Thirteen. That was my first thought.

  Just that, the number.

  The hum in the walls was already there. Faint and steady. A breath held too long.

  I didn’t move. They were curled against my sides. Their warmth anchored me to the bed.

  Noa’s fingers twitched in sleep. She was small, but not soft. Her braid had come loose in sleep, golden strands curling like question marks across her cheek.

  Javi’s breath tickled my wrist, his breath warming the space between us. His brown hair was all stuck up, like sleep had sculpted him halfway. He said he was ten. I wasn’t sure. He was short, his limbs still undecided on whether to grow or stay small a bit longer.

  The purple light bled through the curtain, catching on the uneven stitches, rushed, trembling. I don’t remember who sewed them. Just an image of my hands… moving quickly with trembling fingers.

  Halden said it would help us sleep. But I knew better. It was a warning.

  I didn’t dare shift.

  Movement was permission. Movement was notice.

  The light touched my skin. It didn’t soothe. It suggested. As though it wanted me quiet.

  I stared at the ceiling, waiting.

  Click.

  My eyes flicked toward the vent.

  One.

  I counted them when it clicked.

  Always.

  I didn’t remember why. Just knew that thirteen meant they’d come.

  Noa stirred beside me, her breath catching.

  Click. Click.

  Two. Three.

  I didn’t breathe.

  The hum pulsed once, then again, syncing with my heart. A distant drip from the vent, then a scrape.

  A camera behind the wall, perhaps. But the static in my hair didn’t pinch.

  Click.

  Four.

  I reached for the lemon peel on the headboard.

  …it was squeezed dry.

  I didn’t remember doing it. But my fingers ached.

  Click.

  Five.

  I shifted carefully. Found the notebook.

  Opened it and started scanning through it. One page held Noa’s sketch—a vent with protruding eyes, too big and bulging.

  Then, on one page, the citric scent lingered.

  Slowly, I activated an EM pulse. Slow and controlled, just enough to oxidize the lemon juice on it.

  Click.

  Six.

  Javi once tried to teach me how to whistle using a lemon rind. It didn’t work, but the sound made Noa laugh until she hiccupped.

  The notebook said ‘socks.’

  I turned to Javi before shaking him gently.

  The notebook was the excuse. The fear came first.

  Click.

  Seven.

  I felt Javi stir beside me.

  I leaned close. "The vent clicked again,"

  I moved the notebook so he could touch it, my eyes staying on the vent.

  His fingers twitched against the page. A flicker in his eyes—the kind that meant he’d touched something raw.

  Click.

  Eight.

  I remembered the cold. It wasn’t silence, not really; just stillness.

  No certainty either; only the ache of knowing that if I moved, they’d see me. That if I slept, they would come for me.

  It wasn’t memory… Just a shape left behind.

  “Están mal…” he said, leaning close to me, his hand rubbing his shimmering eyes. The memories always left a film over his eyes.

  I looked down, and his cover was pulled down. His socks were a different color.

  The words lingered. Wrong. Not just the socks. The feeling.

  Click.

  Nine.

  I just kept counting.

  I didn’t know what lived in the vents—as if knowing would make it real. But I heard them in my hair.

  Watching, waiting, inside them. And now I knew that they were coming for one of us…

  Or all of us.

  Click.

  Ten.

  Noa stirred, eyes half-lidded. “Is it still clicking?”

  “Not anymore,” The lie sat quiet between us.

  Her fingers curled around mine anyway.

  The monsters would come in rotations. Some students one day, some another.

  Click.

  Eleven.

  I didn’t know how I learned of them. That they’d take us…

  That the clicks meant they were coming. I just knew. Just like I knew about the book and the lemon…

  They worked or at least helped.

  Click.

  Twelve.

  I closed my eyes, trying to remember. Before the Institute. Of home, of my parents.

  Before the clicks or the different lights.

  But all I could remember was the cat running away.

  Click.

  Thirteen.

  I opened my eyes. The thrum matched my heartbeat.

  The vent was quiet. For now.

  Noa stirred on her other side, her small hand clutching my sleeve. Her grandmother had taught her the lullaby.

  She sang it softly, her voice barely above a whisper. I had heard it before.

  "Where’d you learn that?" I had crouched down and whispered back then.

