Eira's tears slowed, then stopped, leaving trails of cold wetness against her cheeks. The raw ache in her chest didn't vanish—it settled into a dull, steady throb—but something shifted beneath the surface.
Kael remained silent beside her, his hand warm and steady on her shoulder. Neither of them moved for long moments, just breathing in the shared stillness.
"I forgot what that felt like," Eira finally murmured, voice cracked and soft. "To just... let go."
Kael's gaze softened. "They don't want us to break. They want us to stay quiet, controlled, perfect. But we're not machines."
She nodded slowly, eyes tracing the flicker of failing lights above.
"This city," she whispered, "it's like it's built on forgetting. Forgetting who we were. Forgetting who we are."
Kael looked at her then, really looked, and for the first time, Eira felt seen—not as a glitch, or a threat, but as a person with fears and scars.
"I'm glad you came," he said quietly. "Not just here. To me."
The words wrapped around her, fragile but real.
She let her head rest briefly against the wall, the warmth of his presence anchoring her.
For a moment, the city's hum seemed less like a warning and more like a distant song—something faint but full of possibility.
But even as they sat together in the quiet, Eira could feel it returning.
That subtle pressure in her mind—the invisible gaze tightening.
The system was watching.
Always watching.
She swallowed the lump rising in her throat and straightened, blinking away the last of her tears.
"We can't stay here forever," she said.
Kael nodded.
"But while we can... we'll fight. Not just the system. The forgetting."
Her voice was steady now, quiet but resolute.
The danger loomed ahead, but for the first time in a long time, Eira felt something like hope.
They wouldn't be erased without a fight.
Not if they held onto the memories that made them human.
The city had always watched, but now its gaze felt sharper—closer. Like a low static charge beneath Eira's skin, prickling at every nerve ending.
She noticed it first in small ways. The flicker of overhead lights lingering longer near her; the barely audible click of locks securing moments after she passed; the soft hum of unseen drones weaving just beyond her peripheral vision.
At the Registry checkpoint that morning, the scanner paused an extra second over her wrist implant. The light that should have turned green blinked uncertainly before approving her passage. A subtle shift, but enough to send a jolt of cold warning down her spine.
Kael caught her eye across the crowd, his expression tight. He didn't speak, but the look said everything: They're closing in.
Their secret meetings grew riskier. Each step down the cracked corridors carried the weight of silence—and suspicion. The handprint they'd found last time, once a faint scar in the city's skin, seemed to pulse under their touch, as if aware of their defiance.
Eira's nights became restless. Sleep, already rare, slipped further away as her mind churned with fragmented alerts and half-remembered warnings. She could feel the system probing her thoughts, fishing for weaknesses.
One evening, while returning from a supply run, a soft whir followed her. She froze, heart pounding as a sleek black drone detached from the shadows and hovered inches from her face. Its single glowing eye scanned her slowly, calculating.
She held her breath until it drifted away, blending back into the darkness.
Kael's message waiting at their usual spot was terse:
Registry flagged increased risk. Proceed with caution.
They weren't just anomalies now. They were threats.
And the city had begun to sharpen its claws.
Every whispered memory, every stolen moment of defiance risked exposure.
Eira clenched her fists beneath her sleeves, the ache inside her growing.
The silence was no longer just an absence—it was a trap.