellie lifted her gaze to the misted sky.

For a long time she stood still—

shoulders trembling, lips sealed against sound.

Then—finally—she nodded.

Trial Cat's tone cooled, precise and cutting:

"This isn't a replica. Mistvale exists. But this... isn't the village.

It's memory, given shape. A place inside you—

the place where no answer ever came."

Ellie opened her mouth, but no words emerged.

And yet, her eyes had changed.

She was no longer the child begging for a reply—

but the one finally ready to face the wound.

---

A nightingale cried in the distance—

muted, muffled, like a song heard through deep water.

The village felt sealed behind glass.

Sound could not escape.

Emotion could not reach.

Even time hung suspended—

pale and powerless.

At last, she spoke.

Her voice was soft as wind through fog:

"So I'm still inside it... aren't I?"

Trial Cat waited.

Silent. Still.

When it spoke again, its words landed like snow on old paper:

"This is the first trial of the path you chose.

The Nest of Echoes.

The first of the Seven Gates.

And here—

you must finally hear the one who never stopped crying.

It will stay with you. Forever."

Ellie’s breath hitched.

Her chest ached—as though the cry was already rising, clawing its way out.

The mist thickened, pressing closer.

【SYSTEM NOTICE】Echo recognition initializing...

Emotional residue: CRITICAL.

Childhood isolation structure: LOCKING SEQUENCE... irreversible.

【TRIAL OBJECTIVE】:

Face the Cry That Never Ended.

> > Progress will remain frozen until resonance is complete.

A single lantern flared to life at her feet—

its flame wavering, as if waiting for her to take the first step.