The first thing Amira noticed was the noise. Laughter. Soft crying. Clinking glasses. A guitar being tuned in the corner. Someone shouting joyfully at a paint-splattered wall.
"Too much?", Zane asked beside her.
She nodded.
"It's normal", he said. "The silence up there?"
He tilted his head toward the ceiling. "It's not peace. It's numbness. This is what humans sound like when you let them be".
He led her down a hallway lit with hanging bulbs - the kind Amira had only seen in textbook about The Time Before. Paintings lined the corridor: faces twisted in sorrow, mouths open in laughter, hands reaching, hearts bleeding, children dancing. No two the same. Each one alive.
They entered a wide room where a group sat in a circle on the floor, passing a small box between them. Each time someone held it, they told a story. A truth.
"... and then my sister looked at me and smiled, before they took her away".
"I used to sing to myself, in my room. I thought I was broken".
"Sometimes I still want to take the pill. It's easier not to feel".
The box reached Amira.
All eyes turned to her - not with judgement, but with something else. Expectation. Openness.
She held the box in her hands. It was warm. Wood carved with strange markings - hearts, teardrops, flames.
She opened her mouth.
"I cried today", she whispered. "In class. Just one tear".
No one laughed. No one turned away.
"I thought it meant I was defective. But... now I think it means I'm alive".
Silence. Then a nod. Then another.
"Welcome, Amira", a woman said softly from a corner. "You're one of us now".
Later, Zane gave her a mug of something hot. It smelled like cinnamon and ash.
"We call it Ember Tea. It clears the chemical haze in your body".
Amira sipped. It burned her tongue. But she didn't flinch.
"How many of us are there?", she asked.
Zane leaned against a wall. "Enough to scare them. Not enough to stop them. Yet".
"Why do they let this place exist?"
Zane's expression darkened. "They don't know it still does".
"But the Sentinels -",
"Don't come here. They think the entrance collapsed years ago. And we keep it that way".
Amira looked around. The paintings. The songs. The light in everyone's eyes.
"So this is freedom?"
Zane shrugged. "It's a start".
But as they spoke, far above them, a pair of eyes watched a flickering screen.
In the Core Tower, deep withing the government surveillance chamber, a blinking dot lit up on the city map. A biometric irregularity. Unregistered pupil dilation. Emotional deviation.
A voice buzzed through the intercom.
"Governor Lys. We've located a new Breaker".
The governor turned. Her face unreadable.
"Name?"
"Amira Kalu. Sixteen. Low Ward. School Sector 3".
A pause.
"Activate Sentinel 7. I want her brought in alive".