The silence after memory was louder than the memory itself.
Arian sat on the floor of the vault, blood drying beneath his nose, breath uneven. The aftershock of the imprint hadn't faded. In fact, it echoed — not just in his head, but in his chest, like a vibration he couldn't stop feeling.
His father's voice still rang inside him, not as a memory, but as a command.
"You are not just the son of a rebel. You are the key."
Nima paced the chamber. "If this vault holds more memories like that, we need to map them. Catalogue them. We could rebuild everything the Republic erased."
Arian wasn't listening. He was staring at his hands.
"Why me?" he said softly.
"You said the Echo Disk had seven parts, right?" Nima crouched beside him. "Maybe you're one of them. Maybe your father… encoded something in you."
"In me?"
"Not just in your head. In your voice."
She pulled a pocket scanner from her bag and pointed it at him. It hummed, then chirped.
She frowned. "Your vocal frequency isn't stable."
"What does that mean?"
"It's… shifting. Adapting. Mimicking something. You're carrying a waveform that's not natural."
Arian stood. "You think my voice is an Echo Code?"
"I think it was yours once. And then someone — or something — rewrote it."
Back outside the vault, they slipped through a maintenance tunnel to avoid Republic patrols. The city was more aggressive now — drones circling lower, checkpoints pulsing with tension. The Ministry hadn't just responded to the Black Broadcast. It was hunting its source.
They didn't speak again until they reached a safehouse Nima kept hidden in the shell of an old library — a hollowed-out cathedral of banned books and erased stories.
She locked the door, set the sound scramblers, and lit a dim red bulb.
Arian wandered the shelves. Titles whispered at him — stories from a time when stories still mattered.
"You never told me your full name," he said.
Nima paused.
"You never asked."
"I'm asking now."
She turned. "Nima Serren. Daughter of Eres Serren."
His blood ran cold.
"Eres Serren was executed for treason."
"No," she said. "That's what the Republic told you. He disappeared during the Erasure. No body. No trial. Just silence."
Arian stared. "You're one of the Echo Children."
She nodded.
"There were seven of us."
A flicker of memory pulsed in Arian's brain — seven voices on a rooftop, shouting over fire and wind. Seven symbols carved into a wall.
"What happened to the others?"
"Scattered. Taken. Silenced. Some may still be out there. Hiding like us."
Arian walked toward the back of the library. There was a mirror in the far corner — cracked, its silver coating flaking.
He stared at his reflection.
His voice wasn't his.
His name might not be real.
Everything he thought he was — memory, identity, purpose — was smoke.
"You okay?" Nima asked.
He didn't answer.
Because something was shifting in the mirror. Not his face.
His mouth.
It moved.
Even though he didn't speak.
Then a whisper filled the room, not from his lips, but from the air around him:
"Do not trust your reflection. It listens more than you do."
Nima drew her weapon instantly. "What was that?"
"I don't know."
He took a step back.
The whisper came again.
"Seven will rise. One will fall. One is already broken."
Then the mirror shattered — from the inside.
The sound scrambled the safehouse security. Lights flickered. A static whine filled the air.
Nima grabbed Arian's arm. "We're compromised."
"How?"
"Mirrors can record. Voice-bound surveillance. It was feeding off your frequency."
The door slammed open before she could finish.
Three figures entered — not Republic agents.
Worse.
Reclaimers.
Masked in bone-white. Voices modulated.
One stepped forward. "Subject identified. Echo Host confirmed."
Nima fired first — two shots to the chest. The figure didn't even flinch.
"You are trespassing in stolen memory," the Reclaimer said. "Return what was never yours."
Arian stepped forward, hand out. "What are we?"
The figure cocked its head.
"Echoes. Designed to die. Remembered only to be erased."
Nima threw a sonic grenade. The Reclaimers staggered, shrieking — sound-sensitive. Their suits weren't built for raw distortion.
"Go!" she yelled.
They fled through the rear exit, racing down into the sewer line. Reclaimer steps echoed behind them, unnatural and heavy.
"Where now?" Arian gasped.
"We need someone who understands Echo Codex."
"Who?"
She hesitated.
"He was erased, like the rest. But rumor says he's alive."
"Who?"
She looked him dead in the eye.
"Varen Kes."
The name hit like a bomb.
Varen Kes — architect of the Sound Walls. Designer of the Silence Act. Chief of the Memory Erasure Program.
And according to rebel lore… the first man to regret it.
"He'll kill us," Arian said.
"Maybe. Or maybe he's the only one who knows how to wake the other Echoes."
Far from the city, inside a forgotten tower wrapped in vines and mist, a man awoke from silence.
He was tall. Gray-bearded. Eyes like frostbitten glass.
He stepped into a room lined with old radios, each one tuned to nothing.
And still, one of them crackled.
A voice.
"Ash has returned."
Varen Kes smiled faintly.
"Finally."