Sound Without Silence

he orphanage never truly slept.

Not even when the lights dimmed and the halls emptied.

The pipes behind the walls breathed their rusted sighs, clanging softly in uneven bursts like a memory trying to speak. Cold wind threaded through thin cracks in the windows, whistling just enough to remind you it was there. Even the quiet was crowded—with echoes, with weight, with the kind of stillness that held too much noise.

Vespera sat perched on her windowsill, arms wrapped around her knees. The metal beneath her legs had long since gone cold, but she didn't notice. Her gaze drifted past the dusty glass to the neon haze of Arcton's skyline.

Flickering signs blinked through the fog. Skimmers traced faint lines of motion between rooftops. The city pulsed with its usual glow, tired and endless.

Tonight, it felt sharper. Hungrier. Like it, too, was waiting for something.

She exhaled, slow and deliberate.

Then she reached for it.

Not physically. Not with her hands.

Just inside.

And there it was again—soft at first, then wide and sudden.

The skill. Or the beginning of it.

It didn't hum or shine or spark. It stretched, expanding outward from her ribs like a breath she hadn't meant to take. She felt the floorboards creak—two rooms over. The groan of someone shifting in bed. A door handle turning somewhere down the hall.

She could feel the building, not as wood or stone, but as rhythm.

A ripple.

She didn't command it. Didn't force it. Just felt.

And then, just as easily, she drew it back—like pulling her hand from warm water.

When she opened her eyes, the room was unchanged. But it didn't feel unchanged.

She stood and crossed to her desk, stretching the stiffness from her legs. Her journal waited, half open, the ink from yesterday still drying faintly where she'd written too fast.

A new page.

She wrote:

Day Three — Post-Awakening.Still don't understand what I'm doing. But I can feel it. Chest. Fingers. Like they're listening. Or waiting. It reacts better when I'm quiet. It's not about force. Not yet.

She tapped the end of her pen against the paper, absently. Her fingers twitched once. There was a tremble in her wrist—subtle, but there.

She hadn't noticed it until now.

Then came the knock.

Soft. Not urgent. Just… uncertain.

She turned.

The door creaked open to reveal Mara, wrapped in a blanket so worn it looked translucent in places. Her eyes were shadowed by more than just lack of sleep.

"I didn't mean to bother you," Mara said quickly, her voice low and edged with hesitation. "Just… couldn't sleep. Thought maybe you couldn't either."

Vespera didn't answer right away. Then: "You were right."

Mara stepped inside, and the door shut behind her with a click.

They sat together on the bed in silence.

Outside, a skimmer glided past the building, its soft blue glow painting streaks on the far wall before disappearing again.

"I keep seeing it," Mara said after a while. Her voice didn't waver, but something in her posture did. "That place. Before the class chose me. The in-between part. It's like… everything slowed down, but I couldn't catch my breath. Like all of who I could be was staring at me at once."

A laugh—thin, self-conscious. "Sounds dumb."

"No," Vespera said, voice soft and steady. "It doesn't."

Mara turned to her, searching. "You felt it too?"

Vespera gave a nod. Then looked out the window again. "Yeah. Something shifted. It still is. Our heads just haven't caught up yet."

They sat like that for a while, the quiet folding neatly between them.

Mara spoke again, this time faster, as if afraid she'd talk herself out of it.

"I haven't told anyone what I got yet. My class. Not even Elitha."

"You don't have to," Vespera said.

"I know," Mara murmured. "I just… I don't think I understand it. I want to know what it means before I speak it out loud. Is that weird?"

"No," Vespera said again. "It's honest."

"What about you?" Mara asked. "Do you know yours?"

Vespera hesitated. "Not really. I know how it feels. I know where it lives inside me. That's all for now."

"That's something."

More silence.

But it wasn't heavy.

For that moment, they weren't survivors, weren't Initiates, weren't clawing for space in a world too narrow. They were just girls. Awake too late in a city that didn't know how to sleep.

Eventually, Mara stood.

"I should try and sleep," she said, adjusting the blanket on her shoulders. "Even if I know I won't."

Vespera walked her to the door.

Mara paused before leaving. "Thanks for not making it weird. I didn't think anyone else would get it."

"We all get it," Vespera said. "Most of us just don't say it."

The door shut behind Mara.

Vespera returned to her desk. She didn't pick up the pen. Didn't write. Just sat for a moment. Still.

Her eyes drifted out the window again.

Beyond the crumbling edge of the roofline, across the orphanage courtyard, was the west wing.

Donte's room.

They'd spent the day together after the ceremony. Talking. Eating. Wandering aimlessly through streets lined with odd smells and crooked vendors. It had felt… real. But even then, there'd been something distant about him.

Like his body was present, but part of his mind was already somewhere else.

Focused.

Quiet in ways that didn't used to be quiet.

She hadn't asked about his class. He hadn't offered. And that said more than any answer would have.

It wasn't fear that kept her from pressing—it was intuition. She knew he wouldn't lie well. Not before.

But maybe now he could.

She dragged her fingers along the wood of the desk. Then across the edge of her palm. She felt it again—that low hum of potential. Not a whisper, not a command, just readiness.

The kind of readiness that doesn't ask permission.

This world liked to pretend people like them were small. That silence equaled safety. That obedience was survival.

But Vespera knew better.

She didn't know where Donte's path would lead. She didn't know what he had become.

But she wasn't about to be left behind.

Even if the path beside his was darker.

Even if she had to carve it from shadow.

She'd keep up.

No matter how far it went.