The Quiet Earth Novel Novels & Stories

Chapter 67: Quiet Lands POV: Ariana The land did not know my name. That was the first thing I noticed, and the thing that mattered most. No whispers followed my steps. No instinctive bow of earth or fire when I crossed its borders. The hills rose gently here, unscarred by war or ritual, their slopes softened by tall grass and time rather than magic or blood. Rivers cut their paths honestly, without wards to redirect them, and the sky stretched wide and unclaimed above it all.

He immediately approached to help and asked in a whisper, "How are you? Did you learn anything new about it?" Raia looked around first before slowly arranging the books on the shelves. "For now, there's not much. But last night, I heard loud noises near the women's bathroom. I don't know who or what caused that sound, but when I went to the bathroom at night, I saw a human figure on the wall. I'm sure all the women were already asleep at that time, and I can't be wrong; that person was huge, no doubt. It could be a ghoul," he said flatly, without hesitation.

POV: KAEL I see it and my stomach drops. I freeze with my hand still in the dirt. The earth is wrong. Not dug out. Not torn up like animals fighting. Pressed down. Stepped on. Over and over. A slow circle around the camp. Careful. Clean. Fresh. I straighten slowly. Way too slowly. My heart starts to pound. “No,” I whisper. The ground does not whisper back. It just sits there. Quiet. Watching me.

The earth has never led me wrong before so I am assuming that I should follow where it points me. Walking through the woods, I feel at peace with my surroundings. I have not walked through the woods at night and alone in months. I forgot how peaceful and quiet it is. Something or someone has walked through recently though judging by how quiet even the nocturnal animals are. Connecting to the earth, I continue to follow its lead until I find myself standing outside of my old den. There is somebody standing inside but the earth will not give me any clues as to who it could be. Is it Elle or could it be somebody else?

We headed into the Earth Kingdom’s mystical forest, hoping the familiar paths and quiet might bring me some peace. As we rode through the forest, a strange pull started to guide me, like an invisible hand tugging at my very core. It led us toward the great stone wall that marked the boundary of the Earth Kingdom. I hadn’t planned on going there, but I couldn’t resist the feeling. When we reached the wall, I approached the guards. “ Did anything unusual happen today ?” I asked them, the unease still gnawing at me. One of the guards exchanged a glance with the other before answering. “ We saw Merilla pass through with a young woman. She had snow-white hair and eyes as blue as the sky.”

Put the newspaper down. The apartment was very quiet. Not the quiet of early morning before the day had started. The other kind. The kind that had a texture to it. That sat in the rooms and did not move and did not ask anything of you and gave nothing back. He had known this quiet before. He had lived inside it for two years after Zara. Had learned its dimensions. Known exactly where it was thickest and where it thinned and how to move through it without disturbing it too much. Had built an entire life around the fact of it.

"This hotel belongs to your uncle?" Nodding, he pillowed his head and lay on the floor, giving a click to the remote he held. The vault switched to a transparent top. "Here is where I speak to the silence, blame the world, and shed my tears." That somehow dimmed the glow hopping on her hand. She took a seat next to him. Under the soothing lights, his sharp facial features stood out even more, and so did his bottled loneliness. She understood the familiar silence. It was whispering, yearning to be heard after years of being ignored.

“Anything on the wire?” McCall shook his head slow, voice rough. “Nada. Too damn quiet.” Hammer exhaled, breath fogging faint, coffee cooling fast in his hand. Quiet wasn’t peace—it was the calm before the crash. He’d felt it before—too many times—and it always ended bloody. The room hummed low—radios crackling, boots scuffing, a rifle clanking as someone loaded up. ***** ****** ****** ******* **** *** Miles off, in a forgotten corner of the city, Catalina leaned back in a leather chair, the warehouse around her a cave of shadows and noise.

Just the weight of her against my arm and the drone of the engines and the extraordinary novelty of having survived something I'd fully expected to die in. "You're doing it again," she murmured against my shoulder, not opening her eyes. "Being quiet in a way that has a temperature." "I'm not being noble. We covered noble." "No." She turned her face up, and I looked down, and there she was, no armor, no lawyer register, curls loose and wild for once because she'd stopped fighting them into court-sleek somewhere back in Miami, deep brown eyes soft with exhaustion. "This is a different quiet. This is the good one. I'm learning your quiets. It's a whole language and there's no dictionary."

That order lies shattered. Inside, everything shakes. Not just memory but right now - bones rattling like stones under ice. This weight in my arms - heavy like frost at dawn. Skin on skin, yet it feels ancient. Like roots splitting rock without hurry. Silence hums, thick with what never got spoken. Cold moves through me, not sharp but deep, like water under snow. What the earth holds - the crush, the ache - it lives here too. Ah - I jerk upright, breath caught tight. Then comes that thin scream from the crib, cutting through the quiet like glass.