The Hum

The Moon is humming lovely melodies

The night so black that the Darkness hummed

And we'll ignite the night in pitch

## What is The Hum?

The Hum is an entity presumed to be created by Sahold or even Diś, and some even speculate both. The Hum feeds on forgotten memories and events, feasting both on the idle thoughts that slip from someone's mind and the long-forgotten names of ancient cities and lands. In places or environments with very few or a lot of such memories, The Hum produces the sound of a low, barely audible hum or drone. Some associate this effect to an empty, roiling stomach, craving for new memories to be created and forgotten.

In pitch darkness, The Hum can be heard by about 20% of people, as it is an environment where a naturally low amount of memories of the outside worlds are made. Likewise, some places with a lot of forgotten memories experience The Hum's constant presence, such as very old, derelict ruins, most notably The Forgotten Capital of Fanistilyw, for which The Hum still remains a suspect.

The Hum has also been proven to only be able to predict up to third Grain future, meaning that it cannot predict situations where any of the Twelve or Dust are directly involved.

## Emissaries of The Hum

Sometimes, in times of hunger, The Hum is presumed to recruit Emissaries, to whom it gives knowledge of the future, often with a lot of emotional significance to the individual, presumably in order to create a fertile ground for new thoughts and memories to be formed. It is not uncommon for The Hum to give an Emissary highly chaotic and disruptive instructions meant to cause commotion.

The Hum has many of these so-called Emissaries, which act as its prophets and agents, receiving and following its tasks and instructions. Emissaries have been found in every one of the Worlds, and in an alarming amount of organizations and governments' command structures, following the instructions of The Hum.

Contrary to initial theories, simply hearing The Hum does not give one knowledge of the future. Instead, The Hum chooses individuals which it will make into its Emissaries. After one has been made an Emissary, they reportedly hear The Hum more easily and get prophetic knowledge on most occasions when they do hear it.

The following is a transcribed account of one of The Hum's Emissaries, Daesil Beker:

"Sometimes, in the dead of the night, you might hear a hum. So quiet that you barely notice it coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. And after a few minutes, it might pass. And nothing would happen. You'd go back to your life and forget about the vague sense of dread or excitement or alarm or peace or anger or sadness or void of nothingness that you may have felt back then, just for a few sobering moments.

But sometimes, it starts getting louder, and you begin to hear exactly what it wants you to do. What it is commanding you to do. And you do it, no matter what it takes. Not because it makes you or forces your or takes over your body. No. Not because of any of that.

You do it because it tells you exactly what will happen if you don't.

It might just be that you shouldn't go to the shop today because you'll get stabbed if you do. Or maybe it tells you that you have to destroy your house to prevent a fire from burning down your whole town. Or, maybe, it tells you to shove your own wife down the stairs to prevent an international war costing thousands of lives.

And you know what it is telling you is true. You *know*. Because it tells you everything. Every single detail that will lead from one thing to another, and why, and how, until you are convinced, and you relent.

You yourself know that several have already proven that The Hum does not lie in its warnings. I will be your witness that it does not lie in its missions, either.

When something bad happens out of nowhere, you shrug and sigh about how it couldn't have been foreseen and prevented, but when you *are told exactly* what will happen and how to prevent it, you feel responsible. How do you feel right now? How do you feel now that you know you could just go out into the night and listen to The Hum, to prevent the fall of your home or the illness of a close friend or the deaths of millions?

It knows you inside and out. Everything about you and everything about everyone you know or may have once known. But The Hum, it doesn't *care* who you are or what you *can* do. You have your mission and you know the consequences if your failure to complete it. You *know*. You *have* to do what it told you to. You *have* to complete your mission. And no, The Hum doesn't care if that means making a milkshake or committing a genocide. It just tells you the facts. Knowledge you don't want, but desperately *need*.

And once you've done what you had to, you can't help but wonder: what else could The Hum help you avoid?"

## The Hum in folklore

Outside of its actual effects, The Hum has inspired myriads of myths and legends about its sound, most times retaining The Hum as an unseen memory-eater, who can only be fought against by not forgetting its story.