Silence did not arrive all at once.
It crept.
It seeped in behind them, trailing the smell of iron and wet stone, following the path of their flight as if unsure whether it was still permitted to exist. Even after the sirens thinned into distance and the city's white eyes turned elsewhere, the silence hesitated—cautious, provisional—like something that might still be recalled if it made the wrong sound.
Olivèr lay awake beneath the fallen overpass where they had finally stopped running.
The ground beneath him was gritty with old dust and newer blood, long since diluted by rain. Somewhere nearby, water still dripped from a cracked beam—steady, patient, unashamed of continuing. The concrete above them bore dark streaks where her wound had brushed it when she staggered, marks already fading, already pretending they had never mattered.
He had closed his eyes when his mother told him to.
He had folded his hands the way she liked, fingers laced, thumbs touching. He had kept his knees together. He had not hummed. He had not rocked.
He had done everything right.
Still, sleep would not come.
When he opened his eyes again, the dark did not move. It did not soften or blur or slide away like it used to when he blinked too hard. It stayed exactly where it was, heavy and exact, as though the world itself were holding its breath—waiting to see what he would do next.
Silence used to mean nothing was wrong.
Now it felt like a question left unanswered on purpose.
That frightened him more than noise ever had.
He listened.
No pictures came. No drifting shapes. Just his own breathing—too close, too loud—and the rain, dripping somewhere far above. It struck bent metal first, then stone, then something hollow buried deeper, each impact arriving with a dull, unfinished sound that never quite resolved.
Tap.
Wait.
Tap.
The waiting was wrong.
Too long. Or too short. He couldn't tell. It felt like when you start a game and forget the rules halfway through, when everyone else keeps playing and you're left holding a move that no longer fits.
He counted, because counting helped things behave. One. Two. One-two-three.
But the rain did not obey.
Sometimes the third sound never came. Sometimes it came early, crashing into the second and breaking it apart.
His chest tightened.
He rolled onto his side, pulling his knees in tight, making himself small. His heel brushed the concrete.
The contact did not scrape.
It pressed.
A thin vibration crawled up through his heel and into his bones, settling behind his teeth like cold. His jaw buzzed faintly, as if he had bitten down on something metal.
Olivèr froze.
The feeling lingered after the touch was gone, a ghost-sensation that refused to finish. The ground felt closer now, not warmer, not louder—simply more aware of him.
He stopped breathing.
He waited.
The vibration thinned, then vanished, leaving his mouth numb.
Only then did he breathe again—fast, shallow breaths, careful ones, as though the air might notice if he took too much at once.
He wanted his mother.
The wanting hurt his throat.
She was only a few steps away, sitting against one of the pillars where they had collapsed at last. He could see her shape even in the low light: knees drawn up, head bowed, her wrapped hand resting wrong in her lap. The cloth was dark at the center, rain-soaked, blood-diluted. Her shoulders rose and fell, but not evenly. Each breath seemed to test the ground ahead of it, unsure it would hold.
He did not want to make a sound.
What if it answered wrong?
Instead, he shaped her name silently with his mouth.
Mother.
The word felt sharp. Like it had edges now.
He swallowed.
Something else hummed—not loud, not sudden. The city, far away, leaking through layers of concrete and earth. It used to be a blur, a wide blanket of noise that made sleep easier. Now it felt sorted. Pulled apart. Every vibration standing alone, too aware of itself.
He pressed his palms over his ears.
The hum felt closer.
Not louder.
Closer.
A thin sound slipped out of him before he could stop it—a small whimper, tight and strained, like a string pulled too far.
His mother moved immediately.
"Oli?" Her voice was rough, scraped raw by pain and flight, but it reached him fast. "I'm here."
He dropped his hands and crawled toward her on his knees, too fast, too clumsy. His foot caught on loose gravel from the roadway above and he pitched forward, barely catching himself.
The stones shifted.
No sound followed.
But his stomach dipped hard, as if something underneath him had leaned in to listen. His teeth rang again, sharper this time, and a chill slid up his spine.
He flinched so hard his teeth clicked.
She leaned forward despite herself, her uninjured hand gripping his shoulder to steady him.
For a split second, his body jerked away from her touch before he realized it was hers.
A hiss slipped from her teeth—pain, quick and unhidden.
"Easy," she murmured anyway. "Slow."
He pressed his face into her coat, breathing her in. Soap. Rain. Iron. Something sharp and clean that stung his nose. His fingers twisted in the fabric, shaking like they'd forgotten how to stay still.
"It won't stop," he whispered. "The quiet won't stop."
Her body went rigid for a heartbeat. Not away from him—never that—but inward, like something bracing against collapse.
"It doesn't have to," she said, too carefully. "Not tonight."
He shook his head. "It's—" His breath caught. "It's doing that thing."
"What thing?" she asked.
"The waiting," he said. "Like when you tell me to count, and I do, but then… I forget what comes next. And it just stays wrong."
She closed her eyes.
For a long moment she said nothing. She held him and rocked gently, though the movement wasn't smooth. Pain tugged at her balance, sharp enough that her jaw tightened, but she did not stop.
"You don't have to answer it," she said at last. "If it waits."
The waiting felt wrong—but not like danger. Like something unfinished that had chosen to stop anyway.
"But it listens to me," he said. "When I move, it does things."
She drew back just enough to look at his face. Her eyes searched him—not for resonance, not for the signs the enforcers named—but for fear. For the small fractures no measure could see.
"Oli," she said, carefully. "You are here."
He frowned. "I know."
"No," she said, then faltered. Tried again. "If things feel wrong… that doesn't mean you made them wrong."
He opened his mouth, then closed it. He nodded instead—a small, quick nod, like agreement might make it safer.
The world did not punish him for existing—only for being afraid.
She pressed her forehead to his hair. Her breath trembled.
"Try to sleep," she whispered. "I'll stay."
He hesitated.
Then, cautiously, like he was asking permission from something unseen, he leaned his weight into her side. He kept his eyes open for a long time after that, watching the dark, listening to the rain try and fail to remember its rhythm.
When sleep finally took him, it brought no dreams. Only a heavy blankness—a place where nothing reached him, and nothing promised it wouldn't.
****************
Morning did not announce itself.
Light leaked in around the edges of the overpass, gray and thin. The rain had softened into mist. Olivèr woke with a jolt, heart racing, certain he had missed something important.
He sat up too fast.
Something tightened—not sound, not sight, but pressure, like the air drawing a shallow breath. Dust trickled from the underside of the overpass, stopping only when he froze.
His hand flew to his mouth.
Nothing cracked.
Nothing recoiled.
Nothing screamed.
The pressure loosened, reluctantly, as if the world had leaned forward and then decided against speaking.
He waited for the wrong part.
It did not come.
Not because it was gone—only because it had not yet decided.
His mother was already awake, eyes open, staring at nothing. When she noticed him watching, she forced a small smile that did not reach her breath.
"Morning," she said.
"Is it?" he asked.
She glanced at the pale strip of sky. "It's trying."
He accepted that.
He stood slowly this time. Very slowly. When he shifted his weight, the air tightened—then loosened, as if reconsidering.
His stomach still hurt.
They left once the light was stronger, moving away from the overpass, deeper into the outskirts—away from sirens, away from the place where harmony had learned it could break.
And though the world followed them, cautiously, step by step, it did not close.
It observed.
It measured.
It waited.
A tiny thought slipped unbidden through Olivèr's mind, impossible to pin down: Maybe I made it wait wrong.
And that was okay.