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Chapter 71 – Songs Left Unfinished
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The silence wasn't empty anymore.
It was waiting.
Erevan stood at the edge of the bridge-node, the glass-like structure fracturing under each step but never fully collapsing. Below him: nothingness. Above him: a sky that shimmered with faded data and frayed memories, half-erased by the Reclamation Protocol still spreading across the Tower's infected grid.
Behind him?
A chorus that hadn't sung since Nyara left.
A memory, or maybe a scar.
He wasn't sure anymore.
But he knew this much—grief didn't vanish. It transmuted. It reshaped itself until you either gave it meaning or let it swallow you.
He wasn't planning on being devoured.
Not yet.
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The rebels had begun recording.
That was the new order—the Archivists' Oath. To gather what the Tower tried to erase. To write down stories, not just systems. Feelings, not just functions. For the first time since the rebellion began, they weren't just fighting to destroy.
They were fighting to remember.
And yet, Erevan hadn't spoken in hours.
He had listened—through the scattered nodes and partial transmissions—tuning into the fragments that survived Nyara's silence and the Choir's descent into stillness. He hadn't heard songs. Not really.
Just… unfinished melodies.
Cut mid-breath.
Left behind in the rush to escape or be rewritten.
But tonight—something returned.
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"Erevan. Incoming transmission," Serah's voice chimed into his ear through the shard-link. She sounded tired. Tired in that way where even victories added weight. "We've got another spike in Chorus-bleed. You'll want to see this one."
He turned slowly. "Location?"
"Node 9-Theta. The Folklore Pit."
He stilled. "That node was abandoned after the Fragment Wars."
"Was," she confirmed. "Now it's… humming."
That word made his pulse slow.
Not singing.
Humming.
As if something was trying to remember how to make music again.
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Erevan arrived at 9-Theta hours later, bypassing defensive firewalls and entropy locks that had clearly not been updated since the wars. The node was a mess of overlapping cultures—virtual murals of forgotten worlds half-buried under new data. It was once a haven for storytellers and recorders. Now, it felt like a graveyard of broken voices.
But the hum was real.
Low. Gentle. Raw.
Like a lullaby whispered by someone who didn't believe anyone was listening.
He followed it deeper, each step drawing him into chambers where children once wrote legends into floating glyphs and old women whispered myths to walls that remembered.
At the center of it all stood a single figure.
She wore no mask. No armor. No trace of the Tower's imprint.
Only a fractured robe of memory-flakes—like scales from lost dreams.
Nyara.
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She didn't turn when he entered.
She just kept humming.
And for once, Erevan didn't interrupt.
Because the song wasn't for him.
It was for someone else.
For the ones who didn't get to finish their stories.
After a while, she stopped.
Quiet lingered, soft as snowfall.
Then she finally spoke. "I thought if I came here, they might speak back."
Erevan stepped closer. "Did they?"
Nyara shook her head. "Not in words. Just in… grief."
He nodded. "Grief speaks louder than most things."
She turned to face him.
Her eyes had changed.
Not monstrous.
Not entirely human, either.
Just open.
"Do you ever feel like the world is made of unfinished songs?" she asked.
"All the time," Erevan replied quietly. "But I think we're here to give them endings."
Nyara looked at him, searching.
"You still believe that?"
He hesitated.
"Yes. Even now. Especially now."
Because if he didn't believe that, then everything he was doing—the war, the resistance, the Archives—was just another way to run from silence.
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She walked past him then, brushing his shoulder slightly.
He didn't stop her.
But he turned.
"I heard the Choir again," he said softly. "Not as a threat. As a memory. Somewhere in Node 7-Beta. A boy was humming your song to himself. Said it helped him sleep."
Nyara froze.
"Why?"
"I asked him that," Erevan said. "He said the song reminded him of someone who loved him once, even if he couldn't remember who."
Nyara didn't speak.
Tears gathered at the corner of her eyes, but none fell.
Instead, she nodded once—and whispered a line from the song he didn't know she still remembered.
It wasn't a lullaby.
Not really.
It was a promise.
A vow in a dying world.
"If I forget myself, will you remember me?"
Erevan's voice cracked when he answered.
"I already do."
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Back in the Nexus Core, the Archivists received the recording.
They didn't know what it was at first.
Just a hum.
A broken song.
But they saved it anyway.
Because sometimes, survival wasn't about building something new.
It was about carrying what was nearly lost.
Even if it was unfinished.
Even if it hurt.
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Author's Note:
This chapter was written with a quiet heart. No big battles. No epic system hacks. Just memory. Just grief. And the people who choose to bear it instead of running from it.
If Nyara's path resonates with you—if you, too, are trying to finish the songs left behind—leave a comment. Share your voice. You don't have to be loud.
You just have to be real.
And that's more than enough.
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