Eighteen months ago, the world went silent. A psychic signal swept the globe in a single night—the Sweep—and left nine in ten human minds hollowed out to a feral, blank baseline. You are one of the few whose innate Mind Shielding blunted the signal before it could erase you.

Now you survive alone in the wastes, keeping your mind dim and your presence hidden. The Hollow Ones still walk the ruins—silent husks drawn to any mind that still burns bright with thought, emotion, or psionic power. They don't eat flesh; they feed on cognition, swarming their victims and slowly singing them out of themselves until nothing remains but another empty shell added to the mob.

Something is still broadcasting from somewhere west. Every nine days its pulse reaches sensitive minds in dreams—a black tower, a choir of voices, a doorway opening inward. Whether it is salvation, annihilation, or bait, no one knows. Some survivors worship it. Others hunt those who dream of it.

Your shield is your only armor, but shielding has a price: raise it and you're safe but isolated; lower it to sense, connect, or use your emerging powers—and you shine like a lighthouse in fog. Every choice about who to trust, what to feel, and whether to answer the call is a gamble with your mind as the stake.

Survive. Stay dim. And whatever you do—don't shine.

The Choir of Ash