  "My mother used to sing it for me," she had said. "When she thought I was asleep."

  Click.

  Fourteen.

  The hum in the walls shifted, lower now, as though a breath exhaled.

  If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  "Will you sing it with me?" She asked. We did. We Choired softly.

  The words half-formed, half-remembered.

  "Siúil, siúil, siúil a rúin..."

  I brushed Noa’s hair back, my fingers trembling. The mirror twitched, then stilled.

  “Siúil, siúil, siúil a rúin,”

  “Siúil go sochair agus siúil go ciúin,”

  “Siúil go doras agus éalaigh liom,”

  “Is é mo léan géar nach mbeidh tú liom.”

  Not for meaning—just memory.

  "Siúil, siúil, siúil a rúin..."

  The hum deepened as though a breath exhaled through static.

  "Siúil go sochair agus siúil go ciúin..."

  I grabbed Javi’s hand, holding it tight as he joined on Choir.

  "Siúil go doras agus éalaigh liom..."

  The air thickened with a low static hum.

  Their voice braided with mine, Javi’s flicker of warmth, Noa’s pulse of memory, coiling around my current.

  "Is é mo léan géar nach mbeidh tú liom."

  I was the capacitor. They were the charge. And this—this was the release.

  Electricity surged around me, the lemon peel curling before burning. I smelled the citric, just enough to remind me it was real.

  The lullaby became more than sound. The mirror shook wildly; thankfully didn’t crack, but it wanted to.

  I didn’t flinch. That was the rule.

  The hum screamed excitedly. I felt it in my hair. The purple light flickered as the wave passed. It left behind a Field Echo, or more accurately, I did. The hum would buzz to you like static searching for skin.

  It moved through the room and beyond, the lullaby etching itself into every wall. The ripple didn’t ask. It just arrived; every mind a receiver.

  Whether they wanted to or not.

  The song had braided itself into the walls. The vent filled with static. I felt the crack, not loud. Just enough to shift the quiet. Maybe they felt it. Maybe they’d stop. Hopefully.

  I exhaled. The monsters didn’t move.

  Maybe they hadn’t heard it. Maybe they were scared away.

  At the very least, the clicks stopped. But the hum still sang. I felt it in my ribs, as though it was too excited for sleep.

  I also still had the charge in my chest... curled inward. Waiting for the next click.

  I thought of the cat to try and Ground myself. They let us choose a memory to see in one of the rooms. I picked the cat, the one that’d run away. She blinked at me, as if she knew I wouldn’t follow.

  The air still buzzed faintly… residue, maybe. The lullaby had left an echo behind. One that a memory wouldn’t be enough to calm.

  The hum responded with reverence. It didn’t retreat. It lingered, like a breath held in awe. Not as sound, but as presence; an imprint too vast to ignore. It shimmered in the quiet, refusing to settle.

  The lullaby had given it shape. Not peace. Not fear. Something older. Something like belonging.

  My fingers ached. Not from movement—from release. I had held too much, for too long.

  Javi’s fingers lingered on the notebook. He didn’t read it; he felt it. The lemon juice, the pages,

  the pressure of my hand, even my thoughts. All of it whispered to him.

  Psychometry, they called it. The ability to read memory from touch. He didn’t always control it, but here, in the quiet, it came gently.

  He looked at me. “They are in the wrong place,” he said again, softer this time. “I saw it. The socks… ” His accent was soft, clipped at the ends. He spoke like someone who’d learned quiet wasn’t optional.

  I nodded. He had seen what I had left behind. Javi turned toward the wall, his fingers twitching. He didn’t speak again. He was still inside the book. It always left him distant afterward, as though he’d swallowed too much of me.

  I wasn’t supposed to ask. That was the rule I never wrote. If you remember too much, they find you. But I asked anyway.

  “Will you sing it again?”

  Noa was already nodding.

  "Siúil, siúil, siúil a rúin...”

  A shield made of sound. A lullaby for the monsters.

  The mirror stayed still. The vent was quiet.

  But I knew sooner or later the clicks would start again. And next time, they might not wait for thirteen.

  A few hours later, when the purple light was close to changing, I sat up slowly, careful not to wake them.

