Part III — The Silence After the Break
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Smoke still hangs over The Frequency, sweet with ozone and sweat. The crowd spills out into the rain-soaked streets, laughing, shouting, alive. To them, it was the best show of their lives.
To Kai, it felt like the end of something unnamed.
He sits alone on the stage edge, guitar across his knees, the house lights dim. Mira's packing up the drums in silence. Juno smokes near the loading bay, head tilted like he's still hearing it.
Dex crouches in front of Kai, camera finally lowered. "Man... what the hell was that?"
Kai opens his mouth, but the words die.
He doesn't know.
The air feels heavier now — not dangerous, just charged. He can still feel that hum somewhere behind his ribs, a low vibration that refuses to fade. Every sound around him — footsteps, whispers, the metallic drip of rain through the ceiling — arrives too clear, too sharp, like the world's been remixed.
He reaches for his water bottle; the plastic trembles in his hand.
"Maybe we blew a fuse," Mira offers.
"Maybe," Kai says.
He doesn't believe it.
He catches his reflection in a cracked stage mirror: the same eyes, but behind them, a flicker — like light trapped underwater.
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Outside, the rain has turned the city neon again. The walls breathe with graffiti that glows faintly in the wet — NO GODS, NO FILTERS, NO FEAR.
He walks aimlessly, hood up, the crowd's echoes dissolving into the hum of traffic.
He rounds a corner, past food stalls and shuttered stores, until he finds himself at the river's edge. The surface ripples like broken glass.
That's when he hears a voice.
"You almost tore a hole through the sky back there."
He turns.
It's the girl from the show — copper-thread hair now damp, dark eyes bright as electricity. She leans against a streetlight, the glow tracing the curve of her cheek.
Kai blinks. "You were there."
"Front row," she says. "Hard to miss a miracle."
He laughs once, quiet. "If it was a miracle, it broke half our amps."
"Maybe that's the price."
The silence between them feels alive. Rain patters like percussion. Her gaze never wavers.
"You felt it too, didn't you?" she asks softly.
Kai hesitates. "What did you feel?"
"Like the city stopped lying," she says. "Just for a second."
The hum in his chest flares.
"What's your name?"
She smiles, small and knowing. "Luna."
He studies her face — the way she seems both entirely human and not, like she's lit from the same hidden wavelength that broke through the crowd.
Before he can reply, lightning flashes across the skyline, painting the glass towers in silver. For an instant, their reflections stretch and ripple — as if the city itself were listening.
Luna steps closer. "You've started something, Echo. And it won't stop now."
Kai stares at her, the hum growing louder, merging with the thunder.
"Then I guess," he says quietly, "I'd better learn what song I'm playing."
She smiles, turns away, and walks into the mist.
The rain slows. The river hums faintly beneath the city lights.
Kai watches her vanish, then looks down at his hands — faint traces of light flicker under his skin, like strings resonating after the final note.
He breathes out.
The silence doesn't answer.
It listens.
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"Every city has a heartbeat.
Some just haven't heard theirs yet."
— fragment from Echo's journal, found years later.