Embers of Discontent

Liora’s POV

By the time Liora reached the tram stop outside Sector Eleven, the light had changed. The neon signage flickered just slightly—an almost imperceptible stutter, like the city had hiccupped. Most people wouldn't notice.

She noticed everything.

She sat near the back of the tram car, hood up, one boot resting over the opposite knee, eyes fixed on her reflection in the window but not looking at it. Watching the people instead. Who got on. Who got off. Who lingered. Who didn't make sense.

A man in a maintenance jacket sat down three seats ahead. Too clean. Shoes too polished. Holding a clipboard but not writing anything.

She slid her hand into her coat. Not for a weapon. For her mic-jammer. One flick of her thumb—no audio surveillance would hold for the next two blocks.

She made her exit just before the tram reached the district’s checkpoint. As her boots hit the ground, she caught the maintenance man rise too. She turned the corner before he could catch her eye, slipped down a tight alley, and ducked behind the bakery waste chutes.

Twenty seconds. Thirty.

No footsteps.

He wasn’t following. Or he was better than she thought.

She moved.

Sector Eleven had changed. Windows were darker. Faces more tired. The city always starved its fringe districts first—it called it “pressure management.” But pressure built cracks. And cracks let things leak.

Her destination wasn’t a building. It was a wall.

The wall stood between the old transit station and the burned-out forum steps. No cameras. No streetlights. Just a massive slab of concrete left abandoned after a planned redevelopment stalled six years ago.

Liora approached it slowly, scanning. She didn’t know what she was looking for yet.

Then she heard it.

A low hum—oscillating.

She pressed her ear to the wall.

Not sound.

Vibration.

Rhythmic, pulsing in threes. Like breathing. No... like speaking. Coded. Short bursts. Some kind of embedded transponder?

She pulled her notebook and scribbled the rhythm.

Back at her apartment, she’d decode it. But here, she just needed proof that something was speaking. A voice carried through concrete. A warning in static.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a tiny recorder—custom-modded to pick up low-frequency signals. She placed it gently at the base of the wall, tucked beneath a broken tile, and activated the timer.

“Speak to me,” she whispered. “Or better—scream.”

Behind her, a rustle.

Too soft to be wind. Too sharp to be casual.

Liora turned, eyes narrowing.

But no one was there.

Only a single item sat on the ground now, where there hadn’t been anything a moment ago.

A folded sheet of paper. Crisp, clean.

She crouched and unfolded it.

In neat, mechanical print:

We warned you to stop listening.
You didn’t. Now you’ve been heard.

No signature.

No trace.

Only that pulsing wall behind her and a cold tug at the base of her spine.

For the first time in weeks, Liora felt something she’d trained herself to ignore.

Fear.

And just beneath it, louder still—determination.

She pocketed the note.

Tomorrow, she’d find the boy with the ghost signature.

Tonight, she’d start naming the people who didn’t want to be found.