Weight Recognition

Eira didn't speak on the walk back.

Kael tried, once—some quiet murmur about the junction map or rerouting their next meeting—but she only nodded. Her thoughts were elsewhere. Still in that cold room. Still tracing the inked numbers on Ysel's arm.

Ysel had been alive. Human. And yet, already bracing to be forgotten.

Not erased in name or record. That was easy for the system. But erased in memory. In meaning.

Eira had always feared disappearing.

She hadn't realized how much more terrifying it was to remain, and still not matter.

She lay in her cot that night—blanket drawn to her chin, face neutral for any hidden sensors. The regulated warmth couldn't touch the cold inside her ribs.

Her parents had passed her in the hall again that evening. Said nothing. Her mother's eyes had drifted over her like a stranger's. Like she wasn't even light enough to cast a shadow.

They hollow you, Ysel had said.

Eira turned her face to the wall, biting her lip hard enough to sting. Maybe that was the only real thing she'd felt all day.

She wasn't brave like Kael. She wasn't technical like Ysel.

She was... what?

A girl who cried into a silencer pillow and whispered to fogged windows?

And yet—

She remembered the tremor in Kael's voice when the drone cornered them.

She remembered the quiet steadiness in Ysel's gaze when she said, "If I disappear, it has to matter."

And she remembered her own voice, soft but unwavering: Then we see it.

The thought surprised her now. She hadn't planned to say it. It had simply risen. Like something deeper—older—had answered for her.

Her fingers found the edge of her sleeve, where the fraying thread still lived. She twisted it around her finger like a tether.

They weren't rebels. Not yet.

But they were becoming something.

And maybe that was enough for now.

Even if the city was listening.

Even if it was learning.

The stairwell smelled of rust and old concrete, a scent long forgotten in the sanitized world above. Each step echoed faintly, swallowed quickly by the thick silence that surrounded them.

Eira's breath came slow, steady, though her heart thumped unevenly beneath her ribs. The city felt different down here—darker, heavier, like it was holding its breath.

Kael moved ahead with practiced caution, fingers brushing along the cold metal railing. Ysel followed closely, her gaze flicking to every shadow, every flicker of failing light.

Eira's eyes adjusted slowly. The walls bore layers of faded paint, chipped by time and neglect. Somewhere deep inside, a forgotten hum pulsed faintly, like the heartbeat of something sleeping.

They reached the junction—a sprawling chamber of rusted conduits and tangled cables, screens flickering weakly, casting shards of blue and green light onto cracked floors.

Ysel stepped forward, hands moving over a battered console. Fingers danced across worn buttons, pulling up streams of data and broken code.

"This is where the system roots its cleaners," she said quietly. "The codes that erase memories, rewrite history, silence questions."

Eira's gaze flicked to the screen. Lines of script scrolled endlessly—cold, merciless commands slicing through records and thoughts like a digital blade.

"But why hide it here?" she whispered. "Why bury the truth?"

Kael's jaw clenched. "Because this isn't just a city. It's a cage. And we're its inmates."

The room grew colder as the systems stirred, the hum rising to a steady drone.

Ysel looked up, eyes sharp. "We don't have much time."

They moved deeper, following the pulse of the hidden core—a labyrinth of machinery and forgotten voices.

And somewhere, beneath layers of control and silence, the city's darkest secret waited to be uncovered.