HIS STOLEN PRIDE
The flower trembled once, as though answering, then dissolved into the current.
He stood there for a long time, watching the light drift away. When he finally turned back toward the city, the streets seemed brighter, the air softer, and the silence alive again. That evening, he found Lucia at the old museum, hunched over a table scattered with blueprints and circuit fragments. “You won’t believe what I saw,” he said. She looked up, weary but alert. “Something new?” “Something old,” he replied, and told her about the flower. Lucia listened, her expression unreadable. “Could be bioluminescent algae,” she said finally. “Or—” “Or her,” he interrupted. “You felt it too, didn’t you? The pulse hasn
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