Los Angeles had a way of making silence feel expensive.
Bobby knew this city by numbers—streams in the millions, ticket sales that sold out before sunrise, contracts thick enough to choke a room. LA loved metrics. Charts. Rankings. Proof that you mattered.
Tonight, none of it mattered to him.
He stood across the street from a closed coffee shop on Sunset Boulevard, hoodie pulled low, watching his reflection warp in the dark glass. For the first time in years, no one recognized him. No phones lifted. No shouts. No expectations.
That was when he heard her.
It wasn't loud.
It wasn't polished.
It was real.
A thin ribbon of sound cut through traffic noise and late-night laughter, curling its way into his chest before he had time to stop it. Bobby turned slowly, as if sudden movement might scare the voice away.
Under a flickering streetlight sat a woman on a wooden crate, a ukulele resting awkwardly against her frame. She wore worn sneakers and a jacket that had seen better winters. Her hair fell loose around her face, and when she sang, her eyes stayed closed—like the world didn't deserve them yet.
She wasn't performing at the street.
She was singing through it.
Bobby felt something shift behind his eyes.
Then the world blinked.
[SYSTEM ONLINE]
The words appeared clean and sharp, floating just above reality.
Bobby staggered back a step.
"What the hell…?" he whispered.
He'd seen overlays before—augmented visuals in studios, VR concepts pitched by tech bros with too much money and no rhythm—but this wasn't that. This felt… personal. Intentional.
The woman's voice didn't falter.
New text slid into place.
> Artist Identified: Lily Hart
Class: Street Vocalist (Unregistered)
Level: 1
Emotional Resonance: ★★★★★
Current Audience: 7
Hidden Potential: ???
Bobby's heart began to race.
No one had ever told him about this part of fame. No mentor, no producer, no label exec had mentioned seeing music this way. He'd climbed every ladder in the industry, and yet somehow, sitting on a crate under a dying light, this woman had access to something he didn't.
Her song ended softly, fingers brushing the strings like a goodbye she wasn't ready to say.
Applause followed—awkward, scattered. Someone dropped a dollar into her open case. Another nodded politely before moving on.
Lily opened her eyes.
They landed on Bobby.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Then she smiled—not wide, not performative. Just… warm.
"Hey," she said. "You okay? You look like you just saw a ghost."
Bobby swallowed.
The system pulsed once more.
> New Quest Available
Listen without interrupting.
Reward: Unknown
He exhaled slowly.
"Yeah," he said, voice rougher than he expected. "I'm… I'm good."
She tilted her head. "You want to hear another?"
The city roared behind them—cars, sirens, ambition—but in that small pocket of light, Bobby felt something rare.
Stillness.
He nodded.
"I'd like that."
As Lily lifted her ukulele again, a final line appeared, faint but unmistakable:
> Warning:
Some sounds, once lost, cannot be recovered.
Bobby didn't understand it yet.
But somewhere deep inside, he already knew—
this voice was going to change everything.