The rain in Blackwood Hollow always smelled of iron and regret. Silas Blackwood, a collector of curiosities and, some whispered, darker things, was obsessed with the local folklore. Specifically, with the legend of the Obsidian Magpie. It wasn’t merely a bird, you see. The villagers claimed it was a conduit, a shard of something ancient and profoundly *wrong*, capable of amplifying the intentions of those who listened to its song.
Silas, a man built of sharp angles and unsettling calm, believed the song wasn’t a natural phenomenon. He theorized it was a carefully constructed resonance, a harmonic vibration woven by a long-dead sorcerer named Corvus Blackwood – a direct ancestor, he insisted, and a being of terrifying elegance. He began meticulously documenting the magpie’s movements, charting its flights across the perpetually bruised sky. He built a complex system of mirrors and resonators, attempting to capture and decipher the song. He called it "Project Echo."
"The bird doesn't sing, Silas. It *reflects*. It reflects the darkest corners of your own mind." - Professor Alistair Finch
The resonators were working, or rather, *unraveling*. The air around Silas’s laboratory began to shimmer, to distort. Objects would vanish and reappear moments later, displaced by unseen forces. The villagers reported unsettling occurrences – livestock driven mad, shadows moving independently, the persistent scent of burnt sugar.
Silas, driven to the precipice of obsession, discovered a recurring pattern in the magpie’s flight paths – a spiral, slowly tightening, leading directly to the Blackwood Manor ruins, a crumbling testament to a family consumed by madness. He realized Corvus hadn’t merely *created* the song, he’d been *feeding* it, drawing power from the echoes of past transgressions, amplifying them until they threatened to overwhelm reality itself.
“It’s not a bird, Silas. It’s a wound. And you’re pouring yourself into it.” - Elara Blackwood (Silas’s estranged sister)
The Manor ruins pulsed with an unnatural luminescence. Silas, encased in a cage of his own creation – a cage built of mirrors and tuned resonators – stood in the center, a silhouette against the eerie glow. The Obsidian Magpie, larger than any bird he’d ever seen, hovered before him, its feathers shimmering with iridescent black. The song, no longer a whisper, was a deafening, crystalline shriek.
He’d attempted to control it, to harness its power, but he’d only succeeded in fracturing the very fabric of space-time. The world around him began to unravel, memories bled into one another, and the line between reality and illusion blurred. He saw glimpses of other Blackwoods – sorcerers, spies, even a fleeting image of a monstrous, winged figure riding a magpie.
“He thought he could command the darkness. Darkness doesn’t obey. It consumes.” - The Entity (a voice, not a person)
Silas Blackwood vanished without a trace. The Blackwood Hollow was abandoned, swallowed by a perpetual twilight. Some say he was absorbed by the Obsidian Magpie, becoming another echo in its unending song. Others claim he discovered a way to escape, to transcend the cycle of obsession and destruction. The truth, like the song itself, remains elusive, lost within the fractured echoes of time.
The villagers left behind a single object – a small, perfectly formed obsidian feather, resting on the threshold of the abandoned laboratory. A chilling reminder of the power of reflection, and the enduring danger of listening to the song of the Obsidian Magpie.
“The echoes never truly die. They simply wait for a new ear to hear them.”