Part I — Hollow Frequencies
The city had changed its sound.
What used to be rhythm — streetcars, neon hum, footsteps on wet pavement — had become distortion. Every noise carried a pulse beneath it, like a heartbeat too big for the world to hold.
Kai heard it even in silence.
In the days after the Veil incident, he had become a ghost in his own myth. Burn the Crown graffiti bloomed across walls, underground forums traded blurry clips of his fights, and both the Syndicate and the Alpha Order had put prices on his head — one for capture, one for execution.
But it wasn't the hunters that haunted him. It was the echo.
Every time he touched his guitar, the strings responded before he did — vibrating to thoughts he didn't know he was thinking. His voice could fracture glass or soothe panic. His heartbeat resonated with the moon's gravity.
He felt less like he was using power and more like it was playing him.
Lira noticed first.
She watched him during rehearsals, her usual sharpness replaced by something close to worry.
"You're not even looking at us anymore," she said one night. "You're somewhere else when you sing."
Kai didn't answer. He just stared at the crowd below the stage — hundreds of faces, all mouthing his words back at him like prayer.
The lights flickered. For a second, their voices layered over his — too perfect, too synchronized.
He could feel their pulse syncing with his.
It terrified him.
That night, after the encore, he disappeared before the band even got offstage.
He found himself walking through the outskirts — abandoned warehouses, graffiti of crescent moons dripping black paint. The city's noise fell away until he could hear only his own footsteps.
He whispered to the dark, "Am I saving them, or just tuning them?"
The silence didn't answer, but the wind shifted — carrying the scent of iron and fur.