The Word Bank

In this city, every person is born with 10,000 words. A tattoo on your wrist ticks down with each one spoken, texted, or sung. Whispering costs 1. Shouting costs 5. Lying costs 20.

By age 15, most kids communicate in nods and hand signals. School is silent films and eye contact. "I love you" is a 3-word mortgage, so people save it for deathbeds.

Mira hit 12 words left at 19 years, 11 months. She stayed silent in class, but the kid behind her kept whispering. He wasn't spending his own words. He was a dream thief, siphoning syllables from sleepers at night. He led her through neon streets until the alley thinned. That's where the Shadow Market opened. No stalls, just breath. Men traded vowels by cupping them in their palms like moths.

He took her to an old care home next. Inside, 90-year-olds sat mute in rocking chairs, wrists full. Word hoarders. They never spent a single word, waiting for the "perfect moment." Now the government leased their silence to rich kids.

Mira tried to warn her little brother about the thieves. She stuttered. "S-s-stay." The tattoo burned and 3 words vanished at once. A system glitch. Suddenly she was down to 4 words and the bell for the wordless started ringing early.

The government recycled used words too. They distilled them from breath at night and sold them back to newborns. Your grandpa's "sorry" might come out of your mouth tomorrow.

Word recycling meant nothing was original. Every apology, every curse, every whispered "stay" had been spoken before by someone else's mouth. Mira understood why the hoarders waited. They wanted their first and last word to be their own. She had three left now. Outside, the bell rang for the wordless. She opened her mouth and didn't speak. Let them recycle her silence instead.