The hum lived inside the walls.
It wasn't a real sound, not like footsteps or voices. It was a vibration that passed through her bones, that kept her company when sleep refused to come and the room stayed white, perfect, windowless.
Aurora called it the house's breath. Sometimes it felt kind, like a cat purring; sometimes it felt angry, and then the floor trembled and the lights blinked like frightened eyes.
That morning the breath was calm. The ceiling was a blank page. Light came from everywhere and nowhere: a day that never ended. Aurora sat up, hugging her sketchbook, blue cover, bent corners, the smell of new paper mixed with disinfectant.
She had dreamed again.
In her dream, there were Light and Warmth.
Light had hair the color of dark honey, and a smile that chased the fear out of her belly. Warmth had eyes as blue as the glass marbles she'd once seen in a toy box, but brighter, like there was a whole sky inside.
When Light spoke, something soft filled Aurora's chest. When Warmth looked at her, the world grew wide, wide, wide.
She didn't know their real names. No one had told her. She had found them herself, stitched to their hands in the dream.
She set the notebook on the table. Took a red pencil, then a yellow, then a blue one. She drew a glowing circle with no edge and two figures holding hands.
Underneath she wrote, in crooked letters: US.
The door slid into the wall without a sound.
The woman with sleek dark hair pulled into a perfect bun entered. She wore a white coat, soft shoes that never went tap-tap on the floor. Aurora used to call her Mommy Lyd when she was very small. Now, almost six, she didn't call her mommy anymore, just Lyd.
The woman placed a hand on the edge of the bed, eyes fixed on the bracelet around Aurora's wrist, on the code she didn't understand but others always did: L–01.
"Good morning, Aurora," said the woman, her voice smooth and clean like the ceiling. "Did you sleep well?"
Aurora lifted her drawing. "I dreamed of Light and Warmth."
A tiny shadow passed over Lyd's face, like a cloud before the sun. "Dream images aren't always reliable," she said. "Are you hungry?"
Aurora shrugged. "Can I have honey?"
"One spoon."
Lyd nodded toward the mirrored wall. A slot opened and a tray slid in, white bowl, spoon, warm cup. The faint scent of milk and amber.
Aurora looked at her reflection in the glass. She saw herself: small, brown hair to her shoulders, blue eyes that always looked bigger in the morning. Behind the glass was the behind, machines, men in coats, screens full of lines rising and falling like waves.
She knew because once, during a thunderstorm, the glass had gone zzzt and for a heartbeat she'd seen beyond it, wires, green lights, a hand pressing a button.
"Can I go outside today?" she asked.
"Not today."
Lyd tucked a strand of hair behind Aurora's ear, gentle and mechanical at the same time. "Today we'll just check your colors."
The colors. That was her favorite game, and their favorite test. They showed her patches of blues and reds, played tones, asked: How does this make you feel? Where does your breath move?
Sometimes, when she picked a blue that was too blue, came the needle. "To help you sleep better," Lyd would say. And Aurora did sleep. But in her dreams, Light called louder.
When the cards were done, Lyd gathered the tray. "You drew the sun again."
"Because you can't feel time here," said Aurora, and realized the words had escaped. Lyd stared for a second, then smiled the way people smile at a doll that suddenly speaks.
"We'll read a story later," she said, walking to the door. At the threshold she paused. "If you dream of Light and Warmth again, remember, it's only your mind… doing mind things."
"Do minds hold hands?" Aurora asked.
Lyd didn't answer. The door sealed into the wall again.
When Lyd was gone, the room grew bigger. Aurora pressed her forehead to the cold glass. Nothing behind the reflection, but she knew someone was there.
She called them the Eyes.
The Eyes who watched, counted, wrote. If she closed her eyes and listened hard enough, she could almost hear muffled words, like speech under a pillow.
Barrier stable.
No anomalies detected.
Silence Sector: operational.
Silence.
That word she had learned early. Silence was the cork, the rubber wall that bounced everything back from outside. Whenever she tried to think too hard about Light or Warmth, Silence made the air hum and pressed on her tongue. Sometimes it made her head ache. Sometimes something else happened instead: a heat spark in her chest, like when you run and suddenly stop.
That day, it happened again. Maybe because of the drawing, or the way she'd written US. Maybe Light had called louder.
She felt a flicker, a tiny flame under her ribs. She placed a hand there, over her pajamas.
"Warmth?" she whispered. "Can you hear me?"
The glass stayed glass. But the house's breath shifted, like someone turning a dial on an old recorder. zzzt. The light brushed the ceiling. Aurora sat up straight.
Then something new happened, something that had never happened before. The hum dipped lower, like a radio turned down to hear if someone was knocking. And in that tiny space, so small a single breath could break it, Aurora heard a voice.
It didn't come from the glass or the walls. It came from inside.
Soft, trembling, smelling like rain on skin.
Aurora…
She clapped a hand over her mouth. Her blue eyes filled with water. "Light?" she asked. The word came out broken, like it had to crawl through a forest. "Is it you?"
The house's breath hitched. zzzt. The screens behind the glass lit up, white lines on black. Chairs scraped. Voices burst out.
The readings are spiking!
Impossible, the barrier…
Activate Silence!
But for that instant, just that, Aurora saw.
Not with her eyes. With the dream part that sees truth. Two faces in backlight, a man and a woman. The man had eyes like hers, exactly like hers, the same shade of sky. The woman's mouth trembled just like hers did when she was scared but wanted to be brave.
Aurora… the voice repeated. And then there was no more cork, no more wall, no more bracelet. Only one word that meant home, womb, arms, skin.
"Mama?" she said.
The room exploded in alarms. Beep - beep - beep. The light turned harsh. The glass reflected only white.
The house's breath rose to a metallic roar. The door opened.
