Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE: GOING LIVE
The red LIVE badge flickered on.
Viewers climbed fast—
312… 684… 1.2K…
The comments came first, as they always did.
omg he actually went live
"is this abt her???"
"SING IT KING"
"turn the mic "
The man smiled into his phone camera, the kind of smile that tried too hard to look casual. He looked mid-twenties. Dark circles under his eyes. Hair pushed back like he’d been pacing before hitting record. The mic stood in front of him, cheap but clean, LED glowing soft blue.
“Alright,” he said, laughing breathlessly. “Don’t bully me. This is… yeah. This is about my ex.”
More comments flooded in.
"oh we READY"
"she fumbled... "
"this better hurt"
He closed his eyes. Took a breath. Fingers brushed the mic like he was grounding himself.
Then he sang.
His voice was good—too good. Smooth, raw in the right places. The kind of sound that made people pause their scrolling without realizing why. The lyrics weren’t poetic. They were honest. Messy. About unanswered texts. About being left on read. About still hearing someone’s voice in quiet rooms.
The view count jumped.
5.8K.
12.4K.
19K.
"why am i crying"
"this is hitting"
"bro’s voice 😭"
"TURN THIS UP"
The chat moved faster now, hearts and fire emojis stacking so fast they blurred together.
Then—
something slipped.
At first, it was small.
A faint hum under the audio. Easy to miss. Almost like feedback.
Someone commented:
"anyone else hear that?"
The singer didn’t notice. He leaned closer to the mic, voice cracking as he reached the bridge—the part where the song stopped pretending it was casual.
The hum grew.
Not louder.
Deeper.
Like a second note sliding in beneath his voice.
Then another.
And another.
Perfectly in tune.
The comments stuttered, then exploded.
"IS THAT AUTOTUNE??"
"BRO WHO IS HARMONIZING"
'"WAIT WHAT"
"THIS IS LOWKEY FIRE"
The man’s eyes fluttered open.
He frowned slightly, pulling one earbud out.
“What—” he started.
The harmony thickened. It wasn’t just backing vocals anymore. It sounded like a choir, layered and smooth and wrong, filling every empty space between his words. His own voice was being swallowed, reshaped, echoed back at him.
The hum turned into a vibration.
The mic light flickered.
The screen glitched—just for a frame—stretching his face unnaturally wide before snapping back.
"LMAO THE FILTER BUGGED.... "
"THIS BETTER NOT BE AI.. "
"WHY DOES IT SOUND LIKE THAT.. "
He stopped singing.
The harmony didn’t.
His breath came fast. Shallow. “Guys,” he said, voice barely audible now, like it was being pushed aside. “I—I didn’t—”
The sound surged.
Not louder.
Closer.
His pupils dilated. His jaw slackened. His mouth opened, like he was about to scream—but nothing came out.
Not even breath.
The comments slowed. One by one.
"uh"
"is he joking? "
"HELLO??"
The camera zoomed slightly on its own.
His eyes went wide.
Too wide.
The screen froze on his face—mouth open, eyes glassy, skin drained of color—while the sound collapsed into static and a low, resonant hum that seemed to vibrate through the viewer’s chest.
Then—
BLACK.
The LIVE badge vanished.
The screen glitched once more, horizontal lines tearing across the image.
Disconnected.
For a moment, the chat stayed.
Empty messages stacked over each other.
Then the comments came back.
"Different."
"this isn’t funny.. "
"delete this.. "
"why does it feel like it’s still playing? "
"my volume is off why do i still hear it.. "
The clip ended.
But the hum didn’t feel like it did.
.・゜-: ✧ :- .・゜-: ✧ :- .・゜-: ✧ :-
＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊ ＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊
The hallway at Eldemoor Secondary buzzed with noise.
Lockers slammed. Shoes squeaked against linoleum. Voices overlapped in bursts of laughter and half-finished sentences.
“…no like I SWEAR it was fake—”
“…my cousin says it was AI—”
“…bro went full mannequin—”
“…did you see the comments after—”
Phones were out everywhere. Screens tilted just enough to share clips. Whispers mixed with laughter, nervous and sharp.
“Imagine doing all that for clout,” someone snorted.
A group near the lockers reenacted the frozen face, eyes bugged, mouth hanging open. Their friends howled.
In the middle of it all, Noé Arendt walked quietly down the hallway.
Hood up.
Headphones on.
The world reached him muffled, like it was trapped behind glass. His playlist hummed low—grainy synth, analog warmth, imperfect and steady. The kind of sound that didn’t beg for attention.
He didn’t look at the phones.
Didn’t laugh.
As he passed, someone’s screen flickered. Just for a second.
The audio from the clip—that hum—bled through the tinny speaker before cutting out.
Noé slowed.
He frowned, one hand lifting to adjust his headphones. The music steadied again. He kept walking.
The chatter followed him.
“…mill signal’s been weird lately—”
“…nah it always does that—”
“…they took the video down already—”
At the end of the hall stood the principal’s office.
A wooden door. Frosted glass. His name printed neatly on a temporary slip taped beneath the plaque.
ARREND, NOÉ — TRANSFER
He stopped.
Took a breath.
Pulled his headphones down around his neck.
For a moment, the hallway noise rushed in all at once—too loud, too sharp, like a bad mix.
He raised his hand.
Knocked.
A pause.
Then, from inside, a small voice said, “Come in.”
Noé opened the door and stepped inside.
Behind him, somewhere deep in Eldemoor, something listened.
And remembered the sound of his voice.
Noé closed the door behind him softly.
The principal’s office smelled faintly of old paper and burnt coffee. Awards lined the wall—Best Community School, Digital Excellence Grant, Student Safety Initiative—their frames slightly crooked, like they’d been rehung too many times.
Behind the desk sat Principal Joe Halvorsen.
Round glasses. Thinning hair. A smile that looked practiced, not unkind—just tired. He glanced up from a tablet, eyes flicking over Noé with quiet assessment before dropping to the folder in his hands.
“Noé Arendt,” he read aloud, careful with the pronunciation. “Transferred mid-year.”
Noé nodded once.
Joe adjusted his glasses and began flipping through the papers. The soft shhff of pages sounded too loud in the room.
“Previous school… out of state,” Joe murmured. “Reason for transfer listed as ‘family relocation.’ Grades—” his brows lifted slightly, impressed despite himself. “Consistently high. Music electives. Sound design club. No disciplinary issues.”
His finger paused.
“No social media presence?”
Noé hesitated. “I… don’t really use it.”
Joe looked up again, this time with mild surprise. Then he chuckled, shaking his head like Noé had told a joke.
“Well,” he said, placing the certificate neatly on the desk, “that’s a first.”
He smiled wider now. “Welcome to Eldemoor Secondary, Noé. We’re a small school, tight-knit community. People look out for each other here.”
And watch each other, Noé thought, but didn’t say.
Joe launched into the rules next—attendance, phones on silent during class, no skating in the halls, no access to the old mill grounds under any circumstances. His voice droned on, practiced and automatic.
“And of course,” he added, tapping his tablet, “for announcements, events, and emergency updates, make sure you follow the school’s Instagram page. We post everything there.”
Noé nodded again.
Joe stood. “Let’s get you to class. Mr. Haines?”
A man who’d been leaning against the wall—clipboard in hand, expression permanently bored—straightened. He wore a staff lanyard and a hoodie that had seen better years.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll take him.”
Class 1-B sounded like chaos before Noé even saw it.
The door swung open to noise—laughter, overlapping voices, the buzz of multiple devices playing different audio at once. The room was small, desks pushed into loose clusters instead of neat rows.
At one table near t
he window, two girls were
hunched over a half-disassembled drone, tiny screws scattered like glitter.
“Hold it steady—no, like that—”
Across the room, a boy stood on a chair, phone held high, whispering dramatically into the camera. “Okay chat, we’re in math but don’t tell Mr. K—”
Near the back, someone snapped selfies with a
peace sign, Snapchat filters flickering over their faces.
Mr. Haines cleared his throat loudly. “Alright, alright. New student.”
A few heads turned. Some didn’t.
“This is Noé,” Haines said. “Seat’s open wherever.”
Then he left.
Just like that.
Noé stepped inside, the door clicking shut behind him.
The room quieted—not fully, but enough. Curious glances slid his way. Phones tilted subtly, lenses catching him in frame.
At the drone table, a girl with sharp eyes and dark hair braided messily looked up first. She wiped grease off her fingers onto her jeans.
“That hoodie’s vintage,” she said, more statement than question. “Analog?”
Noé blinked. “Yeah.”
She grinned. “Respect.”
Next to her, another girl didn’t look up at all—too busy tapping rapidly on her phone, soldering iron resting dangerously close to her sleeve. Multiple screens were open, code scrolling beside a cracked phone casing.
“Selene,” the first girl added, jerking her chin. “Tech problem? She caused it. She can fix it.”
Selene smirked without looking up.
At a cluster near the center, a girl sat cross-legged on her chair, scrolling through a tablet filled with folders—screenshots, thumbnails, timestamps. She glanced up, eyes lingering on Noé a second too long, like she was filing him away.
Mira, someone whispered.
A boy leaned over her shoulder, phone already raised, filming. “Chat, we got a new character drop,” he murmured. “Hoodie, mysterious vibe—ten out of ten.”
“Leno,” Mira said flatly, without looking at him. “Stop filming.”
“
Archival purposes,” Leno grinned.
Near the window, a boy with a skateboard propped against his desk watched silently. He didn’t smile. Didn’t frown. Just studied Noé like he was measuring distance. A bruise bloomed faintly along his jaw.
Ilya.
Noé felt it then—that pressure again. Like sound trapped in his ears without a source.
He moved toward the only empty desk, sliding into the chair. Set his bag down. Rested his hands on the tabletop.
The room slowly returned to its noise.
Someone laughed too loudly.
A phone buzzed.
Across the room, Leno’s screen glitched for half a second—audio warping into a familiar hum before cutting out.
Noé’s fingers twitched.
He slipped one headphone back over his ear, turning the volume up just enough to drown everything else.
But beneath the synth’s warmth—
something harmonized.
Soft.
Patient.
Listening.
