Part III — The Prophet at the Crosswalk
The figure moved like a rumor given form.
Gray coat, edges frayed. Eyes hidden under a hood that seemed to drink the light around it.
He didn't walk—he arrived.
Kai's pulse jumped. Something in the man's presence turned gravity liquid, like the world hesitated to decide if he was real.
"Yo," Kai started, half-smirk to mask the tremor in his voice. "You lost?"
The man tilted his head. Beneath the hood, his mouth twitched—a smile, maybe, or a scar pretending to be one.
"No," the man said. His voice carried the weight of dial-up static and wind through broken speakers. "I found what I came for."
He reached into his coat and pulled out a battered cassette recorder. Analog.
Pressed play.
A low hum filled the café. The same one Kai had heard in his walls, his dreams. That subsonic tremor that seemed to crawl through bone marrow and whisper to the blood itself.
Mama Z froze behind the counter. "Not here," she hissed. "Not yet."
The man ignored her. His gaze fixed on Kai.
"You've been hearing it too," he said. "The Song beneath the Code. The Moon's old broadcast."
Kai swallowed hard.
"Who are you?"
The man's smile sharpened.
"Call me Prophet, if you need a name. Everyone does before they forget."
"Forget what?"
He leaned forward. Kai smelled ozone and iron. "What it feels like to be only human."
Something in Kai's spine shivered. The hum deepened, and the neon lights flickered—every bulb pulsing in time with his heartbeat.
Prophet's voice cut through the distortion:
> "You're changing, Echo. Static in your blood, lunar signal in your genes. They'll come for you soon. The ones who own the towers. The ones who harvest the frequency."
Kai's throat was dry. "You're talking in riddles, man."
"Then listen clearer." Prophet pointed to Kai's chest. "You think your music's yours? That's not sound you're making—it's translation. You've been broadcasting their language since the night of that blackout."
The café's power surged. A flare of light washed the room white for half a heartbeat—then gone.
Prophet turned to leave, but paused at the door.
"Here's your first warning," he said without looking back. "Every gift burns twice. Once when it's given… and once when it's taken back."
He stepped into the fog.
The hum faded. The silence afterward felt heavier than sound.
Kai stood there, trembling. His reflection in the black screen now showed faint static flickering across his veins, like digital light trapped under skin.
Mama Z muttered, "Moon's getting close again."
Then, almost to herself, "Should've known it'd find another singer."
Kai didn't answer. He stepped outside.
The street was alive with rain and glare, crosswalk signals stuttering red-white-red.
He stopped beneath one of them, eyes catching the fractured reflection in the puddles—
and for a breathless instant, he saw it clearly: the wolf walking within him, a silhouette of silver, muzzle tilted skyward, howling without sound.
The city lights flickered in response.
Somewhere, above the skyline, a crescent moon pulsed once—like an old antenna waking up.
---
> "Every signal begins as silence, every god begins as noise.
What you hear tonight will one day hear you back."
— Fragment from the Lost Broadcast Archives