Categories > Anime/Manga > Wolf's Rain
An old receiver picks up a strange signal — three beats, a pause, three beats. Below, a dead city flickers with green lights, answering in rhythm. Is it an invitation or a trap? The protagonist d...
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When I climbed to the top of the hill, the old receiver suddenly came alive. It had been patched together in haste: a couple of insulated wires, a battery, and a broken antenna. Yet at that very moment, the speaker cut through the static and produced a short rhythmic sound — three beats, a pause, three beats.
I froze. This wasn’t just cosmic noise. It was a message.
Below the horizon stretched a silent city. Its skyscrapers looked as if they had been frozen in time: half the windows were dark, the other half glowed with a strange greenish light. No one knew who had switched those lights back on after humanity abandoned the sector.
I started recording. The signal kept repeating. Too precise, too deliberate. Three beats, a pause, three beats. My heart began to follow the rhythm.
“Someone is out there,” I thought.
On the second day, the signal changed: a higher note was added to the three beats. As if someone had realized I was listening and wanted to leave a mark.
I stayed awake at night, staring at the lights of the city. Sometimes I thought they shifted, rearranging themselves across the facades. I tried to form letters out of them, but they made no sense.
A week later, I made my decision. I grabbed a flashlight, aimed it at the towers, and blinked the beam three times.
The city replied.
First, one tower flashed three bright stripes. Then another flashed four. The signal I’d been hearing on the receiver now pulsed in light. And I understood: this was an invitation.
I packed my bag. And even though no explorer had ever returned from where that glow began, the fire inside me left no choice — I had to find out who was knocking in the silence.
Maybe it wasn’t human. Maybe it was something else. But worse than eternal silence was only one thing — missing the chance to hear the answer.
I froze. This wasn’t just cosmic noise. It was a message.
Below the horizon stretched a silent city. Its skyscrapers looked as if they had been frozen in time: half the windows were dark, the other half glowed with a strange greenish light. No one knew who had switched those lights back on after humanity abandoned the sector.
I started recording. The signal kept repeating. Too precise, too deliberate. Three beats, a pause, three beats. My heart began to follow the rhythm.
“Someone is out there,” I thought.
On the second day, the signal changed: a higher note was added to the three beats. As if someone had realized I was listening and wanted to leave a mark.
I stayed awake at night, staring at the lights of the city. Sometimes I thought they shifted, rearranging themselves across the facades. I tried to form letters out of them, but they made no sense.
A week later, I made my decision. I grabbed a flashlight, aimed it at the towers, and blinked the beam three times.
The city replied.
First, one tower flashed three bright stripes. Then another flashed four. The signal I’d been hearing on the receiver now pulsed in light. And I understood: this was an invitation.
I packed my bag. And even though no explorer had ever returned from where that glow began, the fire inside me left no choice — I had to find out who was knocking in the silence.
Maybe it wasn’t human. Maybe it was something else. But worse than eternal silence was only one thing — missing the chance to hear the answer.
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