The Boy Who Hated Sound

The Library of Echoes

The sound of blue energy cutting through the air behind us gives my legs a burst of speed I did not know I had.

I run blindly through the dark tunnel, my sneakers splashing in puddles of dirty water. Chidi stays right beside me, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Behind us, the heavy boots of the Syndicate guards echo off the curved concrete walls, sounding like a drum line marching to our execution. We take a sharp left turn, ducking under a low iron pipe, and slide down a steep slope of loose gravel into a deeper part of the old underground network.

We tumble onto a flat stone floor, completely out of breath.

I press my back against a damp wall, trying to quiet the loud sound of my own breathing. I listen closely, straining my ears to catch any sign of our pursuers. The boots have stopped. For now, we have lost them in the maze of forgotten tunnels.

"Are you okay?" Chidi asks, wiping dirt off his jacket with a shaking hand.

"I am fine," I say, though my left arm throbs where I hit the iron pipes during the fall. I look around us. We are standing in a wide, circular room with towering shelves made of dark wood. The shelves are packed tight with thousands of old books, rolled-up maps, and long rows of cassette tapes and film reels.

At the center of the room stands a large wooden desk with a green reading lamp casting a warm circle of light over a stack of old city blueprints.

"Where are we?" I ask, standing up slowly and brushing the dust off my knees.

"The archives," a voice speaks from the shadows near the back shelves. "Or what is left of them before the city planners tried to erase this block from the map."

A girl steps out into the light of the green lamp. She wears a plain gray sweater and round glasses that catch the reflection of the bulb. It is Zainab. She holds a thick hardcover book in one hand and looks at us with a cool, sharp expression that shows she is not surprised to see two boys dropping out of a ceiling hole into her workspace.

"Zainab?" I stare at her, completely confused. "What are you doing down here? You work at the public library above ground."

"The public library is just a front for people who want to pretend Neo-Prague has only one history," Zainab says, walking over to the desk and laying her book down with a soft thud. "This place holds the real records. The ones the Syndicate tries to burn every time the ground shifts."

"We do not have time for a history lesson," Chidi interrupts, stepping between us and the shelves. He crosses his arms over his chest, his eyes narrowed at Zainab. "The Syndicate was right behind us. They know Kelechi triggered an anomaly. If they track his acoustic signature here, they will lock down this entire sector."

Zainab does not look scared. Instead, a slight smile touches the corner of her lips as she looks right at me.

"Let them try," Zainab says calmly. "This room is lined with old lead sheets from the construction days. Sound cannot get in here easily, and sound cannot get out. It is the only safe place left in this part of the city."

I step closer to the desk, my hands clenching into tight fists at my sides. I cannot take the mystery anymore. Every single person in this city seems to know something about me, about my past, and about the things I can do, but no one is telling me the whole truth.

"Explain it to me," I say, my voice steady even though my heart is beating fast. "Chidi told me that Adaora is not real. He told me I made her up in my head because I could not handle losing our parents. But I remember her, Zainab. I remember her birthday. I remember her sitting in the kitchen. If she is just a memory, how did she leave a sandwich on my desk? How did she vanish when the floor broke?"

Zainab’s smile fades. She takes off her glasses, cleans them slowly with the hem of her sweater, and puts them back on before she answers.

"Chidi is only telling you half the truth, Kelechi," Zainab says, her voice turning serious. "Your mind does have a very unique gift. You do not just hear sounds; your thoughts carry an acoustic weight. When you focus hard enough, your mind can pull echoes out of the past and make them tangible for a short time."

"What does that mean?" I ask, taking a step forward.

"It means Adaora was real once," Zainab says, watching my face closely to see how I take the blow. "She lived in this apartment building five years ago. Before the great acoustic purge wiped out the lower blocks. When the Syndicate changed the city records to hide what happened here, your mind refused to let her go. Your grief was so loud that you kept her echo alive right beside you."

The room feels like it is shrinking. My breath catches in my throat. I shake my head, refusing to believe the words coming out of her mouth.

"No," I say, my voice breaking. "That is impossible. She talked to me tonight. She handed me a plate."

"Because the anomaly tonight cracked the wall between what is real and what is just an echo," Zainab says, walking over to the blueprints spread across the desk. She points a finger at a marked red X near the center of the map. "The Syndicate knows about your ability. They do not want to destroy you, Kelechi. They want to use you. They want to harness your mind to wipe the memories of every single person living in Neo-Prague, starting with the outer districts."

"They took her," I say, the pain turning into a cold, hard focus in my chest. "If she is an echo trapped by the anomaly, then she is somewhere inside the Core."

"If you go down to the Core, the Syndicate will capture you before you take ten steps," Chidi says, grabbing my shoulder to turn me around. "We need to get out of the city entirely. We need to run."

"I am not running anymore," I pull my shoulder away from his grip, stepping back.

Before Chidi can argue, a heavy, muffled sound echoes through the stone walls of the archives. It sounds like a giant metal door being dragged across concrete from miles away.

Zainab’s face turns pale. She rushes to the edge of the room and presses her ear against a thick iron pipe coming out of the wall.

"They found us," Zainab says, her voice dropping to a low whisper. "The lead lining is not blocking them anymore. They are using a frequency generator right above this room."

Before any of us can move toward the exit, the wooden door at the far end of the archives blows inward with a deafening crash, shattering into a hundred wooden splinters.

Standing in the doorway is a massive man wearing a heavy gray Syndicate coat. In his hands, he carries a wide metal horn connected to a humming battery pack on his belt. The machine lets out a sharp, ear-piercing shriek that drops me to my knees with my hands clamped over my ears.

"We have the target," the man says through a filtered mask.