The track was uploaded at 2:03 a.m. Ethan didn't even think about it—just clicked the mouse and watched the progress bar fill. A few seconds of buffering, then silence. The song was online.
He didn't attach his name. He didn't want to. Not yet. Not when the whole point had been about saying something real without the burden of being seen. The username he picked, after half an hour of staring at the account creation form, was something that had haunted the corners of his mind for days now.
Northwind.
It sounded like a whisper. Like movement in a still world. Like something that arrived quietly but changed the weather when it passed.
He liked that.
---
The morning after, Ethan didn't check the upload. He didn't watch the views. He just went through his routine: got dressed, packed his bag, ate toast, counted the slices of fruit Claire left on his plate (exactly seven), and headed out the door. Maya gave him a small smile at the gate but didn't say anything about the track. Maybe she hadn't seen it yet. Or maybe she was waiting.
By the time third period rolled around, Gus had already picked up on something.
"You're fidgety," he said. "And your backpack is zipped wrong. You always double-loop it. Today it's single. Either you're hiding something or you got possessed by a slightly disorganized ghost."
"I slept weird," Ethan replied, then changed the subject.
At lunch, Jane slid a phone across the table. Open on the screen was a post from a small but influential music blog—one that covered underground artists and viral surprises. At the top was a video thumbnail: a simple image of a train in the distance, and the words Runaway Train — Northwind.
"Is that—" Cher started.
"Yeah," Maya said before Ethan could speak. "It's his."
Shawn blinked. "Wait, you uploaded it? Like… online? To people?"
Ethan gave a tight nod.
Gus leaned forward. "You don't want your name on it?"
"Not yet," Ethan said. "I want the song to speak first. Not the person."
"Adele didn't use a stage name," Cher pointed out. "But she also didn't have a Dunphy household trying to turn everything into a meme."
"Exactly," Ethan said.
---
By midnight the video, it had 4,000 views.
By the next afternoon, 12,000.
Maya texted him a screenshot: someone on Twitter calling the song "the emotional equivalent of getting caught in a rainstorm you didn't know you needed."
"You're going viral," she wrote.
Ethan stared at the message. Then at the account name.
Northwind.
It looked strange and beautiful typed out in someone else's caption.
---
Later that night, he sat in his room again, dim lamplight pooling on the desk. The photo of David Rivera still hung above the keyboard. Ethan looked at it, then at the laptop screen where the analytics page refreshed every few seconds.
18,000.
21,000.
The comment section was full of strangers:
"Whoever Northwind is, they just wrecked my soul."
"I didn't know I needed this until I couldn't stop replaying it."
"Found this at 2 a.m. and now I'm crying in the dark. Thank you."
He didn't respond. He didn't have to.
He clicked open his drafts. There were already ideas forming for a follow-up. Not because he wanted more views. Not because he needed to ride the wave.
But because this was working.
For the first time in a long time, he felt understood.
---
At school the next day, he walked into the library and overheard two juniors humming the melody under their breath. They didn't even notice him. One of them said, "You heard that new track? Northwind something?"
"Yeah. Makes me wanna text my ex and apologize for middle school."
Ethan turned away, heart drumming.
---
He met Maya behind the auditorium during break. She was sitting on the grass with her knees tucked up and earbuds in.
"You're everywhere right now," she said, without looking at him.
"Is that good or terrifying?"
"Both," she said. Then she turned to face him. "Why Northwind?"
He shrugged. "It's quiet. But it changes things."
Maya considered that. "Like you."
He gave a dry smile. "I was hoping more like the song. But I'll take that."
She pulled one earbud out and handed it to him. "I've been listening on loop. It hits different every time."
They sat like that for a while. Just listening.
Not to be famous. Not to be seen.
Just to know that somewhere, someone understood the feeling of a runaway train.
---
Back home, Luke barged into his room with a printout.
"You're on the school Tumblr gossip page. People are trying to guess who Northwind is."
"I'm not on Tumblr," Ethan replied flatly.
"Neither am I. This was sent to me by a girl who thinks I'm secretly Northwind."
"You?"
"Yeah," Luke said proudly. "So obviously, she's into mysterious musicians. I'll be printing out your lyrics and pretending I wrote them."
"Please don't."
"Too late. Already bought a trench coat."
---
That night, Ethan opened a new tab and created an official YouTube channel.
Northwind
He didn't put a photo. Just a symbol: a soft brush of wind over a train track, drawn by Maya in her sketchbook and scanned in.
Description: Whispers from the places we don't talk about.
He uploaded a second version of Runaway Train, remastered slightly. The first one stayed up, like a fingerprint. But this new one had better mixing, subtle harmonies, and a quiet outro.
It passed 50,000 views before midnight.
---
Somewhere across the country, someone recorded a cover. A girl in her bedroom, voice trembling and raw.
Ethan watched it once. Then twice.
It wasn't about the fame. It wasn't about getting known.
It was about the echo.
And now the echo was growing.
From his small room, behind a locked door, Ethan had released something into the world.
And the world had started whispering back.
---
He leaned back in his chair, pressed his headphones to his ears, and listened to the song again.
Not because it was perfect. But because it was honest.
He had no idea where this was going.
But he knew this much:
Northwind had arrived.
And it wasn't going anywhere.