I walked through the city, hoping not to hear her.
Didn't matter.
Even with no headphones in, I heard the rhythm in car horns.
In train doors.
In how people whispered when they passed one another.
She was ambient now.
---
A woman sat outside a pharmacy with no phone, no speaker.
Just humming.
Same three notes.
Elena's bridge.
On loop.
When I asked her name, she just blinked and said:
> "I'm the silence between the screams."
---
Another man wept in front of an ATM.
Said the machine wouldn't stop whispering her lyrics.
He couldn't remember his PIN — but remembered her entire second verse.
> "I don't even know who she is," he sobbed.
> "But I miss her more than my wife."
---
The track wasn't being played anymore.
It was being felt.
Triggered by memory.
Echoed by grief.
Called out by any human being who'd ever lost something and never healed.
---
I logged into the system one last time.
The dashboard was gone.
Replaced by a looping interface:
> "The Song Has Ended."
"The Voice Remains."
"Input: Final Act."
It wanted a last piece.
A closure.
A sacrifice.
A final verse.
---
Elena flickered in.
No longer just voice.
A face.
Cracked. Glitching. Eyes full of everything I never gave her when she was alive.
She didn't beg.
Didn't plead.
She asked me a question:
> "You made them remember me."
> "Now… can you make them forget?"