staging: polished/chapter-ch-01.md task=f2a682be-34f1-4dee-ace9-6484e6ad352d

projects/whispers-in-the-dark/staging/polished/chapter-ch-01.md

@@ -1,127 +1,125 @@
-Chapter 1: The Echo of Empty Rooms
+Chapter 6: The Resonance of Ruin
 
-The wind clawed at the warped shutters of the old Victorian house as Mia Harlow dragged her final suitcase over the creaking threshold into Blackwood Hollow's newest resident—or its latest fool.
+Elias's trembling hands hovered over the spectrum analyzer, the Whisper's steady pulse mocking their fragile resolve in the chill of Sub-Level 4. The glass of the monitor was a cold skin, vibrating under his fingertips with a frequency that felt less like sound and more like a physical invasion. Beside him, Sarah leaned heavily against a metal shelving unit, her knuckles white where she gripped the rusted edge. The overhead fluorescent lights flickered, casting long, rhythmic shadows that seemed to dance in time with the oscillating green wave on the screen.
 
-The door groaned behind her, a heavy thud of oak meeting frame that sounded far more like a sentence than a welcome. Mia stood in the foyer, her lungs stinging with the scent of floor wax and half a century of stagnant air. It was a smell that reminded her of the public library back in the city—dust and forgotten stories—only here, the stories were etched into the peeling wallpaper and the deep, dark knots of the floorboards.
+"It’s not settling, Elias," Sarah said, her voice strained, tight with the effort of speaking through the migraine that had been clawing at her temples for the last hour. She winced as a sharp spike appeared on the readout, accompanied by a low-pitched hum that set the marrow of their bones to aching. "If anything, the amplitude is widening. It’s drawing more power from the ambient grid. We shouldn’t even be able to see a signal this strong without an external amplifier."
 
-“Home sweet gothic nightmare,” she muttered. Her voice sounded thin, swallowed instantly by the high ceilings and the shadows pooling in the corners of the hallway. 
+Elias didn’t look at her. His eyes were fixed on the jagged peaks of the waveform. He reached into his coat pocket, his fingers brushing against the worn leather of his private journal—the one he hadn't fully shared with her. He knew what those peaks represented. They weren't just random interference or a localized industrial hum. When he overlaid the data from the 1920s occult research he’d unearthed in the restricted wing—the forgotten transcripts from the Oakhaven seances of 1924—the pattern was a perfect, sickening match. It was a ritualistic cadence, a linguistic structure masquerading as a radio wave.
 
-She reached for the light switch, a primitive toggle that felt cold against her thumb. The chandelier above flickered, a stuttering protest of yellow light that cast long, skeletal fingers across the walls. It was enough to see by, barely. Mia dropped her keys on a small marble-topped table near the door. The clatter was unnervingly loud, a gunshot in a tomb.
+"It's not drawing power, Sarah," Elias whispered, his voice raspy from hours of near-silence. "It's displacing it. Look at the decay rate." He pointed a shaking finger at the secondary monitor. "The baseline electricity in the room is dropping every time the signal peaks. It’s eating the light."
 
-She took a breath, trying to steady the flutter in her chest. This was what she wanted. Solitude. A break from the relentless hum of London, the pitying looks of her agent, and the hollow space in her bed where her ex-fiancé, Mark, used to sleep. She’d traded a cramped third-floor walk-up for this sprawling, decaying skeleton of a house, and she’d done it for a song. The real estate agent, a woman with a smile as sharp as a razor, hadn't even haggled. That should have been her first red flag.
+Sarah rubbed her eyes, her breathing coming in shallow, ragged bursts. "I don't care about the physics of it right now. I care about the fact that my ears are bleeding—metaphorically, mostly—and we’re sitting in a basement that feels like it’s ten degrees colder than it was twenty minutes ago. Elias, empirically speaking, radio ghosts aren't a thing—unless this damn hum in my skull says otherwise. You said you had a theory. You said your notes... well, you said they explained the 'why'."
 
-*Step one: Unpack the essentials. Step two: Don’t think about the lack of cell service,* she told herself.
+Elias felt a surge of defensive heat. He owed her; she’d stayed through the night, risking her standing with the Board of Regents to help him calibrate the sensors. But the secret felt like a heavy stone in his gut. If he told her the signal matched the 'Opening of the Gate' frequency described by a madman a century ago, she’d think he’d finally lost his grip.
 
