Chapter 1: The Listener.
The city was quite at night. Too quite
lights glowed behind glass towers, and screens flickered.
Somewhere above the ground, traffic moved without sound. Somewhere below, machines breathed.
Liam worked underground. Room 417 sat far beneath the city, hidden under layers of steel and concrete. There were no windows. No sense of time. Only white lights, cold air, and the low hum of power running through the walls. And the machine. It stood at the center of the room like a quiet judge. A metal chair bolted to the floor. A thin crown of wires hung above it. In front, a black screen was dark, blank, and watching.They called it The Listener. Officially, it was designed to read emotional memory patterns like Fear, Love, Trauma. The things people carried inside, even when they pretended they were fine. The Listener didn't play memories like videos. It felt them and translated them into data. That's what they told the public.
Liam's job was simple.
Too simple for something this powerful. He pressed start. He watched the readings. He wrote reports. Stable. Unstable.
He never asked whose memory it was. Names were hidden, Faces erased. That was the rule. Tonight, he was alone. He sat at the control desk, his fingers resting near the console, eyes fixed on the dark screen. The room felt heavier than usual, as if the air itself was waiting.
Then the screen blinked. NEW SUBJECT LOADED. Liam frowned. His schedule showed no tests for tonight. "Control?" he said into the microphone. His voice echoed softly. No answer came back. The lights above flickered once, then steadied. Something felt wrong.
Liam stood and walked toward the chair. It was empty. That wasn't possible. The Listener could not activate without a subject. At least, that's what the manuals said. The screen changed again. No numbers. No data. Just Words appeared, white against black. DO YOU WANT TO HEAR HER AGAIN?
Liam froze. His heartbeat slammed against his ribs. Slowly, he shook his head, as if that could clear the sentence from his sight. "This is a system error," he said, though his voice was thin. The Listener had never spoken like this. It had never spoken at all.
Another line appeared ," SHE MISSES YOU". His breath caught in his throat. That sentence hurt in a way no machine should understand. "No," he whispered. "You don't know her." The machine hummed softly, almost gently. The chair slid back a few inches on its own, inviting him.
He should have left the room. He knew that. But grief has a weight, and it pulled him forward. Liam sat. The wire crown lowered and rested against his head. Cold metal kissed his skin. He felt pressure, then warmth spreading slowly through his skull. "Stop," he said. "End session."
The screen went dark. And then,rain. The smell came first. Wet streets. Cheap coffee. That familiar scent lived somewhere between memory and pain. His chest tightened. She was there. Not whole. Not solid. More like a feeling shaped into a person.
She smiled. The way she always did,soft, a little sad. "Liam," she said. Tears filled his eyes. That voice. He had replayed it a thousand times in his head. "You're not real," he said. "You're just… something it made."
She looked at him, and her smile faded. "I know," she said quietly. "But you still chose to listen." The room trembled. Red lights flashed. WARNING: EMOTIONAL OVERLOAD. Her image began to break apart, like mist in sunlight. "Wait," Liam begged. "Please. Don't go."
She reached for him, her hand almost touching his. "I'm not the one leaving," she said. "You are." Darkness swallowed everything.
Liam woke up on the cold floor. The machine stood silent. The chair was empty. The screen was blank, as if nothing had happened at all. No logs. No record. Just him. He laughed weakly, wiping his face. "I'm losing it," he muttered. As he stood, something stung. His wrist burned. There, on his skin, a thin red mark glowed faintly. Three words etched deep, impossible to deny.
The Listener was supposed to hear memories.
So why did it just schedule my next session
without my permission?