The first thing Aiden noticed was the silence.
Not the absence of sound — the city still murmured. Cars whispered like rain over smooth pavement. Air vents hummed faintly through clean ducts. Somewhere, a soft pop track filtered through ceiling speakers, all synth shimmer and gentle vocals.
But it wasn't music. Not to him.
It was background. Safe. Soothing to the point of suffocation.
Like the world had been padded. Not just its walls — but its voice, its memory, its soul.
He sat up slowly, blinking at a white ceiling. He didn't recognize the room. The bed beneath him felt too soft. The air smelled like lavender and glass.
Studio apartment. Minimalist layout. One desk. One cracked phone. One wall poster:
> "Breathe softer. Live brighter."
He reached for the phone. It lit up to his thumbprint.
Familiar. Too familiar.
The screen was simple. One media app. No Spotify. No YouTube. No local library.
Just one icon: MoodPlayer.
He tapped it.
---
> ✦ Current Sessions
Ambient Drift
Clean Space Loop
Echo Lounge: Session 12
Pop Lite – Flow Mix
Each icon a gentle gradient. Each song a safe blur.
He scrolled through the trending charts. Names he recognized — sleek pop stars, lo-fi synth duos, AI-generated ambiance with names like LayerTone and Studio Calma.
He tapped a random track.
Soft beat. Velvet synth. Smooth vocal harmony about "vibes" and "peace."
The guitar line, if it existed, was a whisper buried in a bed of polite rhythm.
He backed out and tapped the search bar. A pulse of dread tightened in his chest.
> Nirvana
No results.
> Kurt Cobain
Zeppelin
Guitar solo
Power chord
Rock
Nothing.
Not restricted. Not blocked.
Just… nonexistent.
His breathing slowed. Eyes locked on the screen.
> This isn't my world.
---
Vireya. That's what the signs called the city.
It was beautiful in the way an airport lounge is beautiful — polished floors, curved glass buildings, plants in concrete planters. Drones whirred silently above intersections. Traffic flowed without honks. Pedestrians moved in soft rhythms, heads tilted toward earbuds.
The music that filled the air was always present, but never personal. Synthesized pop blends. Slow acoustic loops. Never too fast. Never too loud.
He wandered into a café.
A pop track played overhead. The lyrics were about "holding still" and "letting go." The melody melted into the furniture.
He shook his head. "No grit," he muttered. "No bite."
Across the street, a music store caught his eye.
He crossed quickly, hope flickering.
Inside, the store gleamed. Instruments lined the walls — perfect, untouched.
Electric guitars were displayed behind glass. Beautiful. Unplayed.
Labels beneath each instrument read:
> Studio Texture | Ambient Overlay | Soft Jazz Compatible
Aiden approached the clerk. "Do you have real electric guitars?"
The clerk smiled warmly. "Of course. All models are optimized for pop layering, sleep loops, and spatial blendings."
He tried again. "No, I mean — with distortion. Amps. Pedals. The kind that growl."
Her expression dimmed slightly. "Oh. You mean… disruptors?"
"No," he said, trying not to raise his voice. "I mean real amps. The kind that roar."
A pause.
Then, softly: "That's not how instruments are used here."
---
He found it later that day in a pawn shop tucked behind a pharmacy — the kind of place that sold everything and nothing. Secondhand tech, mismatched dishes, faded shirts… and one guitar.
Black body. Dented. Four strings. A cracked pickguard like a scar across its face.
It called to him.
"How much?" Aiden asked.
The old man at the register barely looked up. "Twenty. Doesn't plug in. Decoration, mostly."
He paid without hesitation.
---
That night, he sat on the apartment floor.
No strap. No picks. No tuner.
Just fingers. And memory.
He twisted the pegs until the strings felt right. Replaced a broken one with copper wire. The neck was warped, and the intonation was garbage.
But when he played?
It buzzed. Groaned. Laughed in static.
It was alive.
---
By afternoon the next day, he'd cobbled together a crude amp from broken speakers and salvaged wire. Held together with tape and stubbornness.
He walked to the nearest park as the sun set.
People sat quietly on benches. Soft pop trickled from hidden speakers in the hedges.
Aiden stood on the grass. Unzipped the guitar case. Plugged in.
He took a breath.
And played.
---
"Smells Like Teen Spirit."
DUN-DUN… DUN DUN DUN DUN.
The sound tore through the air like a fist through fog.
Distortion cracked the sky. Feedback shrieked like a ghost.
It wasn't beautiful. It wasn't clean.
It was real.
Heads turned.
A jogger stopped mid-stride.
A coffee cup hit the pavement.
A boy dropped his earbuds and just stared.
They didn't know what they were hearing.
But they felt it.
The sound didn't just fill the air — it dared to exist.
Louder than their comfort. Stronger than their calm.
For the first time in their lives, people heard rage.
Heard defiance.
Heard the voice of something that shouldn't be.
---
Aiden kept going. No vocals. Just chords.
Every palm mute hit like a heartbeat. Every slide howled. Every note screamed.
He let the ghost of a band that never existed scream into a world that had never learned to listen.
---
Ten minutes later, a security officer in soft grey approached.
"Sir," he said, as if reading from a manual, "public performance must remain within harmonic thresholds. This exceeds neuro-auditory standards."
Aiden unplugged the amp.
"Understood," he said, almost smiling. "Message received."
---
That night, he propped his phone on a chair. Hit record.
One minute. One riff. No filters.
He uploaded it to the net with no name, no tags — just:
> Unknown Sound
And waited.
Ten views.
Thirty.
Sixty.
Then — 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 down at the guitar in his lap.
> "I call it rock," he whispered.
"And I'm not done yet."