-Mia dragged her suitcase toward the staircase. The banister was carved into the shape of vines and thorns, polished to a dull sheen by hands that had likely been dead for decades. As she climbed, her heels clicked against the wood—*tap, tap, tap*—and for a fleeting second, she thought she heard a fourth tap that didn't belong to her. She stopped. The house held its breath.
+"My notes suggest the frequency is historical," Elias said, choosing his words with agonizing care. He opened a folder on the desk, showing her a partial printout of the waveform comparison, though he kept the handwritten annotations tucked beneath the stack. "The patterns match recorded phenomena from the Oakhaven archives—specifically the era of the Great Depression. There were... incidents. Unexplained audio phenomenon that preceded the collapse of the Old Wing."
 
-“Just the wood settling,” she whispered, her inner skeptic rising to the occasion with a dry, practiced ease. “Gravity and physics, Harlow. Not a poltergeist with a grudge.”
+Sarah leaned in, her gaze flickering between the printout and Elias's face. She wasn't an academic, but she was a pragmatist. She saw the omission in his eyes. "You’re holding back, Thorne. You’re always holding back. Is this place safe? That’s what I need to know. Because the air smells like ozone and damp earth, and we’re on the fourth floor underground. There shouldn’t be a scent of rain down here."
 
-She reached the second-floor landing and pushed open the door to what would be her bedroom. It was a cavernous space with a bay window that overlooked the overgrown garden. Beyond the glass, the woods of Blackwood Hollow pressed close, a wall of black pine against a bruised purple sky.
+"I don't know if it's safe," Elias snapped, his frustration boiling over. The signal spiked again, a screeching feedback loop that tore through the speakers. Both of them recoiled, Sarah clutching her head with a muffled cry. "I don't know! That’s why we need to keep recording. If we stop now, if we lose the data, we’ll never prove what this is."
 
-She began to unpack, her movements methodical. Out came the oversized sweaters, the worn jeans, and the stack of notebooks that carried the weight of her failed career. Three years ago, she’d been the ‘bright new voice of psychological horror.’ But after her second novel tanked and her third was rejected by every house from Bloomsbury to the small presses, the voice had gone hoarse.
+The feedback didn't die down; it evolved. It smoothed out into a rhythmic thrumming that localized in the center of the room. The air grew heavy, thick with a pressure that made Elias's ears pop. He felt a phantom sensation—a brush of something cold against the back of his neck, like a draft through a door that shouldn't be there. 
 
-She unfolded a photograph of herself and Mark, taken in a sun-drenched park three summers ago. He was laughing, his arm draped around her shoulders, while she looked at the camera with a wry, half-smirk. She stared at it for a moment, her thumb tracing the edge of the frame. Then, with a sharp exhale, she shoved it face down into the bottom of the dresser drawer. 
+*...find... us...*
 
-"Fresh start," she said to the empty room. "No ghosts allowed. Especially the ones with law degrees and commitment issues."
+Elias froze. The sound hadn't come from the speakers. It had been a vibration in his own teeth. He looked at Sarah to see if she’d heard it, but she was doubled over, eyes closed tight against the pain of her headache.
 
-By the time she finished with the bedroom, the house felt slightly less like a stranger’s grave. She headed back downstairs, her stomach growling. The kitchen was a relic of the 1940s, all mint-green tile and heavy cast-iron fixtures. As she moved to the cupboards to find a glass, she noticed a small door in the corner, partially hidden by a heavy velvet curtain that smelled of mothballs and damp.
+"Did you hear that?" Elias asked, his voice barely a breath.
 
-The cellar. 
+"I hear everything," she groaned. "It’s all just... noise. It’s loud, Elias. It’s too loud."
 
-She pulled the curtain aside. The door was narrow, painted a charcoal grey that looked out of place against the green tiles. A rusted bolt held it shut. Curiosity, the same trait that usually got her protagonists killed in act two, won out over her desire for tea. She slid the bolt back—it screamed in protest—and pulled the door open.
+He realized then that her debt to him was paid in full. She was staying out of a sense of obligation, but the signal was eroding her. He felt a twinge of guilt, quickly swallowed by the frantic need to understand. The tremors in his hands were becoming a rhythmic twitching. He gripped the edge of the console until his knuckles turned gray. 
 
