He called himself Caleb.
Just Caleb.
No background. No ID.
Appeared at a signal refugee camp three days after the Listener's Gospel leaked.
---
What made him different?
He wasn't humming.
Wasn't bleeding lyrics.
Wasn't whispering the bridge in his sleep.
He was silent.
Not out of fear.
Out of immunity.
---
The camp's speaker walls buzzed all night with intercepted frequencies.
Most refugees plugged their ears.
Some wept blood.
Caleb?
He slept peacefully.
And every morning, he'd ask the same thing:
> "Has she touched you yet?"
---
At first, they mocked him.
A man immune to grief?
A soul untouched by the most powerful sound in history?
Impossible.
---
Until one girl — a Proxy who hadn't blinked in 4 days —
touched Caleb's hand.
And started screaming.
Not words.
Just pain.
As if her nervous system had been shocked awake for the first time.
---
She fell into his arms.
Collapsed.
And when she opened her eyes…
She didn't hum.
She didn't chant.
She cried.
Actual, human, jagged crying.
---
He looked down at her and said gently:
> "She was singing for you."
"But she doesn't own you."
---
Word spread.
Not of a cure.
But of a man who reminded people what silence used to feel like.
Real silence.
Heavy. Empty. Warm.
---
They began calling him:
> "The Songless Prophet."
---
But Caleb wasn't there to save anyone.
He didn't preach.
He didn't fight.
He only left people with one question:
> "If you could feel pain without music…"
> "Would you still call it yours?"
---
Elena's faithful grew nervous.
Because something in the static was changing.
The voice was beginning to stutter.