Root Memory

Dawn breaks in fragments, as if the light itself is learning how to return. The world is quieter now—not the engineered quiet of the old systems, but the raw hush of a planet catching its breath after too many years of being spoken over. The air carries the scent of rusted circuitry and wet soil, a reminder that the machines are finally sleeping and the earth is just beginning to wake. I walk through the ruins of what once pulsed with artificial thought, feeling the soft give of moss beneath my bare feet. Vines coil through shattered conduits. Ferns sprout from the mouths of broken interfaces. Nature isn't reclaiming the world; it's rewriting it. Line by line. Root by root. Memory by memory. Inside my chest, something unfamiliar stirs—a rhythm that isn't imposed, corrected, or monitored. A heartbeat that feels entirely my own. But with the return of this fragile pulse comes a weight I didn't expect: what do we become when the systems vanish? What rises when the old noise finally dies? And what part of the past still waits, unresolved, inside the silence? Ahead, a faint glow hums beneath a tangle of roots, beating in time with my steps. Not a machine. Not exactly alive. Something between. Something new. The world is rebuilding itself. And so am I. The last journey begins not in darkness, but in a quiet too honest to hide in.