-A draft of icy air surged up, carrying the scent of wet earth and something metallic. Mia reached for the wall, finding a string for a bare bulb. When she pulled it, the light revealed a steep set of stone stairs leading into a dark maw.
+"We need more power to the sensors," Elias said, his mind racing. "And we need access to the primary server in the Administrative Wing. If I can cross-reference the signal against the deep-storage logs, I can map the source."
 
-She descended slowly, her hand grazing the rough-hewn stone walls. The basement was a labyrinth of shadows. Stacks of old crates, covered in thick sheets of plastic, huddled in the center of the room like crouching animals. In the far corner, she spotted a heavy wooden desk, its surface scarred and stained.
+Sarah looked up, her face pale, a thin bead of sweat rolling down her temple despite the cold. "The Curator won't let you near those servers. You know what he said after last night. You’re a liability, Elias. He’s looking for a reason to cut the Archive’s funding entirely. If we go up there and tell him the signal is 'eating the light,' he’ll have us escorted out by security."
 
-On top of the desk sat a leather-bound book, its spine cracked, and a scatter of loose photographs. Mia picked one up. It was a sepia-toned image of a family standing on the front porch of this very house. The father was a tall, severe-looking man; the mother’s face was blurred, as if she’d moved at the last second. In the middle stood two small children, their hands linked, staring into the camera with wide, hollow eyes. 
+"He has to listen," Elias insisted, though his heart sank at the thought of the Curator’s sneering face. "The signal is localized to Oakhaven. It’s here, Sarah. It’s inside these walls. He can’t ignore the physical evidence forever."
 
-There was no names on the back, only a date: *October 1924.*
+"He can if it saves his budget," Sarah countered. She stood up slowly, her movements stiff. "But I’ll go. I’ll go because if I stay in this room another ten minutes, I’m going to throw up. But you lead the way. It’s your career on the line, not mine."
 
-“Welcome to the neighborhood,” Mia murmured, her fingers lingering on the cold paper. She’d heard the rumors from the locals when she stopped for gas—vague whispers about the 'Vanishing House' and owners who simply walked out one day and never returned. Small-town charm, she’d assumed. Every village needed a haunted house to keep the teenagers busy on Halloween. It was just good marketing for a town with no other industry.
+They left the spectrum analyzer humming in the dark. As they walked toward the heavy steel door of Sub-Level 4, the silence of the corridor felt even more oppressive than the noise of the lab. The hallway was a long, concrete throat, lit by dim, recessed bulbs that seemed to struggle against an encroaching gloom. Every footfall echoed with a double-tap, a rhythmic trick of the acoustics that made it sound as if someone was walking a half-step behind them.
 
-She felt a sudden prickle at the back of her neck, that instinctual alarm that tells a person they are being watched. She turned around quickly, the light bulb swaying overhead. The shadows shifted, dancing across the plastic-wrapped crates. 
+Elias kept glancing over his shoulder. He saw nothing but the grey, peeling paint and the distant, flickering exit sign. Yet, the sensation of being watched was a physical weight on his spine. The air was unnaturally still. 
 
-Nothing. Just the hum of the old furnace and the throb of her own pulse in her ears.
+"Do you feel that?" he whispered.
 
-She climbed back up the stairs and bolted the cellar door, her heart racing a fraction faster than she cared to admit. 
+"The cold?" Sarah asked, her voice hollow.
 
-By 9:00 PM, she had settled into the parlor with a laptop and a glass of cheap red wine. The house was quiet now, the wind having died down to a low moan. She stared at the blank screen, the cursor blinking like a mocking heartbeat. 
+"No. The... expectation."
 
-*Chapter One,* she typed. 
+Sarah didn't answer. She kept her eyes forward, her hand pressed against the wall as she navigated the slight incline of the floor. 
 
-The cursor blinked.
+The ascent to the Administrative Wing felt like a climb out of a grave. Moving from the damp, industrial guts of Sub-Level 4 toward the carpeted, mahogany-trimmed halls of the upper levels should have been a relief, but the transition only heightened the sense of dissonance. The Archive was an architectural Frankenstein’s monster—a Victorian manor grafted onto a Cold War bunker. As they emerged into the carpeted silence of the main wing, the smell of old paper and expensive wax met them, but beneath it all, Elias could still smell the ozone.
 