  The hum stayed low, threaded through me, quiet, but still pulsing. It had settled into a lower register, like it had forgotten the surge—but I hadn’t.

  I reached for the ointment jar tucked beneath the mattress and unscrewed the lid. The scent was sharp: mint and metal.

  I dabbed it gently onto the burns on my wrists. They weren’t as fresh as before, but they flared sometimes, like memory. I didn’t wince. That was part of the ritual. Grounding.

  Once the ointment had settled, I pulled on the sleeves. No gloves, just fabric that hugged the forearms, soft and dark, stitched with a thread that shimmered faintly in the purple light.

  They weren’t for warmth. They were for forgetting.

  The hum threaded gently through my tresses. I tugged the sleeves down without thinking. Then stilled, letting the fabric press against the ache. The hum’s trace was still within me, but it wasn’t sacred anymore. Just… spent.

  I flexed my fingers, then stilled. I stood up and walked slowly around the room, just to be safe. The mirror was still, no twitching. The vent didn’t stir, only its mechanical hum. The Lemon peel had dried into nothing, brittle and curled.

  I left quietly, letting Noa and Javi sleep a bit longer.

  The corridor shimmered faintly. The purple light bled across the floor, catching on scuff marks and shimmer-thread.

  I moved slowly. My footsteps didn’t echo. They were swallowed, as if the corridor had already decided I didn’t matter.

  A scan brushed my skin—psionic, not thermal.

  "Still holding something," the voice said.

  I didn’t answer right away.

  Not sure if it came from the intercom or just… bled through.

  Some things aren’t held. They sink deeper, buried, then settle there. Stitched into the skin, like they never asked.

  I exhaled slowly, forcing the heat back down. “You ever try letting go of a burn while it’s still blistering?" I finally blurted out.

  The voice didn’t answer. I just kept walking.

  The corridor widened into the mess hall. Then came the clatter. A tray dropped. A voice rose. Not loud—but enough to fracture the quiet.

  The lights overhead flickered once, then held steady. The floor gleamed, scrubbed too recently. As if someone had tried to erase something.

  I sat alone at the far table and began to eat my meal. The rice was warm, but felt wrong. Like it had been reheated twice, and still didn’t belong.

  I chewed slowly, checking if the hum stayed low. Present, but no longer listening.

  At least the noise wasn’t overwhelming; the hum of the vents contrasted with the occasional clatter in the kitchen.

  Cassian stumbled in first, his uniform all rumpled, his hair damp at the temples as if he’d just washed off a nightmare. He didn’t scan the room after he got served. Just moved toward me, slow and groggy. The tray clattered as he dropped into the seat across from me.

  I didn’t look right away. When I did, I noticed his shoulders were slumped, the kind that meant sleep hadn’t helped... or was woken too early.

  His eyes were rimmed red. They flicked once to my sleeves, stitched with shimmer-thread and shadow. He didn’t ask. just started eating quietly beside me.

  He could’ve sat anywhere.

  But he didn’t.

  He chose the quiet, not out of camaraderie, but because his tired self craved what I carried.

  The clink of his spoon against the bowl was soft, deliberate. As though he was trying not to wake something. His jaw moved, slow and tight, chewing through more than rice. The psionic check had reached him, too. I could feel it in the way he didn’t speak yet.

  He didn’t look up. “Still holding something?” he said, mimicking the checkpoint voice with bitter mocking. “Canto’e cabrón…” The phrase didn’t ask—it offered. Quietly. Bitterly. Like he knew I wouldn’t answer, and didn’t need me to.

  The mirror above the sink caught a ripple of light.

  As if it remembered something.

  Cassian’s hand paused mid-air, then let the utensil fall with a muted tap. The hum in the vents shifted pitch, only slightly, probably just the system cycling.

  We sat in that quiet for a while. No words. Just the hum and the soft scrapes of ritual consumption. Cassian didn’t look up again. I didn’t speak. The silence mostly held.

  But more and more students began to gather. One of them, a young boy, was humming softly at his tray as he sat on the opposite corner of the table.

  "You look like you lost a fight with a mop bucket."

  Then Julian arrived, grabbing a tray and sliding in beside me a moment later.

  Cassian grunted. "I did. Mop bucket won."

