2025-09-05 13:57:37
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 58 - The Frequency War
The soldiers came at dawn. Siya and Marks heard them before they saw them, rotor blades chopping the sky, armored vehicles rumbling over the streets, boots hammering against broken tar. The hum that had soaked into Cape Town didn’t fade when the military arrived; if anything, it grew louder, as though mocking them.From the shadow of a ruined petrol station, Siya watched convoys roll past. Soldiers in black uniforms carried rifles pressed tight against their chests, their faces hidden behind tinted visors. Some looked calm. Others twitched, their lips moving in whispers. Already touched.A loudspeaker crackled from one of the armored trucks. The voice was clipped, rehearsed.“By order of the South African Defense Force, Cape Town is under emergency lockdown. Citizens must remain inside. Any attempt to approach restricted zones will be met with force.”Marks gave a dry laugh under his breath. “Lockdown. That’ll stop the singing.”Siya didn’t answer. Her eyes stayed on the horizon. The
Chapter 57 - Valkenberg Revisited
The road back to Valkenberg looked like it had been forgotten by the city. Siya watched the trees blur past the window as Marks drove. Branches hung low over the cracked tar, shadows stretching long under the pale moon. Every few meters, she saw the signs of collapse, a smashed lamppost, a burned-out car, glass scattered across the street like frost.The air was colder here. She felt it pressing against her skin, heavy, like it carried weight.“Last time we came,” Marks muttered, his jaw tight, “we swore we’d never set foot here again.”Siya didn’t answer. Her eyes stayed fixed on the road. She felt the pull in her chest, the same tug that had been growing stronger since the blackout. Something waited at Valkenberg, and it wasn’t just a memory.When the gates appeared, twisted and half torn from their hinges, Marks slowed the car to a crawl. Rust streaked the iron. The hospital grounds were overgrown, weeds pushing through cracks, vines curling up the white walls. Yet the place didn’t
Chapter 56 - The Choir Grows
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
Chapter 55 - A Mother's Lie
The following morning she decided to go pay a bisti to her mother at her childhood home in Crossroads.The house smelled the same, even after all the years, after the layers of dust and the slow rot of silence, Siya could still smell the faint trace of jasmine soap her mother used to scrub the kitchen tiles. She stood in the doorway now, hand on the frame, listening. The house was too still, no radio, no kettle whistling, no television running in the background. Just the faint groan of the old beams settling in the walls.Her pulse quickened. She had not told Marks she was coming. She hadn’t told anyone. Some truths, she felt, could only be pulled out in private.She found her mother Thandi Ndlovu sitting in her armchair, in the living room, with a blanket across her knees even though the evening wasn’t cold. The curtains were drawn. A half-empty glass of water trembled faintly on the side table, as though she had been holding it moments before Siya arrived.“You came back,” Thandi s
Chapter 54 - The Residue Of Programming
The lab lights flickered again, and Siya felt the air grow heavier, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath. Dr. Halim placed the folder down carefully, like it contained a disease that might spread just by being touched.“Why are you showing me this now?” Siya asked. Her throat was dry, her voice faint. “Why me?”“Because you’ve already been touched by it,” Halim said. His tone was sharp, almost accusing. “And because if anyone has a chance to undo what was started, it’s you.”Siya shook her head, a bitter laugh escaping her. “Undo it? You’re talking about something that’s inside the walls, inside the city, inside me. How do you ‘undo’ that?”Halim didn’t smile. He moved to a metal cabinet and pulled out a black case, placing it on the table. When he opened it, Siya saw an array of small tuning forks, each tagged with handwritten labels: Theta-13, Gamma-7, Delta-Harmonic. They gleamed in the dim light like surgical tools.“These were the anchors,” he said. “Each frequenc
Chapter 53 - The Deprogramming
The lab stood at the edge of Observatory, tucked between derelict warehouses and a half-collapsed textile mill. From the outside, it looked abandoned, rusted fences, windows clouded with dust, and weeds breaking through cracks in the cement. Siya checked the address again. It was right. This was the place Dr. Halim had once run experiments, a private research wing funded quietly through Groote Schuur.She felt Marks tense beside her. He scanned the street, hand on his sidearm. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s worked here in twenty years.”“Rautenbach made sure people forgot about it,” Siya said. Her voice was low, her stomach knotted. “But Halim’s files pointed here. If anyone knew what Threnody was meant to be, it’s him.”They pushed through the gate. The air inside the lot smelled of mold and burnt wires. Siya’s boots crunched on broken glass as she approached the front door. It was heavy steel, not wood, and locked with an old biometric pad. Strangely, the screen flickered to life as sh
