---
The first thing Aiden noticed was the silence.
Not the absence of sound — the city still murmured. Distant cars whispered over pavement, air vents buzzed through plastic ducts, and somewhere nearby, faint music played. But it wasn't music. Not really.
It was soft. Safe. The kind of sound that fades the moment you hear it.
Like the world had padded every corner of its existence, including its own voice.
Aiden sat up slowly, blinking at a white ceiling he didn't recognize. The bed was strange. The room unfamiliar. He looked around.
Studio apartment. Minimalist layout. One desk, one cracked phone, one poster:
> "Breathe softer. Live brighter."
He reached for the phone. It unlocked to his thumbprint.
Familiar. Too familiar.
He scanned the screen. No Spotify. No YouTube. No music library.
Just one app labeled MoodPlayer.
He tapped it.
---
> Ambient Drift
Clean Space Loop
Crystal Horizon
Echo Wellness: Session 5
The icons were all pastel gradients. The artist names clinical: Studio Calma, LayerTone, ModuLite 8.
He clicked one. The sound that emerged was like filtered air — smooth, lifeless, drifting between notes with no destination. No words. No hook. Just mood.
He backed out and tried the search function:
> Nirvana
Nothing.
> Kurt Cobain
No results.
> Led Zeppelin, Queen, Metallica, AC/DC, Guitar solo, Power chord...
Nothing.
Not erased. Just... never created.
His chest tightened.
> This isn't my world.
---
Vireya — that's what the city was called, according to the signs. Clean pavement, curved glass architecture, quiet traffic. Cars slid by soundlessly. People walked calmly. No shouting. No laughter. No music with teeth.
He stopped at a café.
A gentle tune drifted from ceiling speakers — some soft fusion of keyboard and acoustic guitar. But there was no energy in it. No soul. The guitar didn't lead the song — it hid in the mix.
He visited a music store out of desperation. The inside gleamed. Rows of instruments lined the walls — beautiful, untouched. Every label described their function: Background Texture. Corporate Sync. Sleep Scoring.
"Do you have electric guitars?" he asked the clerk.
She smiled politely. "Yes. For studio overlay or ambient composition. Are you building a therapy loop?"
"No, I mean… do you have amps? Pedals? Distortion gear?"
Her smile flickered. "You mean... sound disruptors?"
"No. I mean real amps. The kind that roar."
The clerk blinked. "That's not how instruments are used here."
---
He found it in a pawn shop later that day — a secondhand guitar collecting dust behind a display of typewriters and antique humidifiers. Black body. Cracked pickguard. Only four strings intact.
"How much?" Aiden asked.
The old shopkeeper looked up from a crossword puzzle. "Twenty. Doesn't plug in. Nobody plays them anymore."
He handed over the cash without a word.
---
That night, he sat on the apartment floor. No strap. No tuner. No picks. Just fingers and memory.
He twisted the tuning pegs. Checked intonation by ear. Wound a replacement string from copper wire.
Then he played.
The notes buzzed. The body groaned under his palms. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't clean.
But it was alive.
---
By the next afternoon, he'd cobbled together a tiny amp from salvaged speakers and an old power strip. It barely functioned, but it would do.
He carried the guitar to a quiet city park as golden hour stretched across the skyline.
The grass was short. The benches full of quiet people on tablets. Synthetic music hummed from speakers buried in the hedges.
Aiden set the guitar case down. Plugged in the amp.
He stood. Took a breath.
Then he played.
---
"Smells Like Teen Spirit."
The riff crashed into the air like a brick through glass.
DUN-DUN... DUN DUN DUN DUN.
The chords snarled. Feedback wavered. Palm-mutes cracked like bones.
It was loud. Dirty. Rebellious.
It was wrong for this world — and that's why it felt so right.
People turned.
A jogger slowed and stared.
A woman dropped her coffee lid.
A boy on a scooter stopped and just listened, wide-eyed.
They didn't understand what they were hearing.
But they felt it.
That riff didn't just fill the park.
It shoved against the silence.
No one here had heard rock.
No one here had heard rage.
No one here had ever been given permission to scream.
---
Aiden kept playing — no vocals, just the chords, just the sound.
He poured himself into it.
Into every slide.
Every scrape.
Every imperfect note.
He let the ghost of Kurt Cobain fill the cracks of this quiet world.
---
It took ten minutes for the security guard to show up.
"Sir," he said, in a calm corporate tone, "this area is calibrated for neuro-harmony. Disruptive volume levels are prohibited."
Aiden stopped.
Unplugged.
Slung the guitar onto his back.
"Sure," he said, smiling faintly. "Message received."
---
That night, Aiden balanced his phone on a kitchen chair and recorded a video.
The same riff. One minute. Unfiltered. Unapologetic.
He uploaded it with no title. No hashtags. Just Unknown Sound.
Then waited.
---
Ten views.
Twenty.
Thirty-five.
Nothing.
Until…
One comment.
> "I don't know what this is. But it made me feel something. Please — do it again."
Aiden stared at the screen.
Then looked down at the guitar in his lap.
> "I call it rock," he whispered.
"And I'm not done yet."