Autumn Reilly

2130: Dust whispers secrets in the skeletal remains of a lost world. Alina Drakos, a historian of the silenced age, unearths a water-stained diary, its brittle pages echoing with the ghost of Mateo Carver, a boy on the cusp of a terrifying future. 

2025: Mateo’s world vibrates with color and sound – the electric blue of a girl’s eyes across a crowded gym, the fiery orange of a sunset, the comforting strum of his father’s guitar. But an unsettling quiet begins to creep in, a stillness that steals words, melodies, and memories. The Stillness. Not a disease, but a chilling neurological affliction silencing the world one mind at a time.

As his world disintegrates, Mateo’s diary entries transform from adolescent anxieties to fragmented observations of a life unraveling. Shared glances of fear replace laughter. Foraged meals replace cafeteria lunches. The comforting lullaby of his father’s guitar is swallowed by the oppressive weight of silence.

Centuries later, Alina traces Mateo's fading words, her own life a stark reflection of his lost world. The Stillness, a wound etched into her DNA, is not just history; it’s her legacy. His diary becomes a pilgrimage into the heart of her family’s trauma, a map leading to a rumored haven, a hidden community of survivors.

But Alina's pursuit of the past collides with a chilling reality: the Stillness is resurfacing. A government conspiracy, buried beneath the ruins of the old world, reveals a terrifying truth – the Stillness was no accident.

Mateo’s final entries are fragmented poems, cryptic messages, a premonition of a sacrifice he feels compelled to make. A hidden tunnel. A desperate escape. A devastating choice to save the ones he loves.

Alina’s dual narratives converge in a heart-wrenching climax. The coordinates from Mateo’s diary lead her to the haven, a vibrant sanctuary where music and language still thrive. Here, she learns the truth of Mateo’s sacrifice, a silence that echoed through generations, saving a precious few. But can Alina break the silence threatening to consume her own time? Can she use Mateo's story to expose the truth and prevent history from repeating itself? Or will she, too, become an echo of the stillness?

PublishDrive

The Stillness Chronicles

Echoes of the Stillness: A Journal of the Unspoken

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