They were just kids.
At least, that's what the files said.
Ages: 9 to 16.
Condition: "Post-Harmony Amnesia"
Status: Unclaimed.
Ezra called them what everyone else was too afraid to:
Memory orphans.
---
They sat in cold shelters, quiet and blinking.
No crying. No screaming.
Because you can't miss what you don't remember.
Most didn't even know their names.
A few just picked new ones.
> "I'm Sunday," said a girl with cuts down her arms that spelled out rhythms, not words.
"I think my birthday was once on a Sunday, but maybe that's just a feeling."
---
One boy — maybe 12 — would hum in perfect pitch for hours.
But it wasn't any tune Ezra recognized.
Not Elena's.
Not the Broadcast.
Not even the Blood Choir's renditions.
It was something new.
Something that felt like it wanted to remember itself.
---
Doctors ran brain scans.
No brain damage. No trauma.
Just... voids.
Black spots in their memory maps, as if entire years had been deleted.
---
One woman, a retired Harmony therapist, said it best:
> "It's like the Voice took their childhoods as payment...
and forgot to return them."
---
Ezra sat across from one of the orphans.
Her name, she claimed, was Mica.
> "That's what I call myself. Because my blood's sharp like stone now."
Her eyes didn't blink often.
Her hair was matted but she didn't seem to notice.
She stared directly at Ezra and asked:
> "Do you hear her too?"
Ezra froze.
He hadn't told anyone.
Not since the last broadcast.
Not since the voice told him, "You already did."
---
> "She's not singing anymore," Mica whispered.
"But she's thinking."
> "I think she left something in me."
Ezra's mouth went dry.
> "What do you mean?"
> "It's growing," Mica said, tracing a spiral on her wrist.
"And it's not like the others. It doesn't want to be heard. It wants to be born."
---
Outside, someone screamed.
One of the orphans — the boy who hummed — had collapsed, eyes wide open, still mouthing a song.
The shelter nurse rushed to him.
Ezra didn't move.
His hand slowly reached into his coat…
And felt the jagged edge of the original tape.
Still with him. Still humming, faintly, even though there was no power source near it.
---
> "Not everything she left behind wants to be remembered."