THE ARCHIVE DISTRICT — IMPACT
The first thing I noticed was the silence.
Not true silence.
Paper silence.
The kind that happens when a district built around records stops trusting sound unless it can be filed.
The second thing I noticed was the pages.
White sheets drifted down the streets in slow, lazy spirals.
Blank.
Perfect.
Clean.
People were trying not to touch them.
Good.
That meant someone had learned.
The third thing I noticed was the smell.
Not fire.
Not ink.
Something worse.
Paper pulp and rainwater.
Like history after drowning.
We reached the registry square at a dead run.
The central archive doors stood open.
No guards outside.
No screams.
No obvious attack.
Just clerks standing in the threshold, frozen, holding bundles of paper like they had forgotten what hands were for.
Mira shoved past me first.
"Move."
No one moved.
She slapped one clerk—not hard, not cruelly, just enough to break the dissociation.
His eyes snapped into focus.