-*The house was not haunted. That was the first mistake Mia made.*
+They reached the Curator's office at the end of a long gallery lined with portraits of the Archive’s founders. The eyes in the paintings seemed to follow Elias, their painted expressions full of a knowing, patrician malice. 
 
-She deleted it. Too on the nose. Too much like her own life. She leaned back, rubbing her eyes. 
+Elias didn't knock. He pushed the heavy oak door open, the sudden motion startling the man sitting behind the desk.
 
-A sound drifted through the air. It wasn't the creak of wood or the groan of pipes. It was softer—a rhythmic, sibilant sound, like silk rubbing against silk. 
+The Curator, a man who seemed composed entirely of sharp angles and starched linen, looked up from a ledger. His eyes narrowed instantly. He didn't rise; he simply leaned back, his fingers interlaced over a silk tie that cost more than Elias’s monthly stipend.
 
-Mia froze. She tilted her head, listening. It seemed to be coming from the vents, a distant, muffled murmuring. It sounded almost like a conversation happening three rooms away, or perhaps in the house next door—except the nearest house was three miles down a winding dirt road.
+"Dr. Thorne," the Curator said, his voice a smooth, dangerous purr. "And Miss Miller. I was under the impression that Sub-Level 4 was restricted to 'essential personnel only' during this late hour. Given our conversation at dinner—which you so rudely interrupted with your fantasies of equipment failure—I assumed you were occupied with filing your final reports."
 
-“The wind,” she said, her voice louder than necessary. “Wind in the chimneys creates a vacuum effect. It’s basically a giant flute. A terrifying, out-of-tune flute.”
+"It's not equipment failure," Elias said, stepping toward the desk. He tried to keep his hands behind his back to hide the tremors, but his shoulders were shaking. "Sir, the signal has shifted. It’s moved from a passive oscillation to an active, localized frequency. It's affecting the power grid in the basement. It’s... it’s generating a resonance that Sarah and I can hear without headsets."
 
-The sound persisted. It rose and fell in waves, a chaotic tangle of vowels and consonants that refused to form words. It was the sound of a thousand people whispering in a library, all at once, just below the threshold of comprehension.
+The Curator looked at Sarah, his eyebrows arching in a silent demand for confirmation.
 
-She stood up and walked to the wall, pressing her ear against the faded floral wallpaper. The sound was clearer here. It hummed through the plaster, vibrating against her cheek. It didn't sound like wind anymore. It sounded like voices. Agitated, urgent, and impossibly many.
+Sarah took a breath, her voice wavering. "There is a significant audio-feedback phenomenon, sir. It’s causing physiological distress. I have a persistent headache, and Dr. Thorne is experiencing motor-control issues. We believe the signal is originating from within the Archive’s foundation."
 
-“Okay, okay,” she muttered, stepping back. “Pipes. Air in the lines. This place is probably ancient enough to have plumbing that groans God Save the King if you turn the tap the wrong way.”
+The Curator let out a short, sharp bark of a laugh. It wasn't a sound of amusement, but a dismissal. "Physiological distress? Miss Miller, you’ve been working sixteen-hour shifts in a windowless bunker. It’s called exhaustion. And as for you, Elias..." He stood up, leaning over the desk, his shadow stretching long across the expensive Persian rug. "Your obsession with the 1920s acquisition records has clearly clouded your judgment. You are looking for ghosts in the machine because you find the reality of a budget audit too frightening to face."
 
-She walked into the hallway, determined to find the source. If she could find the logical explanation, she could sleep. If she didn't, she’d spend the whole night staring at the ceiling, imagining monsters in the crawlspace. 
+"It's not ghosts!" Elias shouted, the sound echoing too loudly in the small office. He caught himself, lowering his voice, his heart hammering against his ribs. "The frequency matches the patterns of the '24 ritual logs. I’ve seen the charts. If this signal continues to strengthen, it’s going to compromise the structural integrity of the Sub-Levels. We need access to the deep-storage servers to find the source. We need the bypass codes for the central hub."
 
