I woke with my mouth full of grit. The room smelled of disinfectant and old breath. The clinic lights hummed. Lee‑Hae slept in a chair beside the bed with an oxygen mask resting against her cheek. She breathed shallow and steady. The IV drip ticked at a slow, patient pace.
I sat on the floor with my back against the cabinet. My hands shook. I tried to sort numbers in my head and got the sound of a cup tipping instead. The memory from the Gate kept replaying at the edges of sight. It was loud and precise and would not leave.
I checked the pad.
_
[SYSTEM: PERSONAL ACCOUNT BALANCE: 1,020,000 CREDIT. NEXT PAYMENT DUE: 3 DAYS.]
DETAILS: AUTO TRANSFER SCHEDULED FROM GUILD SHARE. NOTE: SHORTFALL REMAINS.
——————————
The pad had moved what little the guild paid. It bought another day of oxygen and one dose of antibiotics. It did not buy breathing beyond that.
Lee‑Hae shifted. Her fingers found my wrist in sleep and closed on it. I felt the weight of her hand and the light of her trust. I swallowed and kept the ledger in mind.
"You're awake," she said without opening her eyes.
"Did your phone go off?" I asked, because any other question felt like theft.
She blinked. "No. Did you sleep?"
"Stopped and started," I said. I did not say the part where memories had pressed into my skull and left stains.
She hummed a small sound and went back to sleep. I let her breathe.
I left before dawn. The city moved in slow, wet steps. Street vendors pushed carts with lids closed against rain. A tram coughed past and spat steam. People moved with the kind of quiet that suggests sleep debt. I kept my hood up and my head down.
At the guild, talk had a new edge. People avoid direct questions when the stakes are clear. The breaker clapped me on the shoulder with too much force.
"You okay?" he asked. His voice was rough in a different way today.
"Fine," I said.
He watched my hands. "You look worse."
"I am fine," I repeated. It sold less than I wanted.
We took a low run to a shipping yard. Low runs pay less. They are safer for B‑Rank. They let you keep a chest closed and a wound unexposed. They are the kind of runs that keep roofs over thin places.
The run went cold. A crate opener misread a pressure and a beam fell. Metal screamed and men ducked. My hands found a shape and pushed a body clear. Bone cracked and someone swore. I felt my ribs compress and heard a small pop. I thanked the world for the small luck and kept moving.
At the tail end of the run the healer pulled me aside. Minsu's eyes were flat. "You took two Witnesses last week," she said. She didn't raise her voice.
"I did what I had to," I said.
"You're slipping," she said. "You missed a block on the loading dock because you were—" She stopped. She would not say what.
I thought of the cup and the lullaby and the ledger and kept my mouth closed. We split the payout. I took my share and kept the numbers tucked. The shortfall remained.
That night a message came through the pad from an unknown number. No header. No Association tag. Just a line.
_
[SYSTEM: INCOMING MESSAGE. SOURCE: UNKNOWN. CONTENT: "WE HEAR THE GHOSTS." ACTION: SAFE READ RECOMMENDED.]
DETAILS: MESSAGE RECEIVED VIA FRAGMENT MARKET ROUTE. ADVISORY: POTENTIAL SCAM.
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I opened it because thumbs move on their own when the city weighs you. The message read three words and nothing else.
WE HEAR THE GHOSTS
No sender. No signature. The pad logged an IP trace that curled and died into a whole of static. The HUD flagged the message with a soft alarm and then a suggestion.
_
[SYSTEM: ALERT — ANOMALOUS TRAFFIC TO USER CHANNEL. RECOMMENDATION: ROUTE THROUGH ASSOCIATION SANDBOX; IF CONTACTED IN PERSON, REPORT.]
DETAILS: POTENTIAL FRAGMENT MARKET INTERACTION. NOTE: AVOID DIRECT CONTACT.
——————————
I pocketed the pad and walked home under a sky that was the color of old metal. The message sat like a small stone in my pocket. It did not belong to me, but it was there.
Two days later a buyer found me. He watched from across a market stall where people sold small comforts for small credits. He was the kind of man who keeps his hands tucked so you cannot see which pockets he has.
"You Dojin?" he asked.
"Depends who wants to know," I said.
He smiled without using his mouth. "I deal in fragments. Memories packaged from Death Inheritance. Clean delivery. Good rates for rare echo. I can help with hospital costs." He tapped a pad with a slow, casual finger.
