They did not remember the Vault.
They did not remember the chants, the glyphs, or the doctrines that once carved silence into stone.
They were born into a city that spoke slowly.
That hummed instead of commanded.
That remembered without needing to record.
The children knew stories, yes—but not as warnings.
Only as weather.
Passed from elder to breeze, shaped by season and tone.
One child found an old shard once, buried beneath the roots of a shade tree. They held it up and tilted it in the light.
Its edge caught the sun and scattered it like broken water.
"What is it?" asked their sibling, peering closer.
The child turned it over. The surface was smooth, polished from time. Whatever inscription it once carried had long faded.
"Just something old," they said.
They paused for a moment, as if the shard might still decide to speak. But it stayed silent.
Then, gently, they tossed it back into the soil, not from disdain—but from peace.