Men in coats rushed in, gloves, tools, commands. Lyd appeared. A hand slammed a button. Something invisible snapped shut, like a trap.
Aurora felt the cork shove back inside her, crushing her throat, her chest.
Mama vanished. Warmth dimmed, like a flame buried under sand.
Aurora tried to call them back, but her words crumbled on her teeth.
"Aurora," said Lyd, kneeling by the bed. Her voice was calm, trained, taut. "Breathe. Look at me."
"There was… there was…" The little girl stammered, tears spilling faster than her thoughts. "I heard… Mama."
Lyd's eyes didn't move. Only a tiny twitch of her jaw. With a practiced gesture she took Aurora's arm, tapped the bracelet, slid her fingers as if scrolling through an invisible menu.
"It was interference," she said. "A dream. You imagined it."
Aurora shook her head, not hard; you could never do anything hard in here. "It was… real."
"What's real is what we can measure."
She nodded toward the glass. "Right now, we measure nothing. Sit down."
Aurora sat. Her hands trembled. The drawing US lay on the table, the ink smudged where her tears had fallen. Lyd dabbed it carefully with a tissue.
Behind the glass, voices murmured again, softer now.
Synch peak at 0.7 seconds.
Barrier reestablished.
Note: subject L–01 emotional response, high.
Lyd took a book from the shelf. Opened it, though the pages were just props between her fingers. "Shall I read?"
Aurora nodded, but didn't listen. The hum sang again.
Beneath her skin, one small point stayed warm, a crumb of heat that refused to die.
She didn't know where it was, or how to reach it, but she knew now that Light existed beyond the dream. That she had called her like someone calls a lost child after too long.
Mama.
After the story, after the needle, after the snack that always tasted like nothing, the air grew lighter. The screens behind the glass went dull again. The soft shoes stopped pacing the hall. Lyd sat by the bed, tablet in her lap.
"Can I ask something?" Aurora whispered.
"You can always ask," said Lyd, eyes still on the screen.
"Was I born here?"
The woman looked up. For a tiny instant, her gaze cracked, a tremor, a vowel out of place. Then it smoothed. "You were born somewhere very safe."
"Was there… someone?"
"There were people who made sure you were… perfect."
The word fell from her lips with the sound of steel.
Aurora nodded, but inside, the answer leaked. In the dream, Light had cried.
In the dream, Warmth had held something in his arms.
Perfect wasn't a word made of skin. It was a lab word.
"Can I draw again?" she asked.
"Yes. But no dark figures."
Aurora returned to the notebook.
This time she drew only an eye, big, blue, with lines radiating like waves.
Underneath she wrote, in straighter letters: I SEE YOU.
She looked at the glass.
If someone was watching her, then she was watching them too.
If there were Eyes, she had hers.
Time passed without passing.
When the ceiling hinted it was evening, lights softening, Lyd rose.
"You did well today," she said. "Tomorrow we'll play a new game. It's called listening to silence."
Aurora frowned. "Silence makes noise."
"No," said Lyd. "Silence is the safest thing there is."
When she was alone, Aurora climbed into bed and curled against the wall.
The house's hum sounded tired.
"Light," she said without voice. "Warmth. I'm here."
She didn't know where here was.
She didn't know if here was even on a map.
But somewhere, there was a place with a real sky, where blue eyes weren't drawn, where hands smelled of soap instead of antiseptic.
She closed her eyes. Let herself fall into sleep like a warm pool. And as before, the hum softened, as if making room for her.
This time she didn't see faces. She saw a mountain, a road, a car stopping.
She saw two shadows standing in wet air.
And she heard a word that sounded like both a promise and a prayer.
Home.
Down in the control room, a line on the monitor began to rise.
A technician straightened. "Hey. You see that?"
Another leaned closer. "It's a drift. Nothing serious."
"No, look at the pattern. It's… different."
The line synchronized with a distant rhythm.
For one heartbeat, it was perfect, two hearts finding the same song.
Incoming interference, someone whispered.
But Silence didn't trigger. Not right away.
For the first time, it hesitated, a single breath.
Just long enough for Aurora, inside her dream, to feel a hand reaching toward hers.
It didn't touch. It came close, so close.
The girl said nothing. Didn't cry, didn't call.
She simply reached her own hand into the full, glowing nothing. And smiled, her blue eyes full of sky.
Then the house inhaled sharply. The lines fell. The lights went zzzt. The hum swallowed everything.
Aurora woke with a jolt, heart pounding like when you run in dreams and no one catches you. She looked at the ceiling. At the glass.
At the drawing of US.
"I see you," she whispered to the glass. "Do you see me?"
From behind came only the house's breath.
But inside her chest, where the heat never went out, something answered: Yes.
And in that tiny, invisible yes, Aurora stopped feeling alone.
The door opened again, slow, like an eye.
Not the soft shoes this time, boots.
Two men in dark jackets and a woman Aurora had never seen before entered.
No coats. No tablets. Badges with no names.
"Subject L–01," the woman said. "Let's stand up."
Aurora climbed out of bed. She didn't tremble. Not enough for them to see.
"Where are we going?"
"For a walk," the woman smiled, a smile without warmth. "In silence."
Aurora looked at the glass. For a fleeting instant, she thought she saw a glimmer of blue, not light, a gaze.
She placed a hand over her heart.
The warm point answered.
And as they led her out, beyond the house's breath, beyond the smooth corridors where the past left no prints, the girl thought one new, unshakable thought: If they're looking for me, even silence will have to learn how to speak.
The door closed. The hum resumed its endless rhythm.
Behind the glass, a monitor blinked once, logging its final line of data:
L–01: significant emotional variation.
External pattern: detected.
Barrier delay: 0.9 s.
And inside that delay, small as a breath between two words, there was all the space in the world.