Talla Rehn

Talla moved through Briar’s Rest with the careful, deliberate steps of someone forever bracing for something unseen. She relied on her eyes—the way they traced corners, watched shadows, measured people’s smiles. She had learned long ago that silence revealed more than sound ever could. Children waved at her from the well’s edge. Their movements were cheerful, but too synchronized—like dancers following a beat she could not hear. She felt the pattern of their motions, the rhythm in their limbs, and her throat tightened. Something was conducting them. A woman sweeping her porch paused mid-gesture, her smile frozen a heartbeat too long before snapping naturally back into place. Talla blinked hard. The illusion—whatever force crafted it—wavered around the woman’s feet, like heat haze radiating from bare ground. She passed Mira and Calder chatting near the statue in the square—only she noticed that the statue’s shadow stretched in the opposite direction of the others. Calder didn’t seem to see it at all. Mira glanced at Talla, offered a polite nod, then forgot her immediately, turning back to a conversation she looked startled to realize she’d been having. Talla exhaled. They never remember. At the bakery window, warm loaves lined the sill, steam curling lazily. She watched the baker set down a tray of buns—then, without any transition, the tray was empty again. No movement. No missing time. Just a wrongness. A cut in reality too smooth to be accidental. She approached a wall behind the inn. Messages. Dozens of them. Scratches, scrawls, and full sentences all layered over one another. Her fingers traced them. DON’T TRUST THE SONG. IT HIDES BELOW. THEY ARE NOT— The last line dissolved into nothingness before her eyes, letters writhing and unraveling. Talla stepped back, pulse pounding. She couldn’t hear the song. That should have kept her safe.