I have rules for such men. The market takes pieces of you and pays in things that rust. You sell a memory and you lose an angle of yourself. You gain credits and you lose a clue. You can never buy it back at the same price.
"How much?" I asked.
"For a minor echo, market rate. For a major, we bid. If you hold system level, we refer." His voice was small and flat.
"My sister needs three more days," I said. I put my numbers on the table like a clean trade.
He named a sum. It was not enough. He raised it a little. It still fell short. Behind him a kid sold braised meat on skewers and watched us like a clock.
"You can sell a tranche," he said. "Half echoes? Partial recall? We fraction trades these days."
"That damages the echo," I said. "Fragments go wrong. They fragment the ghost. You get static. You lose use."
He shrugged. "Some need the money now. Some like small bets."
I left without selling. The pad burned in my pocket. The choice sat on my tongue.
The Trauma Echos scraped at the edges of sleep. They came when I closed my eyes. They came in images that lodged in the soft places. Sometimes a voice — thin, wearable — would press a sentence into me. The sentences were not my own.
At night the echoes spoke in fragments.
"—ticket… count… under… take—" one voice said.
"—door… wrong… don't go—" another hissed.
They did not speak clearly. They layered. They repeated. They formed a rust of meaning.
I tried to ignore them. I tried to sort them into box files. The ledger wanted numbers. The echoes wanted to be heard.
I started a log at the guild. Short entries. Time. Trigger. Content. Corrupty estimate. I put the log under a folder with a title I did not like.
Trauma Log: ENTRY 001 — FUTURE SIGHT TRIGGER — CONTENT: KITCHEN MEMORY; LULLABY; METAL CONTACT. CORRUPTY +10.
Trauma Log: ENTRY 002 — FUTURE SIGHT TRIGGER — CONTENT: COURTYARD; RATION COUNT; LULLABY FRAGMENT. CORRUPTY +10.
I kept writing as a way to keep the voices from sticking to the inside of my skull.
Then a new line came through the pad. It arrived with a different signature. The trace folded into a known node in a place I had only seen in rumor.
_
[SYSTEM: SECURE MESSAGE RECEIVED. SOURCE: GHOST NODE — VERIFIED HANDSHAKE. CONTENT: "ROOMS TALK. FIND THE DOOR." ACTION: ENCRYPTED. RECOMMENDATION: DO NOT SHARE WITHOUT SANDBOX.]
DETAILS: ORIGIN: PRIVATE GHOST NODE. TRUST SCORE: LOW‑MEDIUM.
——————————
My hands went cold. The pad did not lie. The node name matched a server route I had glimpsed in a memory — a log line on a barge manifest in the courtyard echo. The lines felt like teeth counting. I did not want the taste.
I flagged the message and forwarded it to the Association sandbox like the System suggested. The HUD registered the transfer and then a new flag lit.
_
[SYSTEM: TRANSMISSION LOGGED. ASSOCIATION SANDBOX RECEIVED. REPLY PENDING. USER FLAGGED: DO NOT ENGAGE UNTIL RESPONSE.]
DETAILS: REPLY ETA UNKNOWN. SUGGESTION: AWAIT INVESTIGATOR CONTACT.
——————————
I left the pad on the table and went to the window. Lee‑Hae slept with a small, steady sound. Outside a tram coughed and a street light blew. The city cut itself on a hundred small edges.
I mouthed the phrase the node had sent. ROOMS TALK. FIND THE DOOR.
I did not know what that meant. I did not know if the ghosts could be bargaining partners or thieves. I did not know if the node wanted me to lead it to a gate or to a market stall.
I waited.
The HUD ticked down a new recommendation.
_
[SYSTEM: RECOMMENDATION: AWAIT ASSOCIATION RESPONSE. IF CONTACT OCCURS, REQUEST SANDBOX ARRANGEMENT. WARNING: GHOST NODE INTERACTIONS RISK CORRUPTY SPIKE.]
DETAILS: REMAIN VIGILANT. LOG ANY ADDITIONAL CONTACT.
——————————
I counted my breaths and then my coins. I wrote a new line in the trauma log. ENTRY 003 — SECURE NODE MESSAGE — CONTENT: ROOMS TALK FIND THE DOOR. CORRUPTY +? UNKNOWN.
The ledger and the ghosts balanced in my hands. I had a door to find, or a rumor to ignore. I had a sister who needed oxygen. I had a city that kept its score.
I turned the pad over and listened for the sound of decision. The echoes whispered. The ledger waited. I stayed in the window until the sky turned the color of early work and the clinic asked for the first transfer of the day.