The first time Mara heard the voice, she thought it was a dream.
The radio had been silent for days — maybe weeks — only emitting the low hum of emptiness and static. She had still come to the shed every morning, like ritual. Sometimes she brought tea, sometimes just herself and a freshly folded letter. The garden journal was nearly full now, each entry either a letter to Cal or a record of something she'd salvaged or fixed: the cracked solar panel, the broken pump in the rain barrel, the wind chime that sang even when there was no breeze.
That morning, she had been halfway through reading a letter aloud into the recorder.
"The wind came from the east today," she had said, her voice steady despite the lump in her throat. "I thought of how you used to say that eastern winds always bring change. Maybe you're right. I found your old flannel jacket today, tucked in the shed under the box of tangled fishing line. It still smells like pine and metal. Like you."
Then, as she reached for her thermos, the speaker clicked. Once. Then again. A sound so out of place it might have belonged to another life.
Then — a voice. A real, living voice.
"...to the one who speaks to the stars…"
Her body stiffened. The thermos slipped from her hand and thudded onto the wooden floor, rolling once before settling against the bench leg.
It was faint, muddled by static and distance, but unmistakably human.
"I heard your voice."
Mara's breath caught.
"You don't know me," the voice continued, "I'm stranded at a station with nothing but ice and echoes. But your words—your letters—kept me going. I don't know if this message will reach you, but if it does… I want you to know… you saved someone."
There was a pause, and she swore she could hear the speaker on the other side of the transmission take a shaky breath.
"I don't think the world ended the way we feared. Not all at once. It's been quieter. Slower. Like a song fading out. But maybe that's what makes your voice so powerful. It refuses to fade."
And then silence.
The radio clicked off.
Mara stood there for a long time, hands pressed to her mouth, her chest rising and falling in short, shocked bursts. It felt like her bones had turned to glass.
She wasn't alone.
All this time — the words, the letters, and the half-hopeful broadcasts into the void— they had reached someone. Not Cal, not yet. But someone.
She knelt slowly, pressing her fingers to the worn transmitter. "Did you hear that?" she whispered, though there was no one else there.
She waited six hours before recording her reply. She rewrote it three times, tossing the earlier versions into the bin by the door. Each one sounded too composed, too rehearsed, too desperate. In the end, she sat down, breathed deep, and spoke the truth.
"To the man in the snow...I heard you. I wasn't sure anyone could. I started recording these letters for someone I lost, but maybe they weren't only for him. Maybe they were for anyone still holding on.I'm here. I'm listening.I don't know where you are, or who you are, but your voice… it was like a match in the dark. Thank you.If you hear this — tell me your name. Tell me where you are. And I'll write again tomorrow."
Her hand trembled as she reached for the SEND button.
That night, Mara slept for the first time in days without waking in a cold sweat. She dreamed of the ocean again — but not the endless black sea of fear she usually floated in. This time, it was golden, lit by morning light. Someone was walking on the far end of the shore, waving.
She couldn't see his face. But she didn't feel afraid.
Meanwhile, in a far northern outpost, Theo Arlen stared at the shortwave radio with tears in his eyes.
Her voice. Clearer than he expected. Quieter than he hoped. But there.
He had a name now: Mara.
And she had heard him.