You Are Not the Signal - Part 7
Missed the first note of the siren’s song? Or need a refresher? Go back to part 1:
I woke tangled in soaked sheets, my limbs heavy and thrumming like a bell just struck.
Pulse hammered in my ears. Breath came ragged as I sat up, scraping the crust from my eyes. It took a moment to register that my bedroom wasn’t quiet. At the edge of my breath, I heard it: a tone.
Faint, like someone humming a single note just outside the range of hearing. It ceased the moment I noticed it.
All day, I thought about that sound. Was it real? Was it just some residual energy from the dream? It was certainly easier to obsess over than to face the blank document before me. The cursor blinked, waited.
I sipped more coffee. Between the bitter, cold sips, I managed to scrounge up a title for Callista’s profile: “The Woman Behind the Wave.”
Easy enough. I stared at that line and thought about Callista’s voice, how it had cut through every excuse I’d ever made, how clear it was, like ice-melted streams.
My fingers moved.
“Callista Vale doesn’t lead. She attunes. She listens to what the world is trying to become and simply gives it the frequency it deserves for transformation.”
I scratched my head and re-read the sentence. I hadn’t meant to write that. It sounded like one of Harmonia’s internal press releases.
I scrolled.
“To speak with her is to feel recognized. More than seen, more than heard. It is to become still inside. To harmonize.”
There it was again. That language that was not mine. Not wrong, necessarily, but too smooth, too certain. I hovered over the backspace key. And it dawned on me that I had no memory of writing this.
My eyes darted to the word count: 963 words. But I couldn’t remember writing more than the title, the first five.
There was a sound at the door. I jumped. Not a knock. Just the soft swish of something being slid under.
I yanked open the door. Nobody. Nothing actually, as I leered down the hallway to a row of closed apartments and the absence of noise. Like something had drawn out all the usual sounds of pans frying, the bass from television shows, and muffled voices of roommates interacting. Spooned the life out clean.
There was an envelope resting at my feet. No stamp, no branding. Only my name, embossed, raised from the paper like a whisper trying to surface. I pulled out a single card on heavy white stock paper. In the center:
Final Alignment: 6:30 pm, Harmonia HQ
You are ready.
There were no instructions, and I didn’t see a place to RSVP. At the bottom was a sigil I had never seen before. It wasn’t the Harmonia logo. In fact, it felt like something older. Three curved lines emanated from a single vertical slash in the center. A wave or a signal.
My heartbeat picked up as I inspected it closer. Suddenly the card was warm in my hand. Then it pulsed—just once—like it had a heartbeat of its own. My vision shimmered as I stared at it.
And the last thing I remembered was the design shifting from waves to an ear, and then to a shell.
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