Illachrymableness, as it began to manifest, wasn't a phenomenon of sight or sound, but a resonance. A subtle, persistent vibration that imprinted itself not upon the senses, but upon the very fabric of recollection. It started, inexplicably, within the archives of the Chronometric Society – a clandestine organization dedicated to the meticulous cataloging and preservation of temporal echoes. These echoes, you see, are fragments of past events, carefully extracted and stabilized within crystalline matrices. The Society believed that by understanding the patterns of these echoes, they could subtly influence the flow of time itself, though this was a theory debated fiercely by its members.
The initial event, recorded as ‘Anomaly 788’, involved the sudden deterioration of Matrix 349 – a record of the coronation of Emperor Theron IV of the Obsidian Dynasty. The crystalline structure fractured, not with a violent impact, but with a gradual, almost melancholic dissolution. The archivists, a collection of eccentric scholars and meticulous technicians, noticed something… unsettling. They reported a feeling – a persistent, low-frequency hum that seemed to emanate not from the matrix itself, but from the memories contained within.
Dr. Silas Blackwood, the Society’s chief chronometric analyst – a man known for his unsettlingly calm demeanor and an unhealthy obsession with the concept of ‘temporal viscosity’ – was the first to articulate the feeling. He termed it “Illachrymableness” - a portmanteau derived from the Greek words for ‘tear’ and ‘resonance,’ suggesting a profound sadness tied to the disruption of the echo.
Note: The Obsidian Dynasty was notoriously short-lived, collapsing within a single generation due to a series of unforeseen paradoxes. Historians speculate that Illachrymableness may have been a symptom of this collapse, a lingering echo of profound loss.
By 1842, Illachrymableness had spread beyond the Chronometric Society's archives. It began to manifest in locations where significant emotional events had occurred – battlefields, abandoned theaters, even within the walls of old hospitals. The ‘static,’ as it was increasingly referred to, amplified the emotional residue of these events, creating areas of heightened vulnerability to memory and regret.
The Society attempted various countermeasures: sonic dampeners, crystalline stabilizers, even carefully calibrated bursts of chronometric radiation - all to no avail. The static seemed to actively resist their interventions, growing stronger with each attempt to suppress it. It was as if the echoes themselves were actively seeking to propagate, fueled by a collective sorrow that transcended individual experience.
A particularly alarming incident occurred at the ruins of Blackwood Manor – the ancestral home of the Blackwood family, a lineage intimately connected to the Society through generations of clandestine research. Within the manor, individuals reported experiencing vivid, uncontrollable flashbacks – not of their own lives, but of the manor’s history: a tragic fire, a family feud, countless whispered secrets. The static had not merely amplified the memory; it had *invoked* it, drawing the afflicted into a disorienting loop of past suffering.
Temporal Distortion Alert: The Blackwood family’s obsession with chronometric research appears to have inadvertently created a localized ‘temporal vortex,’ a point of heightened sensitivity to Illachrymableness.
In 2077, the phenomenon reached a critical mass. The ‘Resonance Cascade’ – a global event characterized by widespread memory fragmentation, emotional instability, and the spontaneous manifestation of temporal echoes – threatened to unravel the fabric of reality. Cities became labyrinths of fragmented recollections, individuals lost themselves in loops of past trauma, and the very concept of linear time ceased to have meaning. The Society, now a shadow of its former self, desperately sought a solution, but their efforts were hampered by the sheer scale of the disaster.
The prevailing theory, developed by a young chronometric engineer named Lyra Vance, suggested that Illachrymableness wasn’t a phenomenon to be contained, but to be *harmonized* – to be brought into a state of equilibrium with the inherent instability of temporal echoes. Vance proposed a radical experiment: to create a ‘resonant amplifier,’ a device capable of channeling Illachrymableness into a controlled, cyclical pattern, effectively transforming it from a destructive force into a source of… something. Whether this was a solution or a catalyst for an even greater catastrophe remains, at this point, a matter of profound uncertainty.