VOLTESS

The city of Kynthos never slept. It vibrated.

Every wire, every light, every pulse of the air carried an invisible hum — the sound of thought turned into static. To most, it was the sound of progress. To her, it was bullshit.

Voltess stood under the neon rain, her silver hair catching the city’s glow like threads of current. Every drop that touched her skin buzzed faintly, like soft whispers asking to be heard. The lamps along the street flickered as she walked. People turned, murmured, frowned. Some held their temples; others crossed the street to escape the strange unease that always followed her.

She had learned to keep moving — never too long in one place.

Because when she stayed, things broke.

In the glass reflection of a darkened shop, she caught her own eyes: blue and unsteady, like lightning trapped behind them. The hum in her head rose again — the signal that her thoughts were leaking, spilling into the electric veins of the city.

“Not again,” she whispered.

She tried to calm her breathing, to silence the static. But silence was dangerous. Every time she forced quiet, the world outside went dark.

A sudden wave of nausea hit. Streetlights burst one after another — cluck, cluck, cluck — until the entire avenue drowned in black. Only her breath remained, glowing faintly against the rain.

In that darkness, she felt it again — that voice that wasn’t a voice.

A low, resonant call from somewhere far beyond the metal skyline.

Far from the city, where the air still shimmered with the remnants of magnetic storms, Rheona awoke.

The forest around her was alive — not with animals, but with current.

Leaves shimmered with faint bioluminescence, water trickled through roots that hummed like soft instruments. Rheona could feel every vibration, every echo of thought that rippled through the electromagnetic field of the planet.

But today, something was wrong.

The current pulsed erratically, trembling with a rhythm not born of nature.

She closed her eyes and listened deeper — past the surface hum, into the resonance that bound all life.

Then she heard it: a human thought, raw and jagged.

Worry. Loneliness. Power.

She dipped her hands into the glowing stream. The water flickered, transforming into waves of blue light that shaped themselves into a human silhouette — a girl surrounded by static and sorrow.

Rheona whispered, “So it’s begun again.”

She rose. The forest responded, branches bending toward her as if bidding farewell. Her bare feet left trails of green luminescence as she walked — heading toward the storm that had once been called a city.

Voltess sat in the skeleton of an old building, her hands trembling.

The city outside had gone silent. No sirens, no voices, no heartbeat of machines. Only her — the source of it all.

She remembered when she was a child, before the hum began. Back then, her laughter powered nothing but her own joy. But as she grew, her mind had started syncing with the electric field that encircled Earth — The Resonance Field. A government experiment, they said, meant to unite minds through frequency. It had failed. Terribly. Yet some children had been “tuned” differently.

She was one of them — a living transmitter.

Now, every emotion was a broadcast, every fear a storm.

“Why can't I control it?” she whispered.

The walls flickered blue in answer.

Then came a different light — green, soft, pulsing like a heartbeat.

She looked up. A figure stepped through the broken window, barefoot, eyes calm like still water.

“I’m not here to harm you,” the stranger said. “My name is Rheona.”

Voltess stood, sparks crawling over her arms.

“You should leave. The last person who came near me forgot his own name.”

Rheona smiled gently.

“Then maybe you’ve been listening to the wrong frequencies.”

For a long moment, neither woman moved.

The only sound was the soft crackle of static and the faint hum of electricity weaving through the air like invisible threads.

Voltess stared at Rheona, confusion warring with fear. No one ever came close without flinching — yet this stranger stood within arm’s reach, calm, serene, untouched by the storm that surrounded her.

Rheona’s voice was steady.

“You think silence means safety,” she said, “but your silence is a scream the world can hear.”

Voltess’ breath caught. The lights above flickered violently.

“You don’t understand. Every thought I have burns through the air. People get headaches. Machines die. I—”

She stopped. “I ruin everything.”

Rheona stepped closer. “No. You amplify everything.”

She extended her hand. “Let me show you how to listen.”

Voltess hesitated, then took the hand.

The moment their palms met, a wave of light exploded outward — blue and green spiraling together in perfect symmetry. The building groaned as if exhaling, dust lifting like smoke into a shimmering mist.

Voltess gasped. “What are you doing to me?”

“Nothing,” Rheona whispered. “I’m tuning in.”

The static inside Voltess’ head — the relentless buzzing that had haunted her since childhood — began to shift.

Not gone, but softened.

The noise transformed into rhythm, into something almost musical.

For the first time in her life, Voltess didn’t feel like the center of chaos. She felt heard.

The city outside began to wake.

Streetlights flickered back to life, not in sharp bursts but in slow, graceful ripples that mirrored the flow of breath between the two women.

From above, Kynthos looked like a vast, glowing circuit reconnecting itself — order reborn from disarray.

Voltess closed her eyes. She could see everything — not with sight, but through frequency. Every thought in the city hummed at a unique pitch: fear, joy, exhaustion, hope.

And for the first time, she could separate hers from theirs.

“This is impossible,” she murmured.

Rheona smiled. “It’s resonance. You’ve been resisting your own pattern. Once you stop fighting, your energy aligns with the world instead of breaking it.”

Voltess looked around, her expression softening.

“So… no more lawsuits?”

Rheona smiled and nodded. “If you learn to listen before you think.”

A tear slipped down Voltess’ cheek. It sparked briefly before falling — not as light, but as rain.

Outside, droplets began to fall again, gentle and real this time. The city sighed, alive and quiet all at once.

Days later, Kynthos returned to its normal rhythm — though no one could explain the blackout or the strange calm that followed.

Some said the city itself had dreamed. Others whispered of a girl who carried thunder in her mind.

On the edge of the skyline, Voltess stood on a rooftop, the wind brushing her silver hair.

Beside her, Rheona watched the horizon — where the electromagnetic haze met the soft curve of dawn.

“Will it ever stop?” Voltess asked.

Rheona tilted her head. “The frequency? No. But silence doesn’t mean absence. It means understanding.”

Voltess smiled faintly. “So… this is peace?”

“For now,” Rheona said. “Until the next voice awakens.”

Their hands brushed — a spark between two waves that finally found harmony.

Below them, the city hummed softly, no longer in pain, but alive with quiet song.

Voltess smiled.

Her mind didn’t buzz this time. It breathed.