The sound followed him home.
It wasn't loud — more like a soft vibration under his skin, a memory of a sound that refused to fade. Every few minutes, it seemed to pulse through the air, so faint he couldn't tell whether it was external or just his heartbeat echoing in his skull.
Phyo sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the folded card the woman had given him. The lines of the symbol looked different now — sharper, almost alive, as if the ink itself was shifting beneath the paper. He blinked hard, rubbed his eyes. Nothing changed. It was still there, quietly waiting for him to make sense of it.
He checked the clock. 2:43 a.m.
Outside, the street was silent except for the occasional distant rumble of traffic. The moon hung low, hazy through the thin veil of city fog. Everything seemed almost normal — except for the way the shadows along his walls moved just slightly out of rhythm with the light.
He stood up and turned on the lamp.
Nothing. Stillness again.But the pulse was stronger now, slow and steady — thrum... thrum... thrum.
He pressed a hand to his chest. His heart wasn't beating that slow. Whatever it was, it came from beneath.
Phyo grabbed his jacket and stepped outside. If he stayed, he knew he wouldn't sleep anyway. The night air hit him cold and sharp as he walked toward the old train line that cut across the eastern side of the city. The tracks hadn't been used in years, but rumors said the tunnels beneath were still powered somehow — leftover circuits and generators buried deep underground.
The hum grew clearer the closer he got.
It wasn't random. It had rhythm.
He stopped under the overpass, near where concrete met rusted metal, and listened carefully. The pulse was faint but regular — three beats, a pause, then two more. Over and over. Like code.
Three short. Two long.
He crouched down and touched the steel rail. It vibrated faintly under his fingers. It wasn't his imagination.
He followed the sound, tracing it along the tracks to where the line disappeared into a fenced-off tunnel entrance. The gate was locked, but a section of the fence had been bent just enough for a person to slip through. Someone had been here recently — the ground was disturbed, fresh shoe prints half-filled with dust.
He hesitated. His breath fogged in the cold air.
Then he crawled through.
The tunnel swallowed him whole.His flashlight beam cut through the dark — glinting off dripping pipes, glistening rails, damp concrete. Every step echoed like a whisper returning from far away.
As he moved deeper, the hum grew into a vibration he could feel through his soles, like the city itself was breathing.
The air thickened. His flashlight flickered.
Then, for the first time, he saw it — a faint blue shimmer along the tunnel wall, crawling like veins of light through the concrete. The same hue as the glow inside the woman's metal case.
He approached slowly. The pattern wasn't random. The glowing veins formed a network — lines, nodes, intersections — like a map.Or a system.
The pulse came again, and this time he could see it — a ripple of blue traveling through the veins, running deeper into the dark.
Phyo's breathing quickened. He raised his hand, hesitated, then pressed his palm against the wall.
Cold.Then — warmth.Then — something else.
A flash.
Not light — memory.
For a split second, his mind filled with voices — overlapping, indistinct, like thousands of people speaking at once but none forming full words. He saw flashes of images: water, smoke, a city skyline bending inward, a figure standing on a platform of light, hands outstretched.
He pulled away, gasping.
The pulse stopped.
Silence.
Only his own breathing, rough and ragged, echoed off the tunnel walls.
He turned, intending to leave — but the way back was no longer the same. The walls had shifted somehow, or maybe it was just the light. The path behind him looked longer now, unfamiliar.
Then — another voice.
Not like before.This one was clear, calm, and terrifyingly near.
"You shouldn't have touched it."
Phyo spun around, flashlight trembling.At the edge of the light stood a man in a dark coat — not the woman from before. Older, sharp features, and eyes that caught the faint blue glow in a way that made them look almost metallic.
"It's reacting to you," the man said, stepping closer. "That's why she came. You triggered the current."
"Who are you?" Phyo demanded.
The man ignored the question. "You think this city was built on bedrock?" He tapped the wall with his knuckles — a dull, hollow sound. "No. It's built on a skeleton — an old machine buried long before your time. You just woke part of it."
Phyo took a step back. "I don't understand any of this—"
"You will." The man's voice was soft now, but something in it carried weight. "When the pulse reaches the surface, everyone will."
He turned to leave, his footsteps echoing down the tunnel.
"Wait!" Phyo called. "What happens when it reaches the surface?"
The man paused in the dark, half-turned."You start hearing them clearly."
Then — gone. Just the hum again, far away but growing stronger.
Phyo stood alone, heart hammering, the glow still pulsing faintly in the wall beside him. The symbol from the card burned in his mind like an afterimage. The eye. The crossing lines.
It wasn't just a mark. It was a map.And now it was open.
He took one last look down the tunnel — into the endless dark where the hum began — and whispered to himself:
"The surface is never still."
Then he turned and walked toward the faint hint of dawn, unaware that above him, somewhere deep beneath the waking city, the light began to move.