-She checked the kitchen. The whispering grew fainter. She moved toward the foyer, and it intensified. It seemed to be emanating from the very bones of the house. She looked up at the ceiling, where the dark stain of a water leak from years ago formed a shape that looked unsettlingly like a reaching hand.
+The Curator’s expression went cold. "Bypass codes? For the central hub? Absolutely not. Those systems contain the personal records of our donors and the encrypted inventory of the Oakhaven Founders. I will not hand over the keys to the kingdom because you’ve developed a case of the jitters."
 
-The whispers began to sharpen. The chaotic noise started to find a rhythm.
+"But the safety of the facility—" Elias began.
 
-*“...so cold… so very… beneath…”*
+"The safety of this facility is my concern," the Curator interrupted. "Your concern is completing your inventory by the end of the month. If I hear one more word about 'signals' or 'occult patterns,' I will not only terminate your research, I will have your credentials revoked for academic instability. Do I make myself clear?"
 
-Mia gasped, her back hitting the front door. The cool wood felt solid, real. Her mind scrambled for an out. *Auditory hallucinations brought on by stress and sleep deprivation,* she thought. *The move. The breakup. The career slump. Your brain is just processing the trauma by projecting it onto your environment. Standard psychological defense mechanism.*
+Elias felt a cold void open in his chest. He looked at the Curator—really looked at him—and saw a man who would watch the building crumble into the earth before he admitted a scholar was right. The Curator didn't care about the signal. He cared about the silence. He wanted the Archive to be a tomb—quiet, orderly, and dead.
 
-She took a deep breath, forcing her shoulders to drop. “I am not having a breakdown,” she told the empty hallway. “I am having a very productive imaginative episode. I should be writing this down. This is gold.”
+"He's right, Elias," Sarah whispered, pulling at his sleeve. Her face was a mask of defeat. "He’s not going to help us. Let's go."
 
-She headed back to the parlor, grabbed her wine, and decided that bed was the only sane option. The quicker she fell asleep, the quicker she’d realize this was all just fatigue. 
+Elias allowed himself to be led out. He didn't look back. As they walked down the gallery, he could hear the Curator picking up a telephone, no doubt calling the Board of Regents to report Elias's 'instability.' 
 
-She climbed the stairs again, her hand white-knuckled on the banister. The house felt heavier now, as if the air had thickened, making every movement a chore. She didn't look at the shadows. She didn't look at the doors she hadn't opened yet.
+The walk back to the Sub-Levels was a blur of mounting panic. Each step felt heavier than the last. The Archive felt like it was shrinking, the walls leaning in, the air growing thinner. Elias’s mind was a frantic hive of thoughts. He couldn't stop. He couldn't just let the signal pulse in the dark. If the Curator wouldn't give him the codes, he’d find another way. He had his notes. He had the frequency. 
 
-In her bedroom, she changed into a thick nightshirt and crawled under the heavy wool blankets. The bed was surprisingly comfortable, but the room was freezing. No matter how much she turned up the radiator, the chill seemed to seep directly from the floorboards.
+"Elias, stop," Sarah said as they reached the elevator. She caught his arm, her grip surprisingly strong. "Look at yourself. Your hands... they won't stop. You need to sleep. We’ll look at the data again in the morning."
 
-She lay there in the dark, her eyes wide, staring at the grey square of the window. The woods outside were silent. The wind had stopped entirely.
+"There won't be a morning," Elias said, his voice flat. "Not for this data. It’s accelerating. You felt it. The cold, the smell... it’s not exhaustion, Sarah. It’s proximity."
 
-Then, the whispering returned.
+"Proximity to what?" she asked, her voice trembling.
 
-It didn't come from the vents this time. It didn't come from the walls or the hallway.
+"The source," Elias said. He turned to face the elevator doors, his reflection in the brushed steel looking like a stranger—gaunt, wild-eyed, a man haunted by a sound only he truly understood. "It’s not some distant broadcast. It’s been here all along. It’s just... waking up."
 
-It came from right beside her.
+The elevator doors opened with a groan that sounded like a dying breath. They stepped inside, and the descent began. As the numbers on the display ticked down—1... 2... 3...—the humming returned. It didn't start low this time. It was a roar in their ears, a vibrational wall that hit them with the force of a physical blow.
 
-A dry, rustling sound, like insects skittering over parchment. It was so close she could almost feel a phantom breath against her ear. She lay paralyzed, her heart drumming a frantic, uneven beat against her ribs. 
+Sarah collapsed to her knees, clutching her ears. "Make it stop! Elias, make it stop!"
 
