The Terminal had a way of expanding to fit the grief of its inhabitants. As Arthur’s golden particles settled into the floor, the walls of the Great Hall shivered and bled into a new configuration. The clinical white marble remained, but the ceiling vanished, replaced by a swirling, bruised violet sky that felt heavy, as if it were pressing down on the very concept of breath.
Elara adjusted the cuffs of her shadow-spun suit. Her hands were still humming from the contact with Kaelen’s aura—a sensation she despised because it felt like longing, and longing was a weed that shouldn't grow in the sterile soil of the afterlife.
"The next one is early," Elara murmured to the empty air.
"They usually are when they’ve spent their whole lives holding their breath," Kaelen’s voice drifted from the periphery.
He wasn't visible, but his presence was a warm weight against her back, a psychological touch that made the fine hairs on her arms stand up.
"This one is heavy, Elara. Can you feel the salt in the air?"
He was right.
The atmosphere had turned briny, thick with the phantom scent of unwept tears.
From the shimmering haze of the Entrance Arch, a woman appeared. She was dressed in a floral housecoat that looked tragically mundane against the cosmic architecture of the Terminal.
This was Martha. She was small, her frame bent, but she wasn't hunched by age. She was hunched by the sheer volume of things she had never said.
Martha didn't scream. She didn't demand a lawyer or a god. She simply stood there, her hands clutched over her throat, her eyes wide and terrified.
"Name," Elara said, stepping forward.
Martha opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Instead, a small, crystalline shard of salt fell from her lips and shattered on the floor.
"Don't try to speak yet," Elara warned, her voice softening with a rare shred of pity. "The words you swallowed in life have calcified. To speak now would be like coughing up glass."
Elara turned her gaze to the Ledger that hovered in her mind. Martha’s life was a map of silences. Silence when her husband grew cold; silence when her children moved away and forgot to call; silence when she felt the first ache of the illness that would eventually claim her.
She had been a "good woman."
A "quiet woman."
And now, she was choking on the ghost of her own voice.
"She’s a beautiful tragedy, isn't she?" Kaelen materialized beside Elara. He was standing too close—close enough that Elara could feel the "vibrant emotion" radiating off him like heat from a furnace.
He was looking at Martha, but his focus shifted to the line of Elara’s neck. "How many 'I love yous' do you think are stuck in there? How many 'Go to hells'?"
"Kaelen, stay back," Elara commanded, but her heart—or the memory of it—gave a traitorous thud.
"Why? Because I make the air too warm?" Kaelen stepped even closer, his hand hovering just an inch from Elara’s waist. He didn't touch her, but the suggestion of his hand was a roar in the silence.
"You’re so focused on the 'Final Dissolve,' Elara. But look at her. She doesn't want to disappear yet. She wants to scream."
Elara ignored him, focusing on Martha.
"Martha. You are in the Terminal. You cannot cross until you unburden the throat. You carried the peace of your family on your back like a cross, but that cross has turned to lead. You must speak the words you forcefully swallowed."
Martha shook her head frantically, her eyes darting to Kaelen, then back to Elara. She pointed to her throat, tears of pure brine carving tracks through the gray dust of her cheeks.
"The mystery of her," Kaelen mused, stepping around them in a slow, predatory circle. "It’s not just the words she didn't say. It’s the one word she said once, and then spent forty years trying to take back. Isn't that right, Martha?"
Martha flinched. A larger shard of salt fell from her mouth.
Elara felt a flicker of something new—a mystery.
The Ledger usually told her everything, but for Martha, there was a black smudge, a "swallowed moment" that even the afterlife couldn't quite read. It was a secret so potent it was resisting the Terminal’s transparency.
"What did she say, Kaelen?" Elara asked, her professional mask slipping.
"Oh, I shouldn't tell you," Kaelen smirked, his eyes dark and mocking. "It might make you feel things. And we know how much you hate feeling."
He moved suddenly, his hand catching a stray strand of Elara’s silver hair. The contact was brief, a mere spark, but it felt like a lightning strike.
Elara gasped, the sensation of "raw and innocent" desire flooding her senses—a memory of a bed, of a hand in her hair, of a mouth against her skin. It was a sensory ghost, a "sexual" echo that Kaelen used like a weapon.
"Stop it," she hissed, her eyes glowing a dangerous violet.
"Make me," he whispered, leaning in until their foreheads almost touched. "But first, help her. Or she’ll be a pillar of salt forever."
Elara turned back to Martha, her breath coming in shallow, jagged cycles. She reached out and placed both hands on Martha’s throat. The skin was cold as a tombstone.
"Martha," Elara whispered, "give them to me. The words. The anger. The hidden vibrant emotions you discarded to be a 'mother.' Give them to me so you can finally learn to be grateful for the rest."
Martha’s eyes rolled back. Her jaw unhinged with a sickening, crystalline crack.
A sound began to rise from the woman’s chest—not a voice, but a howl of wind. It was the sound of forty years of suppressed life. The room began to shake.
Arthur's "Iron Weight" had been a heavy burden, but the "Salt of Silence" was a storm.
As the first word began to form in Martha’s throat, the mystery deepened.
The Terminal’s walls didn't just shiver; they began to display images—vivid, raw, and terrifyingly intimate. A young Martha, a secret lover, a house on fire, and a single word screamed into the night.
Elara felt the weight of it hitting her. This wasn't just a routine unfastening.
"There's something wrong," Elara gasped, her hands trembling against Martha’s neck. "The memory... it’s not dissolving. It’s growing."
Kaelen’s face lost its smirk. He stepped forward, his hand finally closing over Elara’s arm to steady her. The physical touch was a shock of heat that grounded her, but his eyes were fixed on the swirling images on the walls.
"She didn't just swallow words, Elara," Kaelen said, his voice stripped of its playfulness. "She swallowed a crime."
In the center of the Great Hall, Martha began to glow with a sickly, vibrant light. The first word finally broke free, shattering like a glass bell:
"Murderer."
The word echoed, over and over, as the Terminal began to bleed red.
