The road bends inland for days before it meets the ruins.The map in my pocket is more tradition than truth now—drawn years ago, when the land still remembered where it wanted to go.Every path changes with the seasons.That, too, feels right.
I pass forests growing through old concrete, bridges swallowed by ivy, rail lines turned into rivers.The world has decided it doesn't need permission to rewrite itself.I admire that.
By the fourth day, I reach what's left of an outpost.Rusting signage half-buried in dirt, letters missing, unreadable.The locals call it "North of Memory."A fitting name; it's where the old cities stopped and the wilderness began.
They say it used to hold one of the earliest Directorate data cores.Now, it's just trees and bones of metal.
I make camp beneath a collapsed antenna.The metal's still warm from the day's sun, the air quiet enough to hear my own breath.For a long time, I sit there and let myself remember—not the battles or the speeches, but the faces between them.Rai, grinning over broken equipment.Uraraka, scolding me for pretending I didn't care.People who believed in motion, even when the ground fell apart.
The memories don't hurt anymore.They just exist.And that's a mercy.
On the second morning, I find a small group of scavengers.Young—barely adults—searching through the metal wreckage for salvageable parts.They're careful, methodical, efficient.When they see me, one of them raises a hand."You from the coast?"
"Further south."
"What brings you out here?"
"Habit."
They laugh. "Habit's a good reason. We're rebuilding the relay lines. Trying to get signals back between the northern towns."
"I thought the Accord shut down the main network years ago."
"It did," says another. "But we're not restarting it. We're building our own. Smaller. Human-sized."
That makes me smile.
"Keep it that way."
I spend the next few days helping them repair old cables, rewire panels, teach them how to keep voltage from burning through wet insulation.They learn fast.Smarter than we were, less afraid to make mistakes.
At night, they gather around small fires and talk—not about heroes or revolutions, but about harvests, trade, music.Their world feels lighter, like it finally stopped carrying its own ghost.
One evening, one of them—Lina, the youngest—asks, "Do you remember what it was like before? When people couldn't talk freely?"
"Yes."
"Was it really that bad?"
"Worse."
She stares into the flames. "Then we should never forget."
"You will," I say softly. "And that's how you'll know it worked."
When the lines are finished, they test the first transmission.It's clumsy and weak, static cutting through every sentence.But when the voice from the next outpost answers, their cheers echo across the valley.Connection.Simple, imperfect, miraculous.
They thank me, though they don't know who they're thanking.I tell them to keep walking, to teach others what they learned.They promise they will.
I believe them.
That night, I write in the old notebook again:
They build differently now—without fear of being seen. That's how I know the world has healed. When progress no longer hides.
I close the book and set it beside the dying fire.Ash drifts up, carried by the faint wind moving through the hollow tower.The world smells of dust and renewal.
Before I leave, Lina gives me a charm made of wire and glass."For luck," she says. "Or maybe for remembering."
"I've had enough of both," I tell her, but I take it anyway.
She smiles. "Then maybe it's for letting go."
I walk north until the air thins and the trees grow sparse.At the top of a ridge, I look back.The valley below glows faintly—lights from the scavengers' camp forming a thin, wavering line that stretches toward the horizon.
A new network.A new kind of signal.One that doesn't need power to survive—just people willing to keep trying.
Maybe that's what the world is now, I think. Not rebuilt, not perfect, just... connected enough to matter.
I turn and keep walking.The cold bites, the road narrows, and for the first time in years, I feel light.