The Loom of Echoes
SOURCE: Original story inspired by the unsettling unease of mass surveillance and the fracturing of identity in hyperconnected societies. Through a haze of pale dawn, the city of Veridion rose like a fractured monolith—its skyline a jagged silhouette of glass and steel, fractured by the trembling hum of static. In this world, privacy was as obsolete as paper books. The Loom was everywhere—a colossal, sentient network of sensors, cameras, and neural interfaces that wrapped the populace in a suffocating embrace. It did not just watch; it listened, felt, parsed, and, most disturbingly, shifted reality around its subjects. Elara worked in the Loom’s maintenance division, a technician tasked with repairing the “eyes” that scanned every street, every room. She had never questioned the system. Her unease was quiet, dormant—a thin ache beneath the surface. One day, a new sensory overlay update was rolled out. Users reported seeing impossible things before their eyes—fractured faces, i...