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Chapter 56 - The Choir Grows
last update2025-08-28 12:23:25

Cape Town had changed overnight. Siya first noticed it walking through the city at dawn. The streets looked normal, cars parked, streetlights flickering, the smell of the ocean moving with the wind, but the people, something was wrong.

A woman sweeping her front stoep hummed softly, not realizing she was doing it. A man at the bus stop traced circles with his shoe, a spiral slowly forming on the concrete. Two children walked past her, one singing under his breath in a voice too low for her to catch the words, the other scratching a shape into his arm with a stick.

It wasn’t just here, it was everywhere.

By midday, reports came in, radio presenters forgetting words mid-sentence, instead humming the same note. Taxi drivers whistling in strange patterns while stuck in traffic. A teacher in Rondebosch collapsed in front of her class, her hands spasming in a spiral gesture before she hit the floor.

Marks drove through it all, his knuckles white on the wheel. Siya sat beside him, her chest
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    Cape Town had changed overnight. Siya first noticed it walking through the city at dawn. The streets looked normal, cars parked, streetlights flickering, the smell of the ocean moving with the wind, but the people, something was wrong. A woman sweeping her front stoep hummed softly, not realizing she was doing it. A man at the bus stop traced circles with his shoe, a spiral slowly forming on the concrete. Two children walked past her, one singing under his breath in a voice too low for her to catch the words, the other scratching a shape into his arm with a stick.It wasn’t just here, it was everywhere.By midday, reports came in, radio presenters forgetting words mid-sentence, instead humming the same note. Taxi drivers whistling in strange patterns while stuck in traffic. A teacher in Rondebosch collapsed in front of her class, her hands spasming in a spiral gesture before she hit the floor.Marks drove through it all, his knuckles white on the wheel. Siya sat beside him, her chest

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