Ezra left the city with no phone.
No earbuds.
No music.
He drove six hours into a forest he barely remembered from childhood.
Checked into a cabin.
Threw his devices in the lake.
---
Silence.
Real silence.
No echoes.
No hum.
No Elena.
For the first time in weeks, he slept.
---
But on the second night—
He woke up gasping.
Not from a nightmare.
From a melody playing inside his mouth.
---
> "She was never your echo..."
"...you were hers."
---
He ran to the mirror.
His lips weren't moving.
But his tongue was twitching — like mimicking a lyric.
Like someone else was trying to speak using his breath.
---
The cabin lights flickered.
His dead phone turned itself on.
No apps.
No signal.
Just a single screen:
> "Playback – Final Verse Draft"
It started at 2:19 — the timestamp no one survived.
---
He tried smashing the phone.
Didn't work.
Tried screaming — but no sound came out.
Because the voice had replaced his own.
---
He wasn't speaking anymore.
He was broadcasting.
---
He collapsed in the woods at dawn.
No injury. No wound.
Just one phrase etched into the dirt beside him — drawn with his own fingers:
> "Running only makes me louder."