The Town Whispers: Season 1

Chapter 6: In the Clutch of a Whisper

You are we now, and we who are many shall multiply. We shall multiply and you shall provide to each a piece of yourself, and through your sacrifice we shall spread. We are dust and shadow.

Perspective is a curious thing. Perspective can make a world of difference, and from Albit's perspective the moment he met Mildred was an entirely different moment in time, as if his world and hers were separate and looking at a reflection of one another.

Albit lay there, his body immobile. Laying there in a room which felt foreign and frightening. He could feel his skin resting uncomfortably on his face, and arms and chest and legs, as if it was no longer attached, no longer his own, and within that rotten chrysalis, that fetid mess of skin that sat on his bones, he was melting and reforming and becoming something other than himself, he could feel his flesh knitting together, he could feel the bones of his jaw burning and melting and reforming, he could feel his ribs popping and bending, bending to the point of snapping like brittle twigs, and where his heart had once been beating, and warm and... human, he could feel nothing but a nibbling, and he could feel each small mouthful, eating away at his heart, eating at the core of him.....and all the while it....spoke to him.

You are we now, and we who are many shall multiply. We shall multiply and you shall provide to each a piece of yourself, and through your sacrifice we shall spread.

You will give your body, you will give your soul, you will spread the whispers of the long shadows.

We are dust and shadow

Albit didn't know what the long shadows were, who they were, where they were, and he didn't care. The moment Mildred had reached down and caressed Albit's hair had given him something to hold to, something to hold tight too as the world seemed to be fighting him, and casting him down at every turn.

Mildred look to Albit as he lay there in his firm, and unfamiliar bed, to be plain, and it was true that Mildred was very plain, but there was something about her, a liveliness that lived at the edge of her eye. And she smelt like home, she smelt like bread, she smelt like comfort. It was an earthy smell, a natural smell, one that spoke to Albit. It was a promise of something he'd never had, something that he'd been denied.

And when she left, reprimanded by Mother Cyprian, Albit cried.

He couldn't cry in heaving waves, his body wouldn't listen to his heart and obey the way he wanted it too, the way it should have, but he felt tears leak from his eyes in an underwhelming trickle, and he hated that he couldn't wipe them away and hide his loneliness, as a boy should always do, as his father had always told him to do.

As the days passed, as Albit was left alone in his dark sterile room, with only a nun or two coming in every few days to sweep and change the bed sheets, no food no water, Albit was left with the solitary and sweet memory of Mildred, the smell of home, and hope.

He had hope. For the first time in as long as he could remember he had hope.

Hope for the future, hope that he wouldn't one day command his own body once again, hope that he would command those legs of his to stand, and walk. And he would walk to Mildred's, and he'd raise his arm, and knock on her door, and she'd answer, and they'd share a moment, like the moment they had shared at his bedside.

But instead of pity, she would see him for him, what was in him, who he was and who he could become with her, because of her, and she would reach out and stroke his hair once more, not out of pity but out of affection, and she'd smile and her eyes would not be filled with pity for Albit, but love.

Albit lay there day in and day out, staring at the high above him, thinking of Mildred, loving the idea of Mildred, and his eyes once again granting him sight, no longer were they milky and cataracted but clear and insightful, and very much alive looking toward his future, and seeing Mildred once more, someday when he was free of his bed, but the voice which was his own but not of his own thoughts that had unrelentingly been at his side since that day in the cave promised him another future, once which he wanted no part in.

You are we now, and we who are many shall multiply. We shall multiply and you shall provide to each a piece of yourself, and through your sacrifice we shall spread,

You will give your body, you will give your soul, you will spread the whispers of the long shadows,

You are changed, you are molded in the image of the long shadows... you are the father of whispers,

We are dust and shadow.