Page 94 - DivineSparkRising II-TheMirrorofSilenceFinal

Divine Spark Rising
“Before we had the Mirror,” Zhara said, “we had
the rehearsal for it.”
She pressed play. A clinical hum, people
breathing, then a man’s voice reading a list of
words—dog, bread, mother, lie—and a second
voice erasing them as they arrived.
Dog.
(—)
Bread.
(—)
Mother.
(—)
“Erasure training,” Carolina said. “Teaching the
brain to accept deletion.”
The tape stuttered and collided with another
layer—the faint cry of a child in the next room,
someone laughing without wanting to, a pulse
monitor beeping at the wrong speed.
Zhara killed the playback. “If the Mirror returns
to that protocol, it won’t just calm cities. It will
teach them to forget that they ever wanted to
speak.”
Henry shut his eyes. The Well. The light. Serpa’s
hand on his shoulder, warm and mortal. “Then we
have to show people what it feels like when words
are alive.”
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