The world had forgotten how to dream. Not gradually, not gently—but all at once, like someone had snuffed out the last candle during a storm.
Every street, every face, every drop of rain looked the same—drained, dull, lifeless. The city stretched endlessly beneath a sky that had never known blue. Buildings rose like pale ribs toward a ceiling of permanent ash, where a sun existed only in old legends.
People moved like shadows, eyes hollow, expressionless, hearts silent. No laughter. No wonder. No color.
Once, there had been colors. That's what the forbidden books whispered—tales of red that burned like passion, gold that warmed like morning, green that breathed like forests. But those words were just shapes on paper now, relics of a world no one understood.
Colors were myths. And myths were dangerous.
Lyra Solen stood at the edge of her apartment balcony, the wind tugging softly at her worn-out cloak. She lived on the 47th floor of Stackline 88—an old residential tower half-swallowed by fog, half-forgotten by the city's rulers.
Below her, the city stretched like a graveyard of concrete—the district known as Sector G, or, as its residents bitterly called it:
The Gray Spine. A place of monotony. A place where dreams went to die.
Factories exhaled thin plumes of smoke, blending into the sky until everything was the same shade of lifeless silver. There were no markets, no art, no festivals. Only workers in identical uniforms, machines humming endlessly, and silence heavy enough to choke.
Lyra rested her hands on the cold railing, staring at the emptiness below. She tried to picture the stories her mother used to tell when she was young—stories she once dismissed as metaphors.
"The world used to sing in colors, Lyra."
Back then, she assumed her mother meant happiness or hope, or some emotional nonsense adults liked to romanticize. But now, at nineteen, Lyra wasn't so sure.
Because sometimes… late at night… the air sang back.
At first, she thought she was imagining it. A faint vibration under her skin, like a second heartbeat that wasn't hers. Some nights it felt like a soft sigh brushing against her cheek; other nights it throbbed like thunder trapped beneath glass.
She tried ignoring it. She tried convincing herself it was stress, exhaustion, or simply her mind creating illusions in a world starved of sensation. No one in Sector G ever felt anything beyond routine—feeling itself was almost suspicious.
But the vibrations kept returning, growing stronger each week.
And tonight… they were unmistakable.
A hum rolled through her apartment walls—low, deep, resonant.
Hmmmmmmmm…
Not mechanical. Not natural.
Alive.
Lyra's breath stilled. She pressed her palm against the cold wall beside the balcony door. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then—her fingertips tingled.
The surface beneath her hand rippled, like water under moonlight.
"What—?"
A faint shimmer ran along the plaster, delicate and silent, like veins glowing beneath skin. Lyra stepped back, heart pounding. Her room darkened around her as the air thickened.
Then—like a curtain pulled aside—
A thin line of light appeared.
Not the sterile white of factory lamps. Not the dull gray of the city.
Something new. Something impossible.
Her mind couldn't name the color, but her chest tightened with a warmth that was both terrifying and comforting. The light pulsed once. Twice. A soft, rhythmic beat.
Her heartbeat answered.
The glow brightened, lifting tiny specks of dust from the air, arranging them into swirling patterns. Lyra watched, mesmerized, as they formed delicate spirals—like a constellation being drawn right in front of her eyes.
Then she heard it.
A whisper. Soft, layered, impossibly gentle.
"Remember me…"
Lyra froze. The voice wasn't human. It wasn't singular either.
It sounded like a hundred soft tones layered perfectly into one—a harmony that vibrated against her bones. The whisper curled around her ears like warm breath, filling her small apartment with something she had never felt before:
Presence.
She stumbled back, gripping the edge of her table. "Remember you?" she whispered, voice trembling. "Who are you?"
No answer. Only the fading shimmer of the light…and the faint drift of golden dust swirling down to the floor like embers falling from a dying star.
Her pulse pounded in her ears. She rubbed her arms, trying to chase away the cold lingering beneath her skin. The hum vanished, leaving the room unnervingly silent—a silence that felt different now, stretched thin, as if something unseen was holding its breath.
Lyra approached the wall again, fingertips still tingling. The plaster was cold, solid, normal.
But she had seen it.
Something had moved. Something had spoken. Something had awakened.
And the world—a world that had been dead for as long as she could remember—suddenly felt too alive to bear.
She walked back toward the balcony, heart slowly settling. But when she looked outside, she stopped dead.
The fog. It was glowing.
Faintly—like a soft halo wrapped around the city's bones—but clearly. Wisps of mist carried a subtle shimmer, drifting upward as though weightless. Lights flickered on a few buildings, the color tint slightly off from their usual gray.
Her breath hitched.
It wasn't her imagination. The world around her was changing.
She leaned her forehead against the cold window glass, trying to quiet the rushing thoughts. What she felt wasn't fear. Not exactly.
More like… anticipation. The sharp, electric kind that dances under the skin right before a storm breaks.
She whispered into the night, "Why me?"
The wind didn't answer. But the glowing fog swirled once, almost playfully, as if something unseen was moving through it.
A shiver ran down her spine. Somewhere deep inside her, a truth she had never been taught began to bloom—fragile, wild, and unstoppable:
The silence of the world had cracked. And through that crack…
Color was whispering back.
Far below, in the veins of the ancient city, something stirred. A vibration echoing from forgotten depths. A memory breaking free. A voice awakening after centuries.
And without realizing it, Lyra Solen—the girl who had never seen a color—had just answered its call.
This was the beginning. Of wonder. Of danger. Of everything the world had tried so hard to bury.
Tonight, the world had remembered how to breathe.
Tomorrow, it would remember how to dream.