Embers and echoes

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PART TWO: ECHOES

The fracture is silent.
The echoes are not.
Something followed them out of the dark.
It did not burn.
It did not bleed.
It learned.
It learned their voices,
their grief,
their prayers whispered too late.
It learned their faces.
Shadows slip.
Mirrors remember.
The spiral returns, carved deeper each time.
Joanie hums-
and the world listens.
What survived the fracture is no longer outside them.
It moves through love.
It waits inside silence.
And it is answering back.