The silence that followed Maya's post wasn't comforting.
It was the kind of silence that came before storms—unnatural, stretched tight like wire ready to snap.
Her phone was turned off now. The anonymous messages had stopped, but the memory of them hadn't.
> "You'll regret this. Just like your brother did."
The words stayed with her, echoing like footsteps down a dark hallway. Jordan kept watch while she slept in the small corner of the shelter she now called home. But Maya didn't sleep much. Her eyes stayed open long into the night, replaying her brother's laughter, the fire, and the years of silence that followed.
That night, something shifted.
A memory she hadn't been able to reach before surfaced—not as a scream or a blur, but as a whisper.
---
Ten Years Ago
"Maya," her brother's voice said, "you promised you'd never let them make you forget me."
He was sitting next to her on the rug, drawing superheroes with crayons, just minutes before the fire started.
"I won't," the younger Maya whispered, hugging her knees.
The door was locked. The window nailed shut.
Then the smoke.
Then the scream.
---
She woke up with tears streaming down her face.
Jordan was sitting nearby, writing notes and sorting through printed emails and screenshots. He glanced up the moment she stirred.
"You remembered something again, didn't you?"
She nodded. "It was his voice this time. He told me not to forget him. And I did. I let them win for a while."
Jordan stood and came closer. "But you remembered in the end. That's all that matters now."
Maya stared at the ceiling. "It's not enough to remember. I need to make the world remember him too. He didn't deserve to be erased."
---
Later that day, they met with a former private investigator who had been anonymously tipped off by Maya's viral post. She was an older woman named Tola, with sharp eyes and a voice like steel.
"I used to work for your father," she said bluntly, setting a dusty black file on the table. "When I started asking too many questions about the fire, I was paid to walk away. But I've never forgotten."
Maya's pulse quickened. "Why come forward now?"
Tola looked her in the eye. "Because silence kills just as surely as fire. And because you finally made enough noise."
Inside the file were:
Copies of the original fire investigation
Photos from the scene, including inconsistencies in the burn pattern
Records showing that Maya's father increased his life insurance and household fire policy two weeks before the tragedy
A sealed testimony from a maid who mysteriously vanished weeks later
Maya felt like she was holding her brother's voice in her hands—finally.
"This… this is enough to reopen the case," Jordan said, stunned.
"No," Maya said quietly, her eyes locked on a faded photo of her brother's bedroom. "It's enough to burn down every lie they ever built."
---
That night, she went live on her private blog.
She didn't show her face.
She didn't use her real name.
But her voice was raw, unfiltered, and alive.
> "They said I was mentally unstable. They said I imagined it.
But I remember the locked doors. The smoke. The screams.
I remember my brother's voice.
And now, I have proof.
I was never crazy. I was silenced.
This is for everyone they told to be quiet.
Speak now. I'm listening."
The post spread like wildfire again.
Hashtags surged.
> #MayaSpeaks
#ForgottenButNotGone
#JusticeForFemi
And then the first message arrived in the blog comments.
> "I knew your brother. He told me something before he died. I think I can help."
Jordan stared at it, then turned to Maya.
"Do you know who that is?"
She read the username again: Witness34.
Her breath caught.
"I think… that was the code name Femi used for his pen pal at school," she whispered. "He used to write letters—he never showed me, but he called them his 'secret friend.'"
Jordan leaned forward. "Then we just found our ghost in the machine.