(Author Note: If someone don’t want spoilers about the book Wylding Hall, first go read it and then come back to read this novel.)
Victor didn’t suddenly transform into a passionate, hyper-focused author overnight.
He was still a cynical, depressed seventeen-year-old with a massive headache.
He had never written a single page of prose in his life, and he honestly wasn’t sure if he even had the talent to pull it off.
But as he sat through the rest of the history block, a faint, instinctual feeling began to take root in his mind.
The book he remembered, Wylding Hall, was mostly a blur when it came to individual names, specific dialogue, and exact subplots.
However, he could still recall the bare skeletal framework: a young, talented band isolated from civilization in an old, atmospheric country manor, left with absolutely nothing but a single, primitive telephone line to contact their agent.
As Mr.
Goodwill continued describing the decaying, paranoid atmosphere of the Silent Monopoly Era, Victor had a quiet gut feeling that this historical backdrop might actually work.
He didn’t think it was “absolute perfection,” because Victor didn’t believe absolute perfection existed.
But he had a strong suspicion that setting a gothic, isolated story inside an era where human society was actively crumbling under a tech monopoly would resonate with the readers of this world.
In a period where the predatory Omniphonic corporation was systematically locking down the public grids, a group of desperate musicians retreating to a forgotten, analog-shielded house to preserve their art just felt highly practical.
They wouldn’t have advanced smartphones or modern SII micro-projectors back then; they would be entirely dependent on the manor’s one fragile telephone wire.
Victor didn’t start frantically writing a masterpiece in his notebook with burning intensity.
After all, he had never written a book, and even though the book he read back then only had around 150 pages, he had never written anything like it.
So, instead, he just quietly jotted down a few lazy, shorthand historical notes, mildly intrigued by the sudden, instinctual thought that he might have found a book to start his journey in this world.
Victor listened to the remainder of the history lesson with such avid attention that he completely lost track of time.
For once, the constant ticking of the clock didn’t weigh on him, and he was genuinely surprised when the loud chime of the school bell rang out, abruptly announcing the end of the period.
Mr.
Goodwill packed up his historical timelines, and within a few minutes, the mathematics professor walked in to take over the podium.
As the new teacher began writing advanced algebraic equations across the digital interface, Victor found himself completely unable to pay attention.
His eyes were fixed on the front board, but his mind was blocks away, actively brainstorming how to adapt Wylding Hall to fit the bleak, restrictive laws of the Silent Monopoly Era.
He didn’t have a grand, flawless vision, and he certainly didn’t think he was about to draft a literary masterpiece on his first try.
In a world where the technocratic elite of OPIC systematically controlled every open wave, a story about an isolated group of underclassmen tracking a raw, unmonitored acoustic frequency inside a forgotten manor felt like a solid hook.
He could visualize the slow, creepy buildup—the analog telephone that only rang at erratic intervals, the ancient sound-crystals embedded in the stone walls malfunctioning under corporate jamming, and the characters slowly losing their grip on reality.
By the time the math teacher finished drawing his third geometric matrix on the board, Victor had completely zoned out, quietly mapping out the bare layout of a book he still wasn’t entirely sure he could actually write.
BRRRRRRING.
The high-volume dismissal bell finally rang through the corridors, announcing the absolute end of the afternoon classes.
A collective sigh of relief rippled through Class 3-B as the third-year students stood up, packed their tablets and notebooks into their bags, and streamed out into the hallway.
“Hey, Vic!” Dylan barked, instantly materializing at his shoulder like a massive, energetic shadow.
“A bunch of the guys from the track team are heading down to the local district square to check out some new digital synth gear. You’ve gotta come—the acoustic specs are—”
“Pass,” Victor cut him off mid-sentence, slinging his single backpack strap over his shoulder.
“See you tomorrow!” He didn’t even bother waiting for Dylan to try to negotiate or clamp a steel-grip hand onto his uniform.
Moving with a surprising, low-energy efficiency, he smoothly slipped past his towering best friend and headed straight in the opposite direction down the corridor.
Instead of exiting the building toward his quiet studio apartment, Victor navigated the school grounds and walked directly into the school library building.
If he was actually going to try writing this book, he needed raw data.
His vague instinct that Wylding Hall would make a great gothic mystery in the Silent Monopoly Era was fine, but he had never written a single line of prose before.
Furthermore, he couldn’t just invent details about those historical times; he needed to know the exact technical specs of how those early, ancient Sound-Imagery Instruments functioned when the corporation locked down the grid.
The library was enormous and beautifully quiet, built with the same sound-isolated materials that kept his apartment pristine.
Victor ignored the digital audiobook terminals and walked straight toward the back rows, seeking the historical print and local data archives.
He found a lonely, secluded desk in the corner, unslung his bag, and sat down.
He was looking for local Lumina folk myths and stories.
After all, he remembered that the supernatural aspect of Wylding Hall was based on real folk stories of old England.
So, he needed to know if there was any place in Lumina with similar stories.
Victor quickly realized that having a gut instinct was one thing, but actually finding the data to back it up in a city’s high school library was a completely different nightmare.
He spent the first forty-five minutes aimlessly wandering through the rows of the Oak Grove library, pulling heavy, traditional print volumes off the shelves.
He flipped through A Comprehensive History of Colonial Migration, The First Inhabitants of Veridian, and The Geographic Structuralization of the Border Provinces.
Nothing.
Every single physical book on the shelves was heavily hyper-focused on their current planet, Veridian, or the broader socio-economic history of the Federation.
It made total sense, but it didn’t help his case.
They were currently billions of miles away from Lumina, their birth planet.
The probability of a random high school library in a city district holding niche, centuries-old physical books about old Lumina’s regional folklore was practically non-existent.
Most people here only cared about passing the entrance exams or studying modern music theory.
Frustrated and feeling his dull headache returning, Victor closed a thick volume on planetary agriculture with a muted thud and walked over to the front desk.
The librarian, an elderly woman with sharp spectacles who was currently pulsing a low, steady frequency into her terminal to sort data sheets, looked up at him.
“Can I help you, student?”
“Excuse me, Mrs. Vour, do you have any physical books or print archives on ancient regional folk stories from Lumina?” Victor asked, his voice a flat, low-energy drawl.
“Specifically, myths or superstitions from before the corporate era?”
The librarian blinked at him, looking mildly surprised by the bizarre request.
“Physical books on pre-Federation Lumina folklore? Heavily localized myths?” She shook her head, her spectacles catching the light.
“No, Mr. Winterborne. We don’t carry print material that specific or antiquated here. We aren’t the Capital Historical Museum.”
Victor heaved a slow, internal sigh.
‘Figures,’ he thought cynically.
‘Nothing is ever easy.’
“However,” the librarian continued, tapping her terminal and causing a small glass prism on the desk to hum softly.
“If it’s for a history or literature thesis, you shouldn’t limit yourself to our physical shelves. I recommend logging directly into the library’s closed digital database terminal over in the corner. It interfaces directly with the central Federation Educational Grid. If there are any scanned historical records or university dissertations regarding Lumina’s old regional myths, you’ll find them digitized there.”
“Thanks,” Victor muttered, nodding politely before slouching his way over to the designated digital terminal in the back corner.
He slid onto the chair, slung his backpack over the floor, and tapped the cold glass interface, initializing his standard Tier 1.5 tactile signal to unlock the terminal.
He was kind of tired after a long day of classes.
But as the loading bar began to hum and flicker to life, he decided to continue on until he found what he was seeking.
‘Let’s go!
Give me Lumina’s creepy folklore!’ He chanted inside his mind.