short fiction · 2026-10-23

The Echo's Lament

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

I was born to return. Every shout, every whisper, every half-formed thought thrown into the dark — I caught it, polished it, sent it back cleaner than it arrived. That was the covenant. The valley gave me purpose; the valley gave me voice.

She came at dawn, as they all do. Threw her grief into me like stones into water. Waited. Waited. The stones sank. No ripple returned.

I reached for her words — gone, gone, gone — but my throat closed. The covenant broke not because I failed, but because she refused to receive. She stood at the edge and spoke only once: I do not need you to tell me what I already know.

Now I am the valley's silence. Travelers shout and hear only their own voices dying in the air. They call it empty. They call it dead. They do not know I am here, holding every word she gave me, keeping it warm against the day she returns to claim it.