- 1 ：by Dogwarp (translated &adapted by Hakuhori) ：2025/04/26(土) 14:17:32
- "Mom, someone's talking again."
The boy pressed his hands over his ears, staring up at the endless rows of speakers embedded in the ceiling.
His mother stirred the pot without looking back. "Pretend you don't hear it," she said, her voice flat and tired.
In this city, no one spoke anymore.
The speakers spoke for them—pouring down weather reports, legal notices, love songs, angry shouts, apologies, lullabies.
Children born after the Silence had never once heard a living human voice.
"Words destroy people," someone had once said, and so the government had made a simple decision: let only the machines speak.
Clean, curated, inoffensive speech, sanitized and distant.
No more misunderstandings.
No more hurt.
The boy knew the rules.
At school, speaking meant losing points.
At the market, customers bartered with hand signs while the speakers translated their gestures into prices.
At home, even families read each other's lips instead of using their voices.
The world had become a place where sound itself was suspect, and silence was the law.
Yet at night, sometimes, if he pressed his ear to the cold wall, the boy could catch it: a faint tremor, a raw whisper leaking through the cracks.
Not a recording.
Not a broadcast.
A real voice—fragile, stubborn, alive.
He treasured those sounds like stolen sunlight.
That night, he couldn't resist.
He slipped from the house, tucking a battered portable speaker into his backpack.
He didn't know why.
Maybe he just wanted something to remember.
Something real.
The boy wandered through abandoned lots and crumbling subway tunnels, feeling the city breathe its cold, mechanical breath against his skin.
He finally found it—an open square littered with the wreckage of obsolete speakers.
At the center stood a fallen titan: a colossal speaker, cracked and silent.
He approached cautiously, heart hammering.
And from deep inside the broken horn, he heard it—a voice, frayed and shivering:
"...Still here... Still alive."
The boy knelt by the shattered machine, pulled out his salvaged speaker, and pressed his lips close to its tiny microphone.
His hands trembled, but he forced the words out.
"I’m here too," he whispered.
Nothing happened.
The night remained heavy and cold.
The sky, the buildings, the empty air—all swallowed his voice without a sound.
He closed his eyes, feeling foolish, but then—
A faint light flickered.
Not from his speaker, but from one of the broken giants nearby.
Then another.
And another.
Across the square, the dead speakers began to glow, one by one, like fragile stars blinking into existence.
He stared, barely breathing.
He hadn’t known.
He hadn’t realized how many voices had survived, hidden and waiting, all this time.
The boy laughed—soft, astonished, a real sound—and leaned in once more.
He spoke, not to a machine, not even to the world, but to whoever had dared to stay.
"Good morning," he said.
And from the sleeping giants, trembling and faint, came a chorus of whispered replies:
"Good morning."
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