When the Walls Shake 🧠

It was late afternoon in Storieopolis when the unthinkable happened.
Without warning, the ground trembled. Buildings rattled, lights flickered, and citizens screamed.

Karen the Alarm shrieked into her whistle, red lights flashing across the city.
“Emergency! Emergency! Everyone brace yourselves!”

Addie the Power Surge revved her engines to the maximum, flooding the streets with adrenaline. Bob the Survivalist took over, keeping breath and heartbeat pounding at full speed. Hugh the Regulator clutched his belt, trying to hold everything steady.

The quake eventually stopped. The city still stood, shaken, but standing. The danger had passed.

But inside Storieopolis, something had changed.

Even after the ground was still, Karen kept blowing her whistle. She replayed the danger in her mind, convinced it could strike again at any moment. Addie continued to deliver cortisol and adrenaline, keeping the city tense and restless.

Steve the Historian hurried to file the memory of the quake but, in his rush, stuffed it into the wrong drawers. Instead of being stored as “a scary thing that happened in the past,” it was mislabeled as “a threat happening right now.” and routed to Karen.

Thelma the Gatekeeper, overwhelmed by the chaos, began rerouting signals. Every loud sound a dropped pot, a slammed door, even the rumble of passing vehicles was redirected to Karen as though it were another quake.

Now, every vibration felt like danger. The city jumped at shadows constantly.

Mayor Judy called an emergency council meeting.
“Team, we have survived the quake,” she reminded the citizens, “but our systems are still acting as if it never ended. This is Traumatic stress. The fear from the quake is leaking into our current present.”

Steve lowered his head. “Team I have a confession…In all the heat of the moment, I filed the memory wrong. Instead of placing it in the archives, I left it sitting on Karen’s desk. That’s why she keeps sounding alarms.”

Karen, eyes wide, clutching her whistle. “If I stop warning it could happen again, what if it happens again? My job is to keep us safe!”

Judy spoke gently. “You’re great at protecting us, Karen. however constant alarms don’t keep us safe, they keep us confused and trapped.”

The citizens of Storieopolis agreed, and they would each do their part to regain harmony in the city, and so they began the slow work of healing.

• Steve carefully re-filed the quake memory into the proper archives, this time with context: “Yes, it was terrible. But it’s over.”

• Thelma practiced filtering more carefully, so not every sound was treated as disaster.

• Hugh supported the body with rest, food, and rhythm.

• Judy encouraged the whole city to share their experiences, rewriting the story together.

It took time, but little by little, the constant siren softened.

One evening, as the lantern of Paul the Timekeeper glowed, Karen finally set her whistle down. “I’ll still be here when danger comes,” she said, “but I don’t need to relive the quake forever.”

The city sighed with relief. Healing had begun.

Quick Summary

• Traumatic stress happens when memories are misfiled as “now” instead of “past.”

• The amygdala (Karen) stays hyperactive, the hippocampus (Steve) misfiles the event, and the thalamus (Thelma) lets in too much noise.

• Healing requires refiling the story correctly — through learning, connection, movement and care.

Trauma isn’t erased, it’s re-storied.