Page 10 - DivineSparkRising II-TheMirrorofSilenceFinal

Divine Spark Rising
When transmission returned, residual data
showed a single word appearing across devices in
seventy-three languages: LISTEN.
Researchers named the incident The Echo
because it behaved like one. It was not an explosion
but a return, silence rebounding through the noise
humanity had made of itself. No origin point was
found. Every voice on Earth had been reflected
back as absence.
Afterward, reports of psychological after-effects
spread across continents: heightened empathy,
abrupt honesty, compulsive truth-telling, and
collective stillness in public spaces. Governments
labeled it a “neuro-linguistic contagion.” The Spiral
called it “a correction.”
Classification: Unresolved Phenomenon
Colloquial name: The Echo
Believed cause: Human speech finally reaching
its limit, and hearing itself reply.
Interlude: After the Echo
The café on Bleecker Street was quieter than it
had ever been, which was saying something in a
city addicted to noise. The machines worked, the
milk steamed, but every hiss sounded nervous, as if
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