The Chorister Observed

Cyril hugged the chill stone of the Undercroft wall, fingers tracing the ingrained grit and ancient damp. It wasn’t stone anymore, not really. Not in this sector, the Warped Observation Post. It was something that remembered being stone, its molecules sighing under the pressure of an unseen thumb. A low thrum vibrated through his boots, through his bones. The Chorister. Closer than he’d ever been, and yet, hopefully, safe behind layers of impossible architecture he knew better than the back of his own hand.

Years of wandering, of preaching, of seeing the world unravel had taught him more about the Undercroft’s twisted anatomy than any map or structural schematic ever could. He moved through spaces that defied Euclidean geometry, through passages that folded back on themselves or led to abrupt drops into nonexistent voids. This particular path, a narrow gap between two sections of wall that had buckled inward, was a relic. A forgotten maintenance tunnel from before the… before. The air here smelled of ozone and dust motes dancing in sickly shafts of light from unreachable vents.

He shuffled forward, each movement measured, silent. The ground beneath him wasn't stable pavement, but a mosaic of shattered glass and what felt like calcified dust. It crunched faintly, a sound swallowed almost immediately by the pervasive hum. *Cautious.* He pulled his worn cloak tighter, less for warmth and more for the phantom shield it offered. His determination was a tight knot in his gut, a counterpoint to the tremor in his hands. He had to see. Had to know if the visions were real, if the Chorister was truly the architect of this unraveling world.

Ahead, the passage opened slightly. He pressed flat against the side, peering through a jagged opening. The space beyond was vast, a cavern of impossible size lit by pulsing, internal light. It wasn't the clean, steady glow of Undercroft illumination, but something organic, shifting. And in the distance, at the perceived center of this cavern, was the source of the hum.

It wasn’t a figure standing still, not like a person. It was… fluid. A column of shimmering light and color that didn’t hold a single shape for longer than a heartbeat. Blues and violets pulsed, reds and oranges flowed like molten metal. And within the light, or perhaps *as* the light, were ripples of pure, resonant energy. Sound made visible, thought made tangible. Not a solid being, but a nexus of shifting frequencies, a living chord vibrating in the heart of the Undercroft. Cyril watched, breathless, the hum now a physical pressure against his eardrums. Suspense tightened its grip, a cold, sharp spike in his chest. He had found it. The Chorister. And it was not what he had imagined, not truly. It was something else entirely.

The hum intensified, no longer a distant drone but a presence that pressed against Cyril’s very bones, vibrating deep within his chest cavity. He clutched the rough stone of the observation post, knuckles white. The column of shimmering light, the Chorister, pulsed, its colors deepening and shifting like a bruise blooming across the spectrum.

Then, as the hum crested, hitting a note that felt too low, too resonant to be merely sound, the environment around the Chorister began to respond. A section of wall, fifty paces distant, didn’t crumble or crack. It softened, like clay, then stretched upwards, thinning into impossible filigree before hardening into something that wasn't stone, wasn't metal, but resembled spun glass, catching the light in bewildering angles. It happened in seconds, a silent, fluid rearrangement of matter. Cyril’s breath hitched. He’d seen the anomalies, preached about them, but always at a distance, as aftershocks. This was the tremor itself, the hand on the dial.

A higher, keening tone emanated from the Chorister. Directly opposite the newly formed glass structure, the floor rippled. Not like water, but like disturbed fabric, bunching and folding in on itself. It didn’t collapse; it simply became *less* floor. Sections vanished, replaced by yawning voids that hadn’t been there a moment before, yet looked ancient, lined with impossible darkness. The air over the voids seemed to suck in light, becoming pockets of absolute shadow.

Cyril’s eyes darted between the Chorister and the unfolding chaos. The hum shifted again, complex now, layered like a chant. On a platform near the entity, a pile of discarded metal scraps – jagged remnants of pipes, twisted girders – began to glow with an inner light. They didn’t heat up; they simply *illuminated*, pulsing in time with the hum. Then, impossibly, the scraps began to levitate, spinning slowly, arranging themselves into intricate, geometric patterns that defied gravity and structure. They weren't building anything recognizable, just forming ephemeral, beautiful constellations of junk, held in place by the resonant energy.

A wave of pure, unadulterated awe washed over Cyril, momentarily eclipsing the terror. This wasn't destruction, not in the way he understood it. It was... composition. The Chorister wasn't breaking things; it was rewriting them. Its song was a set of instructions, the Undercroft its canvas, its matter the paint.

He felt a cold dread settle over the awe. The Chorister didn't look at the stretching walls, the folding floor, the levitating metal. Its shimmering form remained centered, pulsating with that internal, resonant light, focused only on the act of *singing*. It seemed utterly oblivious to the world it was remaking, or perhaps, its 'awareness' extended only to the frequencies it produced and the immediate impact of those frequencies on its immediate environment. The wider effects, the melted walls and impossible voids spreading across the cavern, were merely side effects, ripples in a cosmic pond caused by a being entirely absorbed in its own resonant creation. Human life, caught in the wake of these impossible forces, was just noise in the signal. That truth, stark and indifferent, landed heavier than any collapsing structure ever could.

The low thrumming, which had been a subtle presence at the edge of his hearing for some time now, intensified. It wasn't just sound; it was a physical pressure, a vibration that bypassed his ears and settled deep within his bones. It felt like being held inside a massive, resonant bell that had just been struck. The air around him thickened, taking on a viscous quality that made breathing feel like dragging water into his lungs.

He pressed a hand to his chest, the vibration a physical ache. It buzzed up his arm, into his teeth. A dull, insistent throb started behind his eyes. This wasn't the distant echo he was used to. This was the immediate vicinity of the source, and his body was protesting. His vision swam for a second, the edges of the warped post blurring as if his eyeballs themselves were resonating. The dread, which had been a cold knot in his gut, bloomed outwards, a sickly fear that was as much physical as it was psychological. His knees felt weak, the stone beneath him trembling faintly.

He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to look back towards the shimmering form of the Chorister. The resonant light within the entity pulsed brighter now, faster. With each surge of that inner light, the bone-deep vibration intensified. It felt like his very structure was being tested, rattled like loose stones in a tin can. A memory flashed unbidden – sitting in a creaking chapel pew, the weight of a thousand years of faith pressing down, and the feeling of being small, insignificant, but still part of something vast and sacred. Now, that smallness was back, but the vastness was alien, indifferent, and his body was just inconvenient material being shaken by its song.

The hum reached a crescendo, a soundless scream that resonated in his marrow. A section of the observation post's railing, a twisted length of what might once have been steel, began to vibrate violently. Fine dust showered from it. Then, it didn't break or bend, but seemed to... unravel. Like thread pulled from cloth, the metal separated into shimmering strands that hung in the air for a beat before dissolving entirely, leaving only a space where the railing had been.

Cyril flinched, scrambling back instinctively, though there was nowhere truly safe to go. The act wasn't one of destruction; it was an act of unmaking, a command issued by the Chorister's song and executed on the fabric of reality. He wasn't just observing the effects of the hum anymore. He was *in* the effect, a living, breathing thing caught in the wake of a being for whom matter was merely malleable code. His physical discomfort was the protest of his human form against being told it should dissolve, or perhaps reshape, or simply *be different*. His body was the instrument, vibrating under the alien touch of the Chorister, and the dread was the knowledge that the song could, at any moment, decide to play a different tune on him.