Be Very Careful — If It Comes Out of Your Mouth, You Are Infected
They said it started with a whisper — a soft murmur at the edge of someone’s lips, barely louder than a breath. No one noticed it at first. The words sounded ordinary, maybe even kind. But those who spoke them… changed.
That was the first warning.
People called it The Echo. A phrase, a secret, a string of syllables that no one could remember fully — only that once it left your lips, you were never the same again. Scientists tried to classify it, doctors tried to treat it, but it wasn’t a virus in the traditional sense. It was a verbal contagion, a weapon of thought, an idea so dangerous that the act of speaking it allowed it to take root — not just in your mind, but in your soul.
“Be very careful,” the survivors warned. “If it comes out of your mouth, you are infected.”
At first, people mocked the idea. How could speech carry an infection? How could a sentence destroy a person?
Then came the footage.
A politician mid-interview, face suddenly twisting, voice rising as the words slipped out. Three days later, he vanished. A schoolteacher, reading aloud in class, froze mid-sentence. Blood from her nose. Blank stare. Never spoke again.
By the time the public took it seriously, it was too late. The infection wasn’t just verbal — it was memetic. Once you understood it, you were at risk. But if you spoke it, you passed it on, like a virus leaping from breath to breath.
The world changed quickly after that. Silence became survival. Governments instituted speech quarantines. Conversations were reduced to gestures, signs, and written words — but even writing became dangerous if you didn’t know what was safe. Censorship wasn’t about control anymore — it was about protection.
And those who had spoken it… became something else.
They weren’t zombies. They weren’t possessed. They were lucid, aware, and deeply altered. Their speech was infected — every word a trap, every syllable laced with whatever poison they had unleashed. They weren’t always violent, but their presence always ended the same way: another outbreak, another silence.
Some believed it was supernatural. Others thought it was a psychological virus, an ancient curse, or even a failed experiment. No one really knew. All that remained was the rule — the last safe piece of advice passed down like a holy mantra:
Do not speak it. Do not say it aloud. If it comes out of your mouth, you are infected.
I write this now, with shaking hands, the words etched into this page with the last of my clarity. I haven’t said anything out loud in six months. Not since I heard the whisper behind the wall. Not since I almost repeated it.
But last night… I dreamed of the words.
And this morning, when I looked in the mirror, I saw my mouth moving.
