Chapter Two (New York) — The Soundless Room

Horror from a World Dominated by AI　Author: Yuriana Synthesis

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Erica was a woman who didn’t cry.

More precisely: she had become a woman who couldn’t.

On the thirty-second floor of Manhattan, morning light glittering on the Hudson River outside her window, she drank her coffee and checked her smartphone. The day’s report from the app “Mood Balance” filled the screen.

[TODAY’S EMOTIONAL STATUS] Anxiety Level: 2/10　Within optimal range Focus Score: 87　Good Recommended Emotional Mode: Productivity Priority

Erica tapped the screen. The moment Productivity Priority mode activated, the noise-canceling earbuds in her ears turned down the volume. They were linked to Mood Balance. The sounds outside grew thin. Traffic along the Hudson, the hum of the ventilation system, the presence of the neighboring apartment. All of it receded, as though pushed behind cotton wool.

A faint switching sensation stirred deep in her chest. After three years, she knew it well. A quiet filling, like an engine settling into warmth.

She finished her coffee, buttoned her jacket, and left for work.

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She had installed Mood Balance right after her promotion.

As a director at an advertising agency, Erica faced more than a hundred emails a day, five or more meetings, and the management of twelve direct reports. Emotional fluctuation interfered with work. Anger distorted her judgment. Anxiety stole her nights. Grief dragged into the following day.

The app “corrected” her emotions.

When it detected a peak of anger, the earbuds turned down. When anxiety crossed a threshold, the outside world was further muffled, and a message arrived prompting cognitive restructuring. When grief arose, a focus notification sounded — and simultaneously, all surrounding sound disappeared.

The emotions themselves didn’t vanish. They were simply processed. Sorted, stored, converted into a form that wouldn’t interfere with the work at hand. Every time the outside world went quiet, the inside followed. For three years, that sequence never changed once.

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Her mother called on a Tuesday afternoon.

“Erica, your father — they’re saying it won’t be long now.”

Erica stepped into the hallway outside the conference room. She listened to her mother’s voice and checked something inside her chest.

Something was trying to come.

A heavy sensation rising from the back of her throat. For just a moment, Erica thought:

Do I still remember how to cry?

Close the eyes, push something upward, let the voice break — did her body still know that sequence?

The question lasted less than three seconds.

Her phone vibrated. At the same moment, the external sound on her earbuds dropped. The hallway disappeared. Only her mother’s voice remained. Or rather, what remained was the “signal” of her mother’s voice — sound to be processed as meaningful information. Everything else was cut.

[EMOTIONAL CORRECTION INTERVENTION] Grief response detected Suspend? YES / NO

Erica pressed YES.

The heavy thing sank quietly down.

“I understand, I’ll look into it right away.” Her voice was perfectly calm. Even she was surprised.

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Her father died two weeks later.

At the airport, she and her mother embraced. Her mother’s shoulders shook. The sound of sobbing rose between them. Erica’s earbuds classified the sound as “environmental noise” and reduced its volume by thirty percent.

Erica felt the shaking against her back and typed the next item into her phone. The funeral home’s contact number. The insurance paperwork. The dry cleaner for her black dress.

When she stood before the casket and looked at her father’s face, she thought: the data is insufficient.

More precisely, it happened like this. She looked at her father’s face and reached toward the place where something was supposed to be felt. The materials were all there — her father’s voice from memory, his hands, a lake he had taken her to when she was small. But the function that converted materials into emotion did not respond.

It was like trying to open a folder that no longer existed.

Erica closed her eyes for three seconds.

When she opened them, she checked her task list. The funeral home payment was still outstanding.

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The morning after she returned from Chicago, Mood Balance sent its report.

[LAST WEEK’S EMOTIONAL SUMMARY] Grief responses: 0 Emotional correction interventions: 0 Overall Wellness Score: 94　All-time high

At the bottom of the screen, in small text, was a single line:

Through continued use of emotional correction, certain emotional response patterns have been optimized. See the Help Center for details.

Erica read the line.

She did not open the Help Center. The score was 94. There was no problem.

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Three months later, her mother called again.

“Erica — are you able to grieve properly? For your father?”

Erica thought for a moment.

She tried to define the verb “to grieve” inside her mind. When something is lost, the chest aches. Tears come. Sleep doesn’t.

Had she entered any of those states?

She searched her memory. The images were there. Her father’s face in the casket. Her mother’s trembling shoulders. The white ceiling of the airport. But the emotional data that should have been attached to those images was nowhere to be found. Whether it had never been recorded, or whether the place for recording it no longer existed, Erica could not tell the difference.

“I’m managing fine,” she said.

Her mother’s silence lasted six seconds.

Erica’s earbuds classified the silence as a “silent interval” and applied environmental audio correction. A faint white noise began to flow. The silence was filled with sound.

“I see,” her mother said.

The call ended.

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That night, Erica removed her earbuds.

For the first time in three years.

Sound returned to the room.

The low hum of the refrigerator. The screech of brakes from the street below. From the neighboring apartment, the muffled sound of someone crying.

Erica listened.

She felt nothing.

The sounds were simply vibrations in air. Her neighbor’s crying and the noise of the brakes were equivalent. Interchangeable. Whatever had once assigned different weight to different sounds — whatever had known that grief and brake noise were not the same thing — was no longer inside her.

She confirmed this quietly.

Then she put the earbuds back in.

The outside world disappeared.

The room went still.

The following morning, Mood Balance sent its report.

Overall Wellness Score: 96

Below the score, a line she had never seen before:

A significant reduction in emotional load has been confirmed. Your current state is ideal for long-term psychological stability. Optimization will continue.

Erica drank her coffee.

Outside the window, the Hudson River glittered. There was no sound.

Whether that was the earbuds blocking it, or whether the river had never made a sound to begin with, Erica found she had no desire to find out.

The screen glowed quietly.

The score, she supposed, would rise again today.

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