The sand whispered secrets beneath Zayan's feet.
It wasn't just wind blowing—it was memory shifting. Grains carried echoes: a lullaby sung to a dying emperor; a scream trapped in a bottle of silence; a promise buried with a nameless healer beneath dunes long devoured by time.
And there, on the horizon, the city rose like a stone mirage.
It did not glitter.
It did not welcome.
It watched.
Its buildings curved like ribs, leaning inward—as if the city were trying to curl in on itself, holding something dark in its center.
"This is Al-Nafas," Zayan whispered. "The city that forgot to breathe."
He descended into the city at dusk.
The sky peeled orange, bleeding into copper. The first gate stood abandoned—massive and cracked, held together by rusted hinges and faded prayers carved into sandstone. Over the arch, a single line of Arabic calligraphy read:
وَنَفَخْنَا فِيهِ مِن رُّوحِنَا
"And We blew into him from Our Spirit."
[Surah At-Tahrim, 66:12]
"But you stopped breathing, didn't you?" Zayan murmured. "You closed your lungs to the truth."
Inside, the city was silent—but not dead.
Shadows moved.
Not people. Not ghosts.
Just… remnants.
A merchant stall still smelled faintly of rose water and burnt clove. A hookah pipe exhaled one last puff of smoke, though no hand touched it. Scrolls fluttered in windless air.
"They're trapped," Zayan realized. "Held between inhale and exhale."
"Correct," a voice replied.
It wasn't Ilya.
This voice was brittle—like parchment just before it crumbles.
A man stepped from the archway behind a broken minaret. He wore robes stitched with silver thread in spirals and wore a bronze mask shaped like an owl's face. Eyes glowed behind slits.
"And you are?"
"The Breathsayer."
The Breathsayer led Zayan through narrow alleys.
"This city was once the lungs of the continent," he said. "It filtered falsehood. Inhaled pain. Exhaled justice."
"What happened?"
"Greed. Lies grew heavy. Denial built walls. And when the people stopped confessing… the city stopped breathing."
They reached a courtyard shaped like a lung. Two marble pools shimmered, filled with water that wasn't water—memories suspended in liquid.
"Look."
Zayan leaned over.
He saw a memory not his own.
A girl, no older than nine, running barefoot through the streets, chased by men whose faces were covered in gold leaf. She carried a scroll. She was crying. No one helped her.
"Who is she?"
"The last one who tried to speak the sickness."
"What happened to her?"
"She forgot how to breathe."
Zayan knelt, letting his fingers dip into the pool.
The memory swallowed him.
He stood in the girl's place—bare feet cut by glass. The scroll pulsing with heat in his hands. The weight of silence pressing on every window. No mouths open. No words. Only the hunger of denial.
He gasped.
He was back.
The Breathsayer handed him a cracked vial.
"Take this to the Mute Well."
"What's in it?"
"The first breath ever stolen from this city."
The Mute Well sat at the city's heart, surrounded by collapsed towers that once sang the adhan in twelve maqams.
The well was dry.
But Zayan approached and opened the vial.
Wind screamed out—not loud, but long. It tore through the alleyways. It touched every door. It carried forgotten names.
The city shuddered.
Stones groaned. Palm trees bent. The breath had returned.
"Now," Zayan said, voice steady, "you will speak again."
And from deep inside the well, a voice echoed upward—hoarse, ancient, and raw.
"Who dares awaken the silence?"
Zayan did not flinch.
"A healer."
"What do you seek?"
"The third Seal. The truth sickness fears."
"Then you must find the Echo Tongue. Without it, your words will crumble like dust in storm."
Suddenly, the city shifted.
The buildings turned outward. The air warmed. Windows opened. And people—real, breathing, blinking people—stepped into the light.
Their eyes wide. Their mouths parting as if tasting speech for the first time.
"Who are you?" a boy asked.
"A messenger," Zayan said. "But I need a guide."
A woman stepped forward, wrapped in shawls embroidered with the Tree of Names.
"Then come," she said. "The Echo Tongue waits in the Library of Lost Throats."
They walked.
Together.
For the first time in decades, Al-Nafas exhaled.
The city's breath carried stories again. The shadows withdrew. And at the edge of the skyline, rising like a crown made of forgotten syllables, stood the library.
Built from silence. Guarded by memory. Bound in breath.
Zayan stepped toward it.
The pendant on his neck pulsed.
And somewhere, far beyond, the sickness that slept beneath the world stirred.
End of Chapter 5
Shall I continue with Chapter 6 – The Library of Lost Throats? It will dive even deeper into the mythos and introduce new knowledge-seekers who remember the world's forgotten names.