The Boy Who Hated Sound

The Fall Beneath the City

The floor drops away, and I am falling into an open space filled with gray smoke and jagged shadows.

My stomach turns over. I reach out, my fingers grabbing onto nothing. The air rushes past my ears with a heavy roar that makes my head split with pain. I twist around, trying to find something to hold onto, but there is only empty space and the faint glow of the vintage tape machine tumbling down right beside me.

Crash.

I land hard on a pile of discarded iron pipes. The breath bursts out of my lungs in a sharp gasp. Pain shoots up my left arm, but I do not have time to think about it. I roll to the side just as a heavy chunk of concrete smashes down onto the exact spot where I hit the ground.

Dust fills the air, thick and choking. I cough, rubbing my eyes, and look up.

The hole in the ceiling is far above us, looking like a tiny circle of pale light from the apartment floor we just fell through. There are no stairs. There is no way back up.

"Kelechi! Are you alive down there?"

The voice comes from the gloom above. A pair of heavy boots appears at the edge of the broken concrete rim, and then Chidi drops down into the dark room with a heavy thud. He lands on his feet, stumbles once, and then rushes over to me.

Chidi grabs me by the shoulders and hauls me up to my feet before I can even catch my breath. His face is pale under the dim light, and his jacket is torn at the shoulder.

"Are you an absolute fool?" Chidi says, his voice shaking with anger as he gives me a hard shake. "I told you to stay away from that machine. I told you what happens when you start listening to things that are not meant for this world!"

"Adaora is gone!" I push his hands off my shoulders, my voice cracking. "The room was empty! The machine put those words in the air, and then the floor just gave out! Where is she, Chidi? You came running because you knew something, didn't you?"

Chidi opens his mouth to answer, but he stops. His eyes dart toward the dark tunnel leading away from the room.

The air around us shifts again. The low, rhythmic heartbeat sound returns, vibrating through the iron pipes beneath our boots. It is closer now, pulsing like a clock counting down to something terrible.

"We are not safe here," Chidi says, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward the tunnel. "The Syndicate patrols these old maintenance lines. If they catch us down here while the acoustic anomaly is active, they will wipe every memory you have left."

"I am not going anywhere until you tell me what is happening!" I dig my heels into the dusty concrete and pull my arm back. "You act like you know everything, but Adaora is my sister! If she is down here, I am going to find her!"

"Adaora is not down here, Kelechi!" Chidi snaps back, his voice rising in panic as he steps close to my face. "Listen to me! You need to wake up! There is no little sister in that apartment! You made her up because you could not handle the quiet after our parents left us!"

His words hit me harder than the fall.

The room seems to spin. The low throbbing in the floor grows louder, but my ears feel suddenly empty. I stare at Chidi, my chest tight.

"You are lying," I say, my voice dropping to a whisper. "She gave me a sandwich tonight. She talked to me. I heard her feet walking down the hall."

"You live in your own head, Kelechi!" Chidi says, pointing a finger at my chest. "You use those old tape machines to block out the real world so well that you started hearing ghosts. But this time, your ghosts opened a door to the old bunkers. And the people who run Neo-Prague from the shadows noticed."

Before I can tell him he is out of his mind, a bright beam of white light cuts through the darkness of the tunnel.

The light is sharp and cold. It sweeps across the concrete walls, bouncing off the rusty iron pipes. Along with the light comes a sound—a steady, mechanical hum that makes my teeth ache and sends a wave of nausea rolling through my stomach.

"Down!" Chidi hisses.

He tackles me to the ground, dragging us both behind a stack of rusted metal crates just as a group of people in dark gray uniforms march into the chamber.

There are four of them. They do not wear badges, but their jackets have a metal patch shaped like a spinning audio reel on the left sleeve. They move together with terrifying precision, their boots hitting the floor in exact rhythm.

In the lead is a tall woman with silver hair pulled back into a tight bun. Her face is completely blank, like a mask made of stone. She carries a long silver rod in her right hand that glows with a faint blue light at the tip.

"The structural breach was right here," the woman says. Her voice is calm, flat, and carries a strange echo that bounces off the curved walls of the bunker. "Find the boy. The acoustic signature of the anomaly points directly to him."

I hold my breath, pressing my face hard against the dusty floor. My heart pounds so hard I am sure they can hear it over the mechanical hum of their gear.

Chidi reaches into his jacket and pulls out a heavy iron wrench, his knuckles turning white as he grips the tool. He looks at me, shaking his head slowly, warning me not to make a single sound.

The silver-haired woman stops walking. She stands only a few feet away from our hiding spot. The blue light from her rod casts long, dancing shadows across the metal crates.

"I know you are here, Kelechi," the woman says softly, and the way she says my name sends a shiver straight down my spine. "You think you are protecting your memories. But every time your mind wanders, you tear another hole in the city. Come out now, and we will make the silence painless."

I look at Chidi. He looks back at me, his eyes wide with fear, but then his expression hardens into something dangerous. He nods once toward the dark tunnel behind us.

Without waiting for me to move, Chidi leaps up from behind the crates, lets out a fierce shout, and throws the heavy iron wrench straight at the woman's head.

The wrench spins through the air, but the woman does not even flinch. She raises her silver rod, and a sharp crack of blue energy shoots from the tip, hitting the wrench mid-air and melting it into a glowing puddle of red-hot metal that splatters onto the floor.

"Run!" Chidi yells, grabbing my jacket and shoving me backward into the dark tunnel as the guards raise their weapons.