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Book I – The Solitary Peak
In twilight’s hush, where moonlight weeps,
And silence climbs the cragged steeps,
A man once fled from world below—
Johnny Kaufman, gaunt and slow.
He sought a height where winds forget,
To shed his name, his deep regret.
The world had burned him, left him bare;
He sought no court, nor kin, nor prayer.
But each night brought a song so clear,
Not wind, nor bird, nor mortal ear.
A hymn in tongues long turned to dust—
Too old for memory, too pure for trust.
For three long nights, it graced the hill,
A siren’s call so soft, so still.
And Johnny, though his blood ran cold,
Felt drawn to what the dark thing told.
Yet courage failed his trembling hand;
His past was carved in shadowed sand.
So cowardice became his shield,
Yet still the song refused to yield.
Till one cursed night, deep in his dream,
The melody began to scream.
Not from the hills nor whispering trees—
It echoed through his walls with ease.
He woke—a gasp, a haunted breath,
The room alive with scent of death.
On creaking floor he crept once more,
Drawn to the closed and moaning door.
The song resumed, now rich and low,
A voice from neither friend nor foe.
And through the crack, with pounding chest,
He saw the form that broke his rest.
A man—or not—too tall, too bare,
With pallid flesh and silver hair.
It bowed its head as if in grace,
And sang into the night’s embrace.
But when John whispered, “Who goes there?”
It arched its back with soulless flair.
It bent and cracked with fluid dread—
A thing that should have stayed long dead.
Its neck, a rope of twisted bone,
Turned toward the crack with eyes full-grown.
And in that gaze, no mercy stood—
Just hunger masked in something good.
The song resumed, a velvet tide,
That seeped through marrow, deep inside.
And Johnny drifted, lost and wide,
In hues no waking mind could bide.
But peace gave way to piercing cries—
A scream to crack the blackened skies.
He fought the dream, he slammed the door,
He wept, he writhed upon the floor.
And as he fell to blackened sleep,
The song still clawed, relentless, deep.
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Book II – Echoes in the Flesh
At dawn he woke—no pride, no thread,
His limbs like stone, his courage bled.
He lay among the ashes gray,
Unsure if night had gone away.
And ghosts returned in harrowed tide—
The priest, the rope, his brother’s cry.
The silence fed him memory’s flame,
Of justice lost, of swallowed shame.
Skyler—lost to noose and night,
Had begged for wrong to birth the right.
But money changed the course of sin,
And Johnny bore it all within.
A wound like his, too raw to hide,
Was branded deep and never dried.
So here he lived on mountain’s edge,
A soul impaled on silence’s wedge.
He smoked, he scribbled, fed the fire,
And tried to **** his own desire.
But dusk would draw the song again—
A lullaby for broken men.
He watched the stars, he watched the trees,
He prayed to gods that held no keys.
For answers—not to soothe the ache,
But just to know what one can take.
Each time the song returned to him,
It swelled with sorrow, dark and grim.
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Book III– The Song Returns
He watched the dusk like fevered child.
He laid his traps, he fed his flame,
And gave his torch a secret name.
But when the thing returned at last,
It set the coop and chickens fast.
The sky turned red, the night grew deep,
The song began to boil and weep.
It dragged him to the spring below,
Where waters hissed and moonlight glowed.
And there it stood, all bone and grace,
Its song now slow—a ghost’s embrace.
They danced, they struck, they fell, they bled—
The living fought the walking dead.
He ran through brush and thorn and tree,
But still it hummed its litany.
A hymn for scars that would not fade,
For crimes the soul could not evade.
The beast, the priest, the flame, the name—
Were not apart, but all the same.
He screamed beneath the hollow sky,
And begged to know the reason why.
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Book IV – The Dream Below
The moon had waned to sickled grin,
Its light grown thin as ghostly skin.
And Johnny, broken, bled, and bare,
Collapsed beneath the mountain’s stare.
He dreamed not sleep, but something deep—
A fall beyond the reach of sleep.
The soil gave way, the earth unspoke,
And from below, the granite broke.
He tumbled through a breathless chasm,
Where time collapsed in molten spasms.
A thousand faces, lost and gone,
Whispered truths the dead pass on.
He landed soft in waters black,
With stars above and sunless lack.
No shore, no sky, no sound of breeze—
Just pulsing light from rootless trees.
And in the depths, a voice began—
Not beast, nor priest, but hollow man.
“You seek the source?” the question came,
“A song that bears your father’s name?
You chase the hymn but flee the fire—
And bury truth beneath desire.”
Then Johnny stood, though none had bid—
In dream, the broken soul undid.
He walked on waves that did not part,
With ash and hymns inside his heart.
The realm below, both dread and grace,
Reflected him in every face.
He passed through doors of bone and vine,
Where gods of ruin drank black wine.
He saw his brother, pale and proud,
Behind a veil, beyond a shroud.
And Skyler said, “The song you fear
Was always yours, and always near.”
“The beast was forged from your regret.
The flame burns on, but not to forget.
You are the echo, not the prey—
You must descend to find your way.”
Then all went still. A single tone
Rose up from where the dream had grown.
And Johnny wept—not out of pain,
But from the gift within the strain.
He opened eyes to mountain night,
But nothing looked or felt quite right.
The torch was gone. The woods were vast.
And time had slipped into the past.
The song was gone—no voice, no sting.
Yet still his ears began to ring.
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Epilogue – What Remains
So if you seek the mountain’s peak,
And find the stone where silence speaks,
Beware the voice inside your mind—
For not all echoes stay confined.
The man who walked beyond the veil,
Still lingers in the dreamlike pale.
He is the myth the lost still seek—
The song, the fire, the solitary peak.
