Amira didn't speak for the rest of the day. She kept her head low, her posture correct, her tone perfectly flat. She knew how to perform neutrally. Everyone in Eirene did - they were taught from the age of three.
But inside?
Inside, her mind was spiraling.
"You didn't take it did you?"
"Meet me after curfew".
"Don't bring your pill".
The boy with dark curls... who was he? How did he know? Why would he risk talking to her like that?
Noone risked anything in Eirene. Risk was emotion. Emotion was danger.
When she got home, the apartment smelled like disinfectant and silence. Her father sat on the couch, eyes fixed on the Projection Wall. A stream of calming patterns pulsed across the screen - blue swirls, soft fades, images of clouds dissolving into clouds.
"You've been scheduled for recalibration", he said, monotone. "That is suboptimal".
Amira sat down beside him and nodded. "Yes Father".
"Do not shame the household again".
She felt that twinge again in her chest - small, sharp, like a spark. But she forced her face blank. "Understood".
That night, Amira pretended to go to bed. She dimmed the lights, activated the sleep tones, even lay under the blanket for twenty minutes in perfect stillness.
Then she moved.
She dressed in dark grey - nothing suspicious - and slid the unused calmana into her desk drawer. She stared at it for a moment.
One pill. One choice. One cage.
She closed the drawer quietly.
The city was silent at night. No vehicles. No voices. Just the distant hum of the atmospheric regulators and the glowing blue lines that outlined every sidewalk like obedient veins.
Sector 9 was the outer edge of the lower wards, where old transmission towers leaned against broken walls, left untouched since the Restructure. No cameras. No guards.
Just shadows.
She found him standing beneath a broken streetlamp, half-lit, half-gone.
The boy.
He didn't turn when she approached. Just said:
"I wasn't sure you'd come".
Amira stopped a few steps behind him, "I almost didn't".
He turned now, slow and calm. In the faint light, she saw his eyes - not blank like everyone else's. Not sleepy from the pill. Alert. Alive.
"But you did", he said.
She nodded. "Who are you?"
"Zane".
That was it. No last name. No title. Just Zane.
He stepped closer. "When did you stop taking the pill?"
Amira hesitated. "Today. It was an accident. I lost it".
"But you didn't report it".
"No".
"And you cried ".
Her face tightened. "Do you report everyone you see cry?"
Zane expression shifted - just slightly. Almost a smirk.
"No. I find them".
He pulled something from his coat - a small, flat device the size of a coin. He held it out to her.
"Put this in your pocket. It blocks your signal. The city tracks pupil dilation, sweat levels heartbeat irregularities. You've probably already flagged their system".
Amira hesitated.
"You don't have to trust me", he said. "But if you want to keep feeling... you'll need to hide it".
She took the device.
Zane led her through a broken alley and down a rusted staircase that dropped below the streets. At the bottom was a door - old metal, scorched in one corner, spray painted with the forbidden word:
"FEEL".
He pressed his palm to a cracked panel. The door slid open with a hiss.
Amira stared.
Inside was light. Warm light. Candles. Strings of old bulbs. Painted walls. Music - faint and pulsing like a heartbeat.
She smelled smoke, spice, and something else she hadn't felt in years.
Life.
People sat in circles. Some laughing. Some crying. Some silent but staring at colours painted on canvas. One girl was singing. Another boy was dancing. There was emotions everywhere.
"Welcome to the Echo Grounds", Zane said.
"This is where the Quiet Ones go to speak".
Amira blinked. Her heart was racing.
"Are we... safe?".
Zane looked her in the eye.
"No. But for the first time in your life... you're free".