The Last Voice In Zundaria

Subtitle: When the Silence Breaks Again

---

Rain lashed the rusted tower as thunder growled low over the city.

The old East Broadcast Tower, once used for radio dramas and presidential speeches, now stood like a forgotten monument — deactivated, decaying, and crawling with ivy. The city believed it dead. No signal had come from it in over a decade.

Until tonight.

11:00 PM.

General Clarke stood beneath its steel frame, soaked and breathless, his trench coat clinging to his aging frame. No convoy. No guards. Just him, his pistol, and the echoes of a man he had tried to erase.

He glanced at his watch. 10:59.

"Still capable of punctuality, I see," came a voice from behind.

Clarke turned slowly.

A man emerged from the shadows, lean and hooded, holding a satchel over one shoulder. His voice wasn't familiar — but the way he stood, the way he looked through Clarke instead of at him...

It reminded him of Miles.

"I got your message," Clarke said. "You knew I'd come?"

The man nodded. "You're not a fool. Just... late to the truth."

"And you are?"

The man smiled faintly. "A courier. Nothing more."

He opened the satchel and pulled out a black box. Clarke recognized it instantly. Military-grade transmitter. Scrambled frequency. Illegal.

And powerful.

"It's been programmed," the man said. "All you have to do is hit one button. One transmission. One minute. One voice."

Clarke stared at the device. "And whose voice would that be?"

The courier tilted his head.

"Miles Wilson's."

---

In the control room of the old tower, everything was dust and cobwebs. But the main console — the transmitter panel — had been freshly cleaned. Someone had been here before. Recently.

Clarke ran his fingers across the dials. Muscle memory kicked in. He knew this board. He had used it as a young officer when state messages were still crafted like poetry. When propaganda had rhythm.

"Where did you get the file?" Clarke asked.

"The same place truth always hides," the man replied. "In the hearts of those who risk everything for it."

Clarke frowned, uncertain whether he was being mocked or honored.

The man handed him a flash drive. "Plug this in. Then press record."

Clarke stared at the small device. Miles' final message. A recording never aired. Supposedly destroyed.

But somehow... it had survived.

---

Across the city, in a candle-lit apartment, Leah Williams — former journalist, now banned and blacklisted — sat with headphones pressed to her ears. She was scanning frequencies. Hoping. Chasing ghosts.

And then, at 11:01 PM...

The static broke.

A voice.

> "If you can hear this, then the silence has cracked."

She froze.

> "They erased me. They bombed the courthouse. They called it peace. But peace isn't the absence of noise. It's the presence of justice."

Leah's eyes widened. She stood. Fumbled for her recorder. Her hands trembled.

> "This is Miles Wilson. And if you're hearing this... I am already gone. But not forgotten."

Within seconds, she was dialing numbers — old contacts, former rebels, underground radio hosts.

"The Voice is back," she whispered into the phone. "He's back."

---

At that same moment, in a dim prison cell on the edge of the capital, Thomas Gray, former professor turned political prisoner, closed his eyes and wept.

The guards didn't understand why.

But his cellmate — a boy no older than 17 — did.

"That's him, isn't it?" the boy asked. "The one you used to teach us about."

Thomas nodded, voice hoarse. "Yes. That's Miles."

The boy clutched the iron bars like they were handles to the future.

---

Meanwhile, in the back alley of a Zundarian slum, Ethan Carter, a young mechanic and underground tech-hacker, intercepted the signal.

He turned to his sister, who had grown up hearing stories of the courthouse broadcast like bedtime tales.

"It's real," he said. "He's real."

They both stared at the radio.

> "They made you afraid of truth. They fed you lies like water. But I see you. And I know you see me. Not with your eyes. But with your memory."

> "This is not the end of Zundaria. It's the beginning. And beginnings are noisy."

---

Back in the tower, Clarke sat frozen, listening to the words flow from speakers and out into the country. The rain outside blurred the lights of the capital. In the distance, sirens began to wail. They'd triangulate the source soon.

"You need to go," the courier said urgently.

But Clarke didn't move.

He watched the timer on the transmitter. Two minutes remaining.

> "To the soldiers listening: your oath was to the people. Not the tyrants."

> "To the teachers: speak even when no one listens. Someone always does."

> "To the children: you are more powerful than they want you to believe."

> "To the government: I am not your enemy. Truth is. And it always wins — eventually."

The voice crackled, then faded. The countdown reached zero.

The transmission ended.

Silence.

Then a soft voice beside him: "You gave him the airwaves. You didn't have to."

Clarke stood slowly. "I did have to. He spoke the words I never could. The ones I buried with my conscience."

Sirens grew louder.

The courier was already packing up.

"You've got maybe five minutes before they reach the stairs. You should run."

"I won't run," Clarke said.

The courier paused.

Clarke reached for the flash drive. "Take this. Make more copies. Spread them. Don't stop."

The younger man nodded. "You're not like the others."

"I was," Clarke said. "But tonight, I chose to listen."

---

By morning, the entire country had heard it.

Phones buzzed with audio clips. Flash drives were traded like gold. In classrooms and mosques, in police stations and bakeries — Miles Wilson's voice lived again.

The government issued a statement: "Foreign interference. Audio manipulation. Propaganda."

But no one believed it.

Because truth doesn't need proof.

It only needs to be heard.