> Before Echo.
> Before Virelia.
> Before "Neo Mojaki."
There were two kids in a white room.
No records.
No guardians.
Just silence and blue light.
---
## 🖋️ Poem: *When We Had Names*
> *You called me fire,*
> *And I called you light,*
> *We traced false stars on sterile tiles,*
> *Dreaming of night.*
> *They gave us codes,*
> *They cut out names,*
> *I held yours in my chest like a stolen flame.*
> *We weren't experiments.*
> *We were echoes undone.*
> *Two shadows pretending to chase the sun.*
> *You said you'd forget me.*
> *I said I'd forget pain.*
> *But here we are... remembering again.*
---
## 💡 Memory Scene – *Echo Prototype Room 17*
The girl is younger — eyes filled with fear and something brighter.
Neo is strapped to a chair. The lights flicker.
She sneaks into the room past a sleeping guard, holding a tiny flashlight.
> "You're not Neo yet," she says.
> "You're still… Tayo."
He looks up slowly.
> "What's your name?"
> "I think I forgot it again."
She smiles sadly.
> "That's okay. You remembered mine yesterday."
> "We'll just keep trading until someone escapes."
They sit in the dark, back to back.
Sharing warmth no file will ever record.
---
## 🕯️ Last Line (scribbled in an old notebook):
> *If I vanish first... be the silence they can't contain.*
> *And if you vanish... I'll remember you until it burns me.*
---
*End of Interlude – When We Had Names*