Echo Breathes Back

It began in the roots.

A faint shimmer, barely visible — more sensed than seen. The moss trembled. The dust settled in a spiral.

Cairo stepped back instinctively.
Not in fear — in reverence.

Cero remained still. Eyes closed. Bare feet steady within the ring of stones.

“The signal’s not pulsing,” Sienna said, her voice barely above a breath.
“It’s… inhaling.”

Kai’s brow furrowed.
“You mean it’s alive?”

Orion looked to the treetops, where the light bent just slightly inward, as if drawn to the clearing.
“Maybe not alive the way we are. But yes — it’s aware.”

Then, from beneath the earth,
a soft vibration — like a long-held note finally exhaled.

The sound didn’t pass through the air.
It passed through them.

Each of them felt it in a different way:

• Cairo heard it as rhythm — the lost beat of something ancient and unfinished.

• Sienna felt it in her ribs, like weather turning.

• Kai saw it as light threading between branches, weaving paths only he could follow.

• Orion recognized it as an echo — one he’d heard only once before, long ago.

• And Cero?

Cero simply whispered,
“Welcome back.”

The signal didn’t respond in language.
It responded in return.

Memories — not theirs — flickered like mirages around the edge of the clearing:
a child climbing stone terraces; someone humming near a lantern-lit pool; a hand passing a cup carved from ashwood.

Not visions.
Remnants.

Kai reached out — not to touch, but to witness.

“These aren’t ours,” he said.
“They’re what the earth remembers… of others.”

Cero nodded slowly.

“And now they remember us, too.”