The Hum

Prologue

Silence.

That's all I ask of the world, but that want will never be realized.

Nobody can pinpoint the exact moment when the sky itself started to speak. Well, perhaps not the sky, but what we built up to it. It's our own doing, after all.

Everywhere that humans with the capacity to manipulate reside, there is a Hum; perpetually overhead, inescapable. It's starting to change people. Once they become aware of its constant presence, it doesn't just fade into the background anymore; then it's not just a hum. It's a migraine, an incapacitator. Eventually, it's kills.

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I couldn't have been the first person to notice the Hum. It's everywhere. It's no stranger to foreign countries, and once it's been ingrained into a place, it takes a liking to it, and doesn't leave. I suppose we all write it off as background noise at first, like crickets on a summer night or the low chatter in a subway station, never brought to the forefront of our minds. Most of us just allow it to exist there, never really acknowledging it because there's not enough time in the world to stop our trivialities and hear it.

Then there are those of us who sit for a moment and listen. Suddenly, it's brought front and center. Like when you're sitting in a quiet classroom, and momentarily become aware of the clock ticking on the back wall. That tick doesn't go away once you notice it, if anything it becomes louder and more present. That's what the Hum is like for me.

Never giving even a slight intimation of stopping or lessening, for its existence is in no way ephemeral. The Hum is here to stay, the only question is, are we?