SEASON TWO: RESIDUAL ECHOES
1349 Words
The city did not return to normal after the fracture.
At first, people said it was stress. Lack of sleep. Collective trauma. The kind of explanations humans always reached for when reality behaved in ways they couldn’t control. But Aiden Kimani knew better. He felt it every time he woke up—an unfamiliar weight pressing against his chest, like a second heartbeat that didn’t quite belong to him.
The rain had stopped days ago, yet the streets still shimmered unnaturally at night, reflecting lights that weren’t always there. Neon signs flickered even when powered off. Some buildings appeared taller depending on where you stood. Others seemed to breathe.
The fracture hadn’t healed.
It had settled.
Aiden stood on the balcony of his mother’s apartment, staring out at the skyline. The wind brushed past him, cold despite the mild weather. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed—and then echoed twice, as if the sound itself couldn’t decide which version of the city it belonged to.
Behind him, the apartment was quiet. Too quiet.
His mother slept more these days. When she was awake, she stared at nothing for long stretches of time, as though watching memories play out on a screen only she could see. The doctors said her condition was neurological. Aiden didn’t argue anymore. He had learned that truth didn’t need permission to exist.
He pressed his fingers against the railing, knuckles white.
Residual echoes, Zara had called them.
Fragments of alternate timelines bleeding into the present. Not strong enough to tear reality apart again—but powerful enough to change people.
Including him.
Aiden exhaled slowly and closed his eyes.
Immediately, the city vanished.
He stood somewhere else.
A narrow hallway. Dim lights. The smell of metal and disinfectant. His boots echoed against the floor as he walked forward—except he wasn’t walking. He was watching.
Watching through someone else’s eyes.
A hand reached out, pressing against a door marked with a faded symbol he recognized all too well: a spiral intersected by fractured lines. The same symbol Zara’s screens kept producing. The same symbol that appeared in his dreams.
A voice echoed in his head—low, familiar.
This is wrong. I shouldn’t be here.
Aiden’s heart skipped.
That voice gave it away.
“Liam…” he whispered.
The vision shattered.
Aiden staggered back against the balcony door, gasping as the city rushed back into place. His hands trembled. This wasn’t the first time. Since the confrontation, memories that weren’t his had been slipping into his mind—brief flashes of places he’d never been, actions he’d never taken.
His brother’s memories.
Or worse.
Someone else’s memories wearing Liam’s face.
Aiden clenched his jaw. He couldn’t afford to lose control. Not now. Not when the fracture was still active, still watching.
THE BROTHER WHO NO LONGER SLEPT
Across the city, Liam Kimani sat alone in a darkened room, staring at a wall covered in photographs.
Crime scenes. Surveillance stills. Handwritten notes. Strings connecting images that should not have been connected.
Some of the cases hadn’t happened yet.
Liam knew that for a fact.
He hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours—not because he couldn’t, but because every time he closed his eyes, it spoke. Not in words. In impressions. Instructions. Warnings.
You are late.
Deviation increasing.
Containment required.
Liam dragged a hand down his face. His reflection stared back at him from the window—eyes shadowed, jaw tense. He barely recognized himself anymore.
“I’m not your tool,” he muttered to the empty room.
The reflection blinked.
Then smiled.
Liam stepped back sharply, heart slamming against his ribs. The smile lingered half a second too long before his reflection returned to normal.
He laughed quietly, bitterly. “Great. Hallucinations now.”
But he knew better.
The thing inside him wasn’t gone. It was dormant. Waiting.
He turned back to the wall and focused on a photograph near the center—a blurry image of a young man caught on a street camera, rain-soaked, looking directly into the lens.
Aiden.
Liam swallowed.
He hated that image. Hated what it represented. His brother hadn’t asked for any of this. Neither had he. Yet somehow, the fracture had chosen both of them.
Two anchors.
Two variables.
Two brothers on opposite sides of a broken equation.
Liam reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small device—something he didn’t remember building, yet knew how to use instinctively. The screen flickered to life, projecting lines of code that twisted and rearranged themselves.
A message appeared, typed in a font he didn’t recognize:
ECHOES DETECTED.
SUBJECT DELTA UNSTABLE.
INTERVENTION ADVISED.
Liam shut the device off.
“No,” he said aloud. “Not again.”
But deep down, fear gnawed at him.
Because part of him wanted to listen.
THE GIRL WHO COULD SEE THE CRACKS
Zara Mbeki hated mornings now.
They used to be her favorite—quiet hours when the city hadn’t yet demanded anything from her. Now, mornings came with headaches, distorted depth perception, and the unsettling sensation that the room didn’t entirely belong to her.
She stood barefoot in her studio, staring at a massive holographic projection suspended in midair. It depicted the city—layered.
Multiple versions overlapping.
Buildings shifted between states. Streets duplicated. People flickered like corrupted data.
Zara rubbed her temples. “You’re getting worse,” she muttered—not to the city, but to herself.
Her arrogance had taken a hit after the fracture. Genius or not, she was still human. And humans were not built to perceive reality this way.
The tablet in her hand pulsed softly. The spiral symbol appeared again, calmer than before, rotating slowly.
“This isn’t random,” she said. “It’s stabilizing.”
The realization chilled her.
Stabilization meant permanence.
The fracture wasn’t healing—it was adapting to the world. Embedding itself into people. Into systems. Into souls.
Zara’s thoughts drifted, uninvited, to Aiden.
He hadn’t been back since that night. She told herself it was logical—he had a mother to care for, a brother on the edge of becoming something else. Still, she felt the absence keenly.
Not emotionally, she insisted. Practically.
He was a variable she couldn’t yet solve.
As if summoned by the thought, her tablet chimed softly.
Incoming signal.
Zara frowned. “That’s impossible.”
No one else could access her system.
The screen shifted, displaying a simple message:
DO YOU SEE THEM TOO?
Her breath caught.
“Who are you?” she typed.
The response came instantly.
THE ECHOES.
THEY ARE GETTING LOUDER.
Zara’s fingers hovered over the screen.
Only three people knew about the echoes.
Her.
Aiden.
And—
Her door vibrated violently as something struck it from the outside.
Zara spun around, heart racing.
Another impact. Harder.
“Aiden?” she called, hope and fear tangling in her voice.
The door cracked.
And then—
Silence.
THE FIRST SIGN
Aiden was halfway across the city when it happened.
He’d left his mother asleep, her breathing steady, unaware that the air around her shimmered faintly with residual energy. Zara’s message replayed in his mind, her warning echoing louder than usual.
The echoes are spreading.
The streetlight above him flickered.
Then split.
For a split second, two versions of the same light existed—one warm, one cold. Aiden froze.
People around him didn’t notice.
But he did.
A man walking past suddenly stopped, clutching his head. “Wait,” the man muttered. “I’ve been here before.”
“No, you haven’t,” his companion replied impatiently.
But Aiden saw the truth in the man’s eyes.
Memory bleed.
The fracture was accelerating.
Aiden backed away slowly.
This wasn’t just about him and Liam anymore. This was about everyone.
And somewhere in the city, something ancient and patient stirred—aware that its anchors were awakening again.
Aiden looked up at the fractured sky and whispered the words that had been haunting him since the beginning:
“We’re not done… are we?”
The city didn’t answer.
But the echoes did.
- Writer