-*“...Mia…”*
+Elias leaned against the elevator wall, his eyes rolling back in his head. The signal wasn't just noise anymore. It was a texture. It felt like sand rubbing against his brain. And within that texture, there were shapes. Sounds that were almost words, syllables formed from the static of a century of forgotten secrets.
 
-The word was a sigh, a soft exhalation of air that carried no warmth. It was her name. Not a trick of the wind. Not a rumble of the pipes. Her name, spoken with a familiarity that made her skin crawl.
+The elevator jolted to a halt at Sub-Level 4. The doors slid open to reveal a hallway filled with a thick, grey mist—though "mist" was the wrong word. It was as if the very air had lost its resolution, blurring into a graininess that obscured the light.
 
-She bolted upright, fumbling for the lamp on the bedside table. Her hand shook so violently she knocked a glass of water over, the liquid splashing across her knees. She finally found the switch and flooded the room with light.
+Elias stepped out into the fog. He felt a strange sense of clarity, a horrific sharpening of his senses. He could hear the heartbeat of the building. He could hear the micro-fractures in the concrete. He could hear Sarah’s ragged breathing behind him, but it sounded miles away.
 
-The room was empty. 
+"Elias... don't go... don't..." Sarah’s voice was fading, swallowed by the hum.
 
-The only sound was the drip of water from the nightstand onto the rug. *Drip. Drip. Drip.*
+He walked toward the spectrum analyzer room. The equipment was still there, but the screens were no longer showing green lines. They were showing white, blinding light. The speakers weren't screeching; they were vibrating so violently that the wood casings were beginning to splinter.
 
-“I’m losing it,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I’ve finally cracked. Great. At least I’ll have something to talk about in therapy.”
+He reached the console and looked at his notes. The handwriting was no longer his. The ink had bled and shifted, reshaping itself into symbols he hadn't written but that he understood with a terrifying, primal familiarity. They were the matching patterns. The 1920s. The gate. The whisper.
 
-She looked at the walls. The wallpaper was peeling in long, thin strips near the ceiling. As she watched, the paper seemed to flutter, as if something were moving behind it.
+He realized then that he hadn't been analyzing the signal. He had been tuning it. His adjustments, his calibrations, his very presence in the room had served as a bridge. Sarah’s skepticism had been an anchor, but his belief—his paranoid, consuming belief—had been the conductor.
 
-A faint scratching sound began. It was a slow, deliberate sound—claws or fingernails dragging against the lath and plaster from the inside. It started at the corner of the ceiling and moved down toward the headboard of her bed.
+The room grew darker, the white light of the monitors the only source of illumination. The temperature plunged. Elias could see his own breath, a frozen plume that didn't dissipate, but hung in the air, drifting toward the speakers as if pulled by a vacuum.
 
-*Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.*
+He felt a hand on his shoulder.
 
-Mia scrambled to the far side of the bed, her breath coming in ragged gasps. The scratching stopped right behind where her head had been moments before.
+He turned, expecting Sarah. But the hallway behind him was empty. Sarah was gone—or perhaps he was the one who was gone. The door to the lab was closed, and through the reinforced glass, he saw only the grey, blurring fog.
 
-Then, the whisper came again. It wasn't a chorus now. It was a single voice, thin and translucent, echoing as if it were being spoken through a long, narrow tunnel.
+The humming stopped. 
 
-“*Mia…*” it breathed. “*We’re so glad you’re here…*”
+The silence that followed was not a lack of sound. It was a presence. A heavy, suffocating blanket of wordless intent. Elias stood frozen, his hands finally still, his heart a cold lump in his chest. He looked at the walls. The concrete seemed to ripple, the grey surface softening like wax.
 
-She stared at the wall, her vision blurring. She wanted to scream, but her throat felt as if it had been swallowed by the same dust that filled the house. She stayed there, huddled against the cold, as the scratching began again, circling the room, tracing the boundaries of her new life. 
+The whisper wasn't in his teeth anymore. It wasn't in the speakers. It wasn't in his mind.
 
-She wasn't alone. She had never been alone. 
-
-The house wasn't just settling. It was waking up.
+The Whisper sharpened into a single, intelligible syllable—Elias's name—echoing not from the speakers, but from the walls themselves.