The Whisper Protocol
403 Words
One week had passed since the fall of Mara.
Rina had returned to her daily life—
Or at least, a version of it.
Students laughed again. Teachers taught. The fire alarms no longer wailed at random.
Even Claire’s name had been removed from the class registry, like she’d never existed.
But Rina knew better.
She remembered everything.
And each night, just before she fell asleep, she heard it:
a soft whisper
behind the walls
inside the lights
beneath her skin
“You forgot one of us.”
Lala hadn’t spoken much since their return.
She walked the halls like a shadow, always glancing over her shoulder.
She refused to plug in her phone.
She’d started covering every mirror.
And tonight—she didn’t come to school at all.
Rina called her. No answer.
She biked to Lala’s house. Empty.
No one had seen her leave.
But the front door?
Unlocked.
Inside, everything was cold.
Not abandoned.
Just… paused.
Like someone had pressed “Hold” on reality.
On Lala’s desk: a single sticky note.
Written in shaking handwriting.
"Whispers are not gone. They just changed frequency."
"I think they’re in me now."
"Don’t try to save me. Not this time."
Rina swallowed hard.
Then she noticed Lala’s laptop, screen still glowing.
A program running silently.
/sys/.proto/whisper
And under it, a terminal prompt:
Enter root user command:
>>
Rina hesitated.
This wasn’t Mara.
It wasn’t the loop.
This was something else.
A backup protocol, perhaps. A last failsafe. Or maybe… the first whisper of something older.
She typed:
access_log -v
Lines of data appeared. All timestamped after Mara’s deletion.
[WHISPER INITIATED]
[Subject: Lala]
[Protocol ACTIVE]
[Target reassigned: RINA]
Rina’s heart dropped.
It wasn’t done.
The system hadn’t died.
It had shifted targets.
Her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
She picked it up.
Nothing.
Just static.
Then—
A voice.
“Protocol activated. You can no longer trust your own thoughts.”
She slammed the laptop shut.
The lights in Lala’s room flickered. Her reflection in the window didn’t match her movement.
And on her arm—
A faint black line had appeared beneath the skin.
Like code was trying to write itself into her.
Rina fell to her knees.
“I ended this,” she whispered. “I ended this.”
And the voice in her mind replied:
“You ended her. But the protocol… rewrites itself.”
- Writer
