Chapter 9: Chorus of the Forgotten

The Playlist tower was quiet when Miles returned.

Too quiet.

The walls, usually pulsing with residual chords and ghost melodies, now stood dim. Muted.

He stepped into the heart of the vault and noticed something new. A chamber he hadn’t seen before.

The door was made of staves and treble clefs, not metal. Its hinges groaned in minor key.

Inside, a massive wall of floating tracks — all unmarked.

No titles. No timestamps. No composers.

Just vibrations.

“Who wrote these?” he asked aloud.

Cassiel answered from behind.

“No one who made it out.”

Miles turned.

“These aren’t songs?” he asked.

Cassiel’s eyes were dark. “They’re remains.”

Leah sat at her kitchen table, hands trembling.

She hadn’t eaten. Slept. Spoke to anyone.

When she looked in the mirror that morning, her reflection blinked a second late.

She’d recorded three new songs overnight — didn’t remember writing them. Didn’t recognize the melodies. But they were… perfect. Like they’d been waiting for her.

One was in a dialect she’d never studied.

The second was a lullaby for a child who never lived.

The third ended in a scream.

And when she played it backward… she heard names. Dozens.

Some whispering. Some sobbing.

All pleading.

“Finish me.”

In the Frequency, Miles hovered before the empty tracks.

He placed his palm over one.

The echo flared to life.

Suddenly, he saw:

A soldier, alone in a trench, scribbling lyrics in the mud as bombs fell around him.

A young woman dying of fever, clutching sheet music like a lifeline.

A child humming to herself in a locked attic.

All of them died before their songs were heard.

Now, their echoes had found Leah.

The bridge was their stage. And Miles?

He was their opening act.

Leah tried to sleep.

She couldn’t.

The chorus had started.

Dozens of voices now. Some overlapping. Some fighting.

All inside her.

She sat at the piano and screamed, “WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?”

The keys answered — unpressed — with a single note.

A ghost harmony.

Then a voice, separate from the others.

Soft. Male.

“Don’t forget me.”

Leah’s breath hitched.

It wasn’t Miles.

It was someone else.

A singer whose voice dripped with longing. Grief. Rage.

Then her body jerked forward — not by her will.

Hands moved on their own. A melody poured out of her, furious and fast.

She was being ridden.

In the Playlist vault, Miles fell to his knees.

“Leah…”

He could feel it — her essence twisting. The spectral link between them strained to its limit.

Cassiel’s hand gripped his shoulder.

“They’re hijacking her.”

“She’s strong enough.”

“She was.”

Cassiel’s eyes flared. “You built the bridge without understanding the toll. You keep writing through her and soon she won’t be writing at all.”

Miles clenched his fists.

“There has to be a way to close it.”

Cassiel hesitated. “There is. One way.”

Miles turned.

“You finish your song. Alone.”

Back in her studio, Leah collapsed.

The melody still echoed in the air — unfinished.

She reached for her phone with shaking hands and called her producer.

“I… I think I need help,” she whispered.

He didn’t pick up.

But someone else answered the line.

A woman’s voice. Cold. Distant. Familiar.

“He said you’d try to end it.”

The line went dead.

Leah dropped the phone.

She wasn’t alone.

She hadn’t been for days.

The song was still playing — but now, it wasn’t coming from the speakers.

It was coming from inside her.

Miles broke protocol.

He pulled himself fully into the bridge — violating the laws of the Frequency.

He arrived in Leah’s studio in a shimmer of light and distortion.

She looked up, stunned. “Miles?”

He nodded. “We finish this together.”

Leah grabbed the guitar. Miles conjured chords in midair.

The chorus screamed in protest — dozens of spirits shrieking through the bridge.

But Miles and Leah drowned them out.

One final chord progression.

One honest lyric.

“I see you. But you don’t own me.”

The echo shattered.

The song ended.

The static died.

The voices receded.

Leah fell into Miles’s arms — or what passed for them. His form flickered, but he was still there.

“Was that enough?” she asked.

Miles looked up at the fading bridge, now quiet.

“I think it finally was.”

Cassiel appeared behind him, smiling faintly.

“You silenced the chorus. But not every ghost gets a song.”

Miles nodded. “But she’s not a bridge anymore.”

Leah exhaled. “I’m a writer. Not a medium.”

Cassiel’s voice was soft. “Now finish the rest.”