The Watchers in the Source

“A-Are you sure this is... safe?” Isabella asked. She was unconsciously crouching her shoulders, making herself small. Her eyes glanced left to right like she expected a predator at any turn.

“It will be fine,” Aurora said, forcing her voice to be steady. No reason to let Isabella know that Aurora felt just as bad, if not worse. The Watchers were especially loud today. Most people couldn't “hear” them. They just felt a vague sense of unease and paranoia, a trigger deep inside their animal instincts that something was wrong.

Sourceformers had all the fun of that, plus the edge-of-hearing whispers that sometimes broke into a flat-out roar. It helped some, knowing what it was. Or at least what was causing it. Not even the senior Council members knew what the Watchers actually were. But every sourceformer knew their presence. Knew that you had to be careful to avoid their attention and even more careful when their attention had been aroused.

As they followed the rough trail deeper into the woods, it got worse for both of them. They were still a quarter mile out from the gate. Had someone been meddling nearby? It was unusual for a gate to be so loud this far out. It could just be the tide, though, the mysterious ebb and flow of the source that Dawning metaphysicists still puzzled over.

“It'll be fine,” Aurora repeated. She reached out and grabbed Isabella's hand, giving it a squeeze.

It wasn't much longer before the gate came into view. Or rather, the deteriorating structure that marked its location. The house Aurora had been born in. The place she had discovered years ago, when pursuing the mystery of her creation. It still haunted her to look at it. The Watchers were only part of the reason why.