I keep my back to the wall. That is the first rule of staying alive in this city. If you stand in the middle of a room, you are a target. If you walk down the center of the street, you are inviting the Collectors to take a look at your throat. I learned that when I was six. My father did not follow the rules. He spoke too much. He told stories about the sky before the smoke turned it the color of a bruised plum. Now, he sits in a chair by the window and stares at nothing. He does not have any words left. He does not even have the memories of the stories he told. They sucked him dry.
My name is Troy. I work in the Archives, which is just a fancy word for a graveyard of voices. My job is to take the brass jars delivered by the Collectors and sort them. Each jar is filled with a swirling, silver vapor. Those are the words stolen from the people in the slums. The rich people uptown buy them. They crack the jars open at their dinner parties and inhale the sounds. They like the way a poor man’s prayer tastes. They like the feeling of someone else’s first kiss or a mother’s lullaby sliding down their throats. It gives them a thrill because they do not have any feelings of their own.
I spend my days surrounded by these jars. The room is cold. It has to be. If the jars get too warm, the words start to agitate. They bang against the metal. It sounds like a thousand trapped birds hitting their wings against a cage. It makes my skin crawl. It makes me think about the hole in my own head. I cannot remember my mother’s face. I know she was there once. I can see the shape of her in my mind, like a shadow on a wall, but the details are gone. I probably traded those memories for a loaf of bread when I was ten. That is how it works here. You eat, or you remember. You stay quiet, or you starve.
Last week, I found something behind a loose brick in the basement. I was looking for a place to hide my extra rations. Instead, I found a machine. It is a heavy thing, made of dark iron and glass tubes. It does not look like the shiny brass tools the Collectors use. It looks ancient. It looks hungry. When I touched it, the air in the room went dead silent. Not just quiet, but a deep, heavy silence that felt like being underwater.
I call it the silence engine.
I did not know what it did at first. I just knew it made me feel safe. When I sit next to it, the voices in the jars stop screaming. The constant hum of the city fades away. For the first time in my life, my head feels solid.
But then, I found the intake valve. It is a small opening at the top, shaped like a human ear. I brought one of the stolen jars down there. It was a jar labeled “Maren: Childhood Songs.” I felt a pang of guilt. Maren is a girl I see at the market. She used to hum while she sold apples. Now, she just points at the fruit and holds up her fingers for the price.
I cracked the seal of the jar over the engine.
The silver vapor did not float away. The engine sucked it in. The glass tubes began to glow with a dull, red light. Then, the engine coughed. It was a wet, mechanical sound. A thin mist started to drift out of the base of the machine. I breathed it in without thinking.
Suddenly, I wasn’t in the basement anymore. I was standing in a field of tall grass. The sun was hot on my neck. I heard a woman singing a song about a blackbird. It was beautiful. It was so beautiful it hurt. I felt a sob catch in my chest. This was Maren’s memory. It was real. It was sharp. It was a part of her soul that had been ripped out to pay a debt.
When the mist cleared, I felt a terrible coldness. The memory was still there, tucked in the back of my mind, but it felt like a heavy weight. I realized what the engine was. It does not just store words. It repairs them. It turns the harvested vapor back into something that can be put back.
But there is a catch. I can feel it in my bones. The engine needs a spark to start the return. It needs a sacrifice.
I looked at my hands. They were shaking. If I use this engine to give the city its memories back, the aristocracy will come for me. They will not just take my words. They will take my skin. They will turn me into a hollow thing and leave me in a gutter.
I heard a footstep on the stairs. I froze. I pushed the engine back into the hole and slid the brick into place. My heart was thumping against my ribs like a trapped animal.
It was Sutton, the head archivist. He is a thin man with eyes like a lizard. He smells like old paper and expensive tobacco. He watched me for a long time. He didn’t say anything. In this city, the people in charge don’t have to talk. They just look at you, and you feel the vacuum in your throat. You feel the threat of the Siphon.
“The tally is short, Troy,” he finally whispered. His voice was smooth, like oil on water. “Three jars from the south district are missing. They were full of very expensive secrets.”
I swallowed. My throat felt like it was full of broken glass. “I will find them, sir. Maybe the seals were bad.”
Sutton stepped closer. I could see the tiny veins in his eyes. “Do not lie to me. Lying requires a lot of breath. It would be a shame to waste it.”
He walked away, but the dread stayed. He knows. He knows I am hiding something. The rich do not like it when the silence is broken. They want us dumb. They want us empty.
I went back to the engine tonight. I have a jar with me. It is a large one, stolen from a man named Gabe who used to be a teacher. It is labeled “History of the Great Strike.” The aristocracy hates that one. They want everyone to forget we ever fought back.
I look at the iron ear of the machine. I know what I have to do. I have to feed it. But the engine doesn’t want the vapor this time. It is humming, a low vibration that I can feel in my teeth. It wants something fresh.
I think about my father staring at the window. I think about Maren pointing at apples. I think about the hole in my head where my mother used to be.
I lean close to the machine. I can feel the cold air pulling at my lips. If I do this, I might lose everything I am. I might become a shell. But if I don’t, we are all just jars on a shelf, waiting to be breathed in by someone who doesn’t even know our names.
I open my mouth. I don’t speak. I just let the engine reach inside.
The pain is sharp. It feels like a hook catching on my heart. I feel my first memory of the Archive being pulled out. I feel the smell of the ink and the sound of Sutton’s boots fading away. The engine starts to glow. The red light is getting brighter. It is filling the room.
I am scared. I am so scared that I want to scream, but I can’t. My voice is already gone. It is swirling inside the iron heart of the machine.
Outside, I hear the bells of the city ringing. The Harvest is starting. The Collectors are out there with their brass tubes, looking for anyone who still has something left to say.
I hope the engine is fast. I hope the mist spreads before they find me.
I am sitting on the floor now. My back is against the wall. That is the rule. But the wall feels far away. Everything feels far away. I am becoming light. I am becoming empty.
I just hope that when someone breathes in the mist I made, they remember how to fight. Because I don’t remember anymore. I don’t even remember why I am crying.
The door at the top of the stairs creaks open. A shadow falls over the floor. It is Sutton. He has a Siphon in his hand. He is smiling.
I try to move, but I am too heavy. Or maybe I am too light.
“What have you done, Troy?” he asks.
I want to tell him. I want to tell him I won. But I have no words. I have no name. I am just a hollow space in a cold room.
The engine gives one last, shuddering breath. The red light dies.
The silence is absolute. And then, the screaming starts. Not from me. From the streets. The memories are hitting the people like a tidal wave.
Sutton drops the Siphon. He clutches his head. He is seeing things. He is feeling things.
I close my eyes. I am scared, but the fear is drifting away too.
Soon, there will be nothing left of me at all. Just a cold room and a silent engine. And the sound of a city waking up to a nightmare they finally remember.