Chapter 112 The Wind Carries His Voice
The village was gone.
Not just burned. Not just buried. Erased.
Where homes once stood, there was now a shimmering crater of fractured time and memory. The air buzzed with static, and the wind whispered things I didn’t want to understand.
We stood at the edge of it, silent.
Zeke broke first.
“Well,” he said, kicking a rock into the void. “That’s one way to cancel a town meeting.”
Thessa didn’t laugh. She just stared at the crater like she could will it back into existence.
“I had friends here,” she whispered.
Kael put a hand on her shoulder. “They probably hated you less than we do.”
She didn’t smile. None of us did.
Except Zeke, who was still trying to figure out if the crater could be monetized.
“If we charge admission,” he said, “we could call it the ‘Milo Hole.’ Very dramatic. Very tragic. Very profitable.”
Yuel groaned. “You’re the reason we need therapy.”
“I am therapy,” Zeke replied. “I’m the coping mechanism you didn’t ask for.”
Ellira sat cross-legged on the ground, sketching the crater’s edges. “The Void’s expanding. Slowly. But it’s not random. It’s following Milo’s emotional trail.”
Lira raised an eyebrow. “So, we’re tracking a magical apocalypse by following his feelings? Great. We’re doomed.”
Aine stood beside me, her face calm but pale. “He’s still in there,” she said. “Somewhere.”
I wanted to believe her.
But his smile keeps playing in my head.
And the wind was whispering again.
And it was using Milo’s voice.
We camped near the ruins that night.
No one slept.
Thessa tried to meditate. Kael sharpened his sword for the fifth time. Lira read a book titled How to Emotionally Detach From Your Exploding Friends. Zeke roasted marshmallows over a flameborn ember and offered them to the Void.
It took one.
“I think it liked it,” he said.
Yuel stared into the darkness. “I think it’s planning to eat us next.”
Ellira was drawing again. This time, she sketched Milo’s face. But it wasn’t the Milo we knew. It was the one we saw last—smiling, eyes full of Void, waving like he’d just finished a school play.
“I hate that he waved and smiled,” I said.
Aine looked at me. “He wanted you to remember him.”
“I’d rather forget. I would rather forget what he has done. The guilt that he is going to feel when we get him back is going to make it that much harder to keep him here.”
She didn’t reply.
Because she knew I didn’t mean it. Well, she knew that I didn’t mean all of it. Some of what I said was true.
Maybe it all was.
The wind picked up around midnight.
It carried whispers.
Milo’s voice.
“Mo… I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t mean to break it.”
“I didn’t mean to break you.”
I stood, heart pounding.
“Did anyone else hear that?” I asked.
Thessa nodded. “Yep. Definitely haunted.”
Kael drew his sword. “If he’s going to monologue from the wind, I’m stabbing the air.”
Zeke held up a marshmallow. “Try bribing it first.”
Aine closed her eyes. “He’s reaching out. But not to us. To himself.”
“What does that even mean?” Yuel asked. “Is he journaling in the Void?”
Ellira looked up. “He’s trying to remember who he was. But the Void keeps rewriting him.”
Lira sighed. “So, we’re chasing a boy who’s emotionally unstable, magically corrupted, and dimensionally slippery. Fantastic.”
I stepped into the wind.
“Milo,” I whispered. “Come back.”
The wind paused.
And then it laughed.
The next morning, the crater was bigger.
The ley lines around it were bleeding violet light, and the trees nearby had started whispering in Milo’s voice.
One tree asked Zeke if he regretted stealing Thessa’s spellbook.
Zeke screamed and ran.
Thessa chased him.
Kael muttered something about burning the forest down.
Aine placed her hand on one of the trees and closed her eyes.
“He’s not doing this on purpose,” she said. “The Void is amplifying his guilt. Every regret becomes a storm.”
“So, what you’re saying,” Yuel said, “is that Milo’s emotional baggage is now a natural disaster.”
“Basically,” Ellira replied.
Lira stood. “We need to find him. Before he turns all of Aeloria into a therapy session.”
We followed the ley lines.
They led us to a cliff overlooking the sea.
The water was wrong.
It shimmered with Void energy, and the waves whispered names—ours, mostly. And Talon’s.
I felt sick.
Aine stepped forward, her light pushing back the darkness.
“He’s close,” she said.
And then the sky cracked.
Again.
Milo appeared in the air above the sea.
Floating.
Glowing.
Smiling.
He looked down at us like we were old friends he’d forgotten how to love.
“Mo,” he said. “You came.”
I stepped forward. “Milo, stop this.”
“I can’t,” he replied. “I’m not broken anymore. I’m free.”
The sea surged.
The cliff trembled.
The Void pulsed.
“You’re hurting people,” I said.
“I’m healing the world,” he replied. “One memory at a time.”
Thessa hurled a fireball.
It fizzled before it reached him.
Kael tried to leap into the air.
He was thrown back.
Zeke screamed something about emotional boundaries.
And Aine stepped forward.
“Milo,” she said. “You are not the Void.”
He looked at her.
And for a moment, he was Milo again.
“I wish that were true,” he whispered.
And then he raised his hand.
The village behind us—one we that had looked deserted—exploded.
With fire.
With silence.
It vanished.
Just like the last one.
Gone.
Erased.
And Milo laughed.
Not cruelly.
Just… sadly.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I don’t belong here anymore.”
I ran toward him.
The wind pushed me back.
He waved.
Again.
“Goodbye, Mo.”
And then he vanished.
I stood there.
Crying.
Shocked.
Speechless.
“Stop saying goodbye. Stop running,” I shout to the wind.
The wind gusts, “You will see, you will see the truth.”
The sea was calm again.
The cliff was quiet.
The village was gone.
And Milo was nowhere.
Just a whisper on the wind.