Classified: Layer Index — intermediate

Layer 5 — The Quiet Interval

This layer is not a room. It is the space between notes where music forgets to continue. It arrives with the absence of sound and the heavy certainty of a held breath.

What it is

Layer 5 is an interval: an ordered silence that rearranges how memory records moments. People who "find" it rarely speak of it; what they leave behind reads like a pause. Scholars and Guardians describe it with equal parts dread and affection.

Visible:: Faint grid of dust motes that do not drift. Objects do not decay.
Audible:: Silence with an undertone — a frequency that sounds like the first consonant of your name.

Rules of the Interval

Do not speak aloud. Sound will not travel as usual; spoken words re-emerge altered.

Write if you must. Ink will hold for seven breaths — after that the marks sleep until you leave.

Objects remain unchanged. Time is paused — do not leave fragile things and expect them elsewhere.

Do not dig. The ground beneath is an echo that remembers names. Some echoes answer back.

Press to recall a single hidden line.

Why it was missing

The Order omitted Layer 5 from public registers by design. Untrained visitors tend to remain there indefinitely: they sit down to listen and forget to stand. An entry in the Index would be an advertisement — and the Quiet Interval is not for advertisement. Instead, the Index leaves a vacant slot. This vacancy acts as a seam for those who actually remember how to look.