The square lay quiet again, but Radit could feel the tremor beneath the stones, like something breathing under the earth. Tamari held his hand, her knuckles white.
"They're not gone," she whispered. "They're… listening. Learning."
Radit swallowed, his voice low. "They're mimicking us. The more we speak, the more they understand how to tear the city apart with our own words."
Tamari shook her head. "Then we change the story," she said fiercely. "We choose the words. We don't let them speak first."
Radit glanced at the notebook in his hand, the pages trembling as though something moved just beneath the surface. "We need a place to rest," he said. "Somewhere safe to write, without them watching."
Tamari pointed across the broken square, where a narrow alley still clung stubbornly to existence. "There," she whispered. "If we move fast…"
A low hiss echoed behind them — the hollow figures shifting, restless, on the edge of sight.
Radit gripped Tamari's hand. "On three," he breathed.
They bolted, feet pounding over cracked stone, ducking beneath hovering fragments of stalls and tattered awnings. Behind them, the whisper grew louder, hollow voices echoing half-formed words they couldn't quite understand.
They dove into the alley just as the square cracked open again, a roar of blankness swallowing the ground where they'd stood moments before.
Radit pressed Tamari against the wall, panting.
She looked up at him, eyes shining with fear — and something like hope.
"Keep writing," she whispered. "Even if it kills us."
Radit nodded, flipping to a blank page.
"I'm not stopping," he said. "Not until this city remembers us."