The first sound came like a mistake in silence. A single metallic note rang somewhere in the ruins, faint as a spoon dropped onto stone. Elias stopped, cigarette paused at his lips, and listened. The echo folded into the hum that already lived beneath the city, that endless vibration gnawing at bone and teeth. He let the smoke out slow, eyes half-lidded. Berlin was awake again.

He walked on.

The streets were no streets anymore, only ribs of concrete, staircases climbing toward nothing, window frames like empty sockets. Dust drifted with each small tremor. Elias adjusted his scarf—once a bold red but now the color of dried brick—and pressed it against his mouth. He carried the smell of ash with him no matter how far he walked.

The hum rose and fell, not random but rhythmic, almost like breath. He passed a rusted tram where graffiti shouted in flaking white paint: THE PLAY HAS NO END. Below it, someone else had scratched a prayer in chalk: Let me sleep. Elias glanced once, then looked away. To stare too long at anything in Berlin was to risk being stared back at.

A sound scraped along the wall beside him. Not the wind. Too measured. Elias halted, fingers brushing the hilt of the knife under his coat. He tilted his head and called out softly:

"Who's there?"

Silence.

Then, a laugh. Childlike, brittle, running down the stones until it died in static.

Elias swore under his breath and kept walking. He knew better than to chase voices.

He cut across a street where iron lamp posts bent like broken reeds. Their bulbs had burst decades ago, yet one flickered faintly as he passed—buzzing, spitting out a short burst of light. He stopped and touched the cold metal. For a breath, the light flared stronger, revealing a shadow stretched across the ground that was not his. The shape stood still, too tall, face a blur. Elias spun sharply. Nothing behind him.

The scarf itched at his throat. He tightened it.

Berlin was never empty. It wore emptiness like a mask, but there were always actors behind it.

He turned into an alley where the scent changed. Less ash, more iron, sharp and tangy on the tongue. A wall bore a crude circle marked with three jagged lines. A false sigil. Not real, not branded into flesh, but a prayer painted in haste. The hand that drew it had wanted protection.

The sight pulled a memory out of him before he could resist: a man pressing a glowing brand into skin, the scream cut short, the silence after. Elias blinked hard until the image faded. The Archivists had taken too many hours from him, but some fragments still broke through.

He moved on.

Past the alley, the street widened into a square littered with debris—the remains of a market. Stalls slumped into each other, bones of wood gnawed by time. A brass bell dangled from a hook. Its clapper was gone, yet when Elias brushed by, the air trembled with a faint metallic ring. Not sound, exactly. More like memory echoing where it had once lived.

Elias stopped. "Not funny," he said, voice low.

The ring faded, replaced by the hum pressing closer under his skin.

At the edge of the square stood a woman. She wore gray rags, a scarf hiding her hair, and cradled something to her chest. Elias stiffened. The thing in her arms might have been a child—or a doll.

She lifted her face. A pale scar traced her jaw, patterned and deliberate, the residue of a sigil once burned into her. Her eyes locked with his, empty for a moment, then clear as glass.

"Silence," she said.

The word was not spoken but placed into the air like an object. The moment it landed, the square seemed to pause. No wind. No hum. Only absence.

Elias didn't answer. He tugged his scarf higher, avoiding her stare, and walked past. He caught her scent briefly, lavender under ash. Behind her, the child-shaped bundle shifted, and a pair of hands clapped twice—hollow, mechanical.

He did not look back.

The streets narrowed again, twisting through towers of rubble. Elias could feel the city drawing him on, pulling him toward the Hall of Rail. That was the rumor, the prize. A fragment hidden there—enough to buy him time with the Archivists, enough to keep breathing.

The hum deepened as he drew closer, vibrating in the soles of his boots. Once, he thought he heard words in it. A chorus too quiet to make sense:

Applaud.Enter.Play.

He lit another cigarette to steady his hands and whispered into the smoke:

"This is a mistake."

But he kept walking.

The Hall of Rail loomed like a carcass of iron and glass. Its gate rose crooked, ribs of steel bent inward, and the name once carved above had peeled away in flakes. Elias stood before it, cigarette burning low between his fingers, and listened to the hum vibrating against the bones of the station. It felt less like a sound than a command: enter.