  I didn’t laugh, I rarely did, but my fork paused mid-air.

  Julian watched me. "You always eat like you’re memorizing the wall." He started eating loudly, spoon clanking against the tray.

  I ignored his comment at first, focusing instead on the child humming. The same tune. I didn’t look.

  I adjusted my sleeves instead. Let them cover the burns. "It doesn’t talk back." The clatter grated. Not because it was loud—because it didn’t belong.

  Cassian snorted. "Unlike some people."

  “Yeah, well, we all can be rather loud sometimes, too…” Julian pressed his knuckle against the tray. “Can’t we, Queen?” The motion of his hand was soft, yet deliberate.

  Cassian didn’t laugh. “It wasn’t just a song, was it?”

  The child stopped humming. Just like that. Like someone had turned off a switch.

  I kept chewing. The rice had gone cold.

  ”You used to hum that one,” he said. “Back when they still let us sleep through the night.”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  Cassian didn’t answer right away. He didn’t look away, either.

  “I already know enough,” he said. “That’s the problem.”

  Julian stopped twirling his spoon. He looked at Cassian, then at me.

  “You didn’t tell me,” he said. Not angry. Just small.

  Cassian didn’t respond.

  The mirror twitched again. A light overhead flickered once, then held.

  That’s when I saw her. Mikaela, or Mika, as she had asked to be called.

  She walked in humming the same song. After getting served, she paused halfway; her eyes drawn to the child who’d resumed the tune.

  Then her eyes scanned the room, her gaze drifting from one child to another, each humming the same tune. Her tune.

  …or so she thought.

  Cassian’s spoon clinked against the bowl again, louder this time. Julian shifted in his seat, eyes flicking toward Mika. For a moment, she just stood there, tray untouched. Then walked forward and sat next to us, slower than usual.

  She just hummed, a bit more hesitant as she looked around. The same tune the child had been humming. The same one she thought was hers. “They’re humming the same song…”

  “Yeah, we all heard it…” said Julian. “I wish I was under yonder hill,” he said with an exaggerated Irish accent, twisting the lyrics to suit his wry tone.

  I just glanced at Julian before turning to Mika. Her silence felt different. It wasn’t hollow. It waited, as if it had already decided something.

  They all hummed it as though it had always been theirs. Maybe it was. Maybe I was just the conduit.

  “They used to test us with that technique…” Cassian muttered. “Didn’t they?” His voice was low, but not uncertain—like he was remembering something he hadn’t meant to.

  “Yeah, those were the good old days…” Julian said sardonically. “Ripper just kept at it with his sketches. Anne was around. And Zack…”

  Cassian cut in. ”So Mikaela, where is the Midwich Ripper?”

  I just kept chewing. I remembered the coliseum. I remembered Zack’s eyes—how he looked at me before I killed him as though I owed him something. Wanting me to carry it.

  ”He wasn’t there when I woke up,” Mika said, shrugging. “Probably a test.” She stirred the rice, watching it cool.

  Cassian’s spoon paused mid-air. Julian glanced up, then rubbed the back of his neck. I just swallowed my food.

  The vents hummed steadily.

  “They like him better when he’s breaking things on schedule.” Mikaela’s fingers twitched against the tray.

  The rice had gone cold. No one asked where Ripper was. They’d say it was tests. Scans. Something routine. But I knew the clicks had stopped too soon. I knew what that meant. They’d taken him. Just like they always did.

  Mika stirred her food again. Still not eating. Her tray looked untouched, like she was waiting for something colder.

  Cassian stayed quiet. I kept chewing. The cold had settled. And still, no one asked where Ripper was. They never did.

  I tugged the sleeves down as I stood. No warning. No words. Just motion. My tray scraped softly against the table. The table held nothing I needed. The silence had shifted again—less sacred, more hollow.

  I didn’t look at anyone. Didn’t blink. I just walked out. Cassian didn’t move. Julian tapped his spoon once, then stopped—as if he’d remembered something he wasn’t ready to say. Mikaela just observed, her fingers starting to rub against each other.

  No one followed.

  The vent stayed quiet.

  The quiet didn’t follow.

  The hum didn’t rise.

  It all stayed behind, braided into their noise.

  That was the worst part.

  Now I only carry the ache.