The lamp's light caught on the shard's inner seams, turning its fractures into molten gold. Kenton leaned closer, the glow painting thin lines across his face, warm where the rest of the room was cold.
It wasn't just light—it moved, shifting in tune with his thoughts. A pattern bloomed and collapsed, delicate as frost forming and melting on glass. Every time it changed, the air felt different. Denser.
He rotated the crystal between his fingers, and the shadows along the wall twisted slightly, like they were leaning in to listen.
The sensation sent a pulse through him—something he hadn't felt in years. Not safety. Not control. Something sharper, richer.
Possibility.
Kenton's chest rose and fell slowly as his mind ran ahead of his restraint. What else could the shard do? How far could its influence reach? Could it make someone certain of something that wasn't true? Could it make a crowd believe a lie so deeply they'd defend it with their lives?
His fingers tightened around it, and the glow intensified, spilling over