It started with a cough.
In Oslo, eight-year-old Emil dropped his juice box and doubled over, hacking like he'd swallowed glass. His mother rushed in—then froze.
His eyes were silver.
Not glowing. Not flashing. Just… changed. Like moonlight had pooled behind his irises.
He looked up. "Mom," he whispered. "I hear them."
Three time zones away, in a high-rise apartment in Singapore, twelve-year-old Mei-Ling stood barefoot on the balcony, rain soaking her pajamas. She wasn't shivering. She was smiling.
"Mei?" her father called from inside. "Get in here!"
She turned, water dripping from her chin. "They're all talking at once," she said. "But it's not noise. It's… singing."
Her little brother, asleep on the couch, suddenly sat bolt upright—eyes wide, mouth open—but no sound came out. Only light. A soft, white pulse from his chest.
In Nairobi, Lagos, Buenos Aires, Reykjavik—the pattern repeated.
A child waking without being called.
A locket heating up on a nightstand.