He crushed the cigarette under his heel and shoved the gate. The hinges groaned, a drawn-out wail, and the echo swelled inside the cavernous hall.

Light cut through the broken roof in pale shafts, dust floating like suspended ash. Tracks stretched across the floor, eaten by rust, while rows of wooden benches leaned at angles. A faint draft slipped between them, carrying the scent of oil and old blood.

Elias moved with slow steps, knife ready in his pocket. The sound of his boots carried farther than it should have, bouncing against the walls. The mannequins appeared first: a dozen of them seated on benches, torsos stiff, faces painted with faded lipstick or charcoal eyes. Some had no features at all, just smooth plaster where a mouth should be.

He passed between them and felt the weight of an audience. His chest tightened.

"Not my stage," he muttered, low, as if the hall itself might hear.

The mannequins did not move. Yet he thought one of them tilted its head a fraction when he turned away.

A noise came from the far platform. Something metallic clinking, like coins shuffled in a hand. Elias advanced, slow, each step measured.

A man crouched near the rails. Thin, pale, wrapped in a long coat that had once been military green. His hands worked through a pile of broken glass, turning each piece as though inspecting it for value. When he looked up, his eyes glistened too brightly, pupils wide, irises dulled to gray.

"You're late," the man said. His voice cracked, thin as paper.

Elias frowned. "I wasn't invited."

The man laughed softly, like paper tearing. He raised one wrist, scarred with neat horizontal lines. Between them, a blackened mark burned deep into flesh. A sigil. Old, pitted, incomplete, but still alive.

"Everything here is invitation," the man said. "We're all chosen, whether we accept or not."

Elias felt the hum rise at those words, pressing harder against his ears. "I don't play."

"Everyone plays." The man gestured with his shard of glass, pointing toward a notice pinned to the far wall. A scrap of yellow paper curled at the edges, ink faded but legible:

AUDITIONS TONIGHT. BRING SCRIPT. NO EXCEPTIONS.

Beneath it, in darker hand, another line had been added: Bring truth.

Elias clenched his jaw. "What's the fragment?"

The man smiled, showing teeth too sharp. "Fragments don't belong to men like you. They belong to the Stage."

Before Elias could reply, something above shifted. Footsteps moved along the balcony, soft and deliberate. He lifted his eyes and saw a silhouette glide across the upper gallery: long-limbed, posture upright, fingers drumming against the railing. The figure paused and leaned forward. Elias could not see a face, only a mask of shadow, but he felt the pressure of being seen, as if a spotlight had fallen on him alone.

The crouching man chuckled. "The audience is here."

Elias swore under his breath and turned away, scanning for exits. The mannequins behind him had changed. A moment ago they were still. Now their hands rested together in their laps, fingers bent as if ready to clap.

"Stop it," Elias said sharply, though he wasn't sure to whom.

Silence answered.

Then, one by one, the mannequins began to clap. Slow, hollow, their palms striking in eerie unison. The sound filled the hall like thunder rolling over stone.

The crouching man rose, spreading his arms as though soaking in applause. His coat opened, revealing ribs that jutted against skin too pale, as if his body had forgotten how to hold flesh.

"See?" he said. "You're already part of it."

Elias pulled his knife free. The blade caught the dim light, a brief flash of steel. He didn't advance. He knew better than to lunge without purpose. The Stage rewarded spectacle, not survival.

Above, the silhouette on the gallery leaned farther, hands gripping the railing. The hum intensified, rattling through Elias's skull. The clapping grew faster, faster still, until it was no longer clapping but a roar of noise, a storm of hollow palms.

Elias steadied his breath. "I came for one thing," he whispered. "Then I'm gone."

The man with the sigil grinned, glass shard glinting in his hand. "You don't take from here. You give. The Stage feeds, and it always eats first."

The mannequins' clapping stopped. The silence afterward was suffocating. Elias raised his knife, every muscle tight.

The spotlight sensation pressed down harder, and for the first time, Elias felt a pull behind his eyes—as if something else were flipping through his thoughts like a script, looking for the right line.

The Stage wanted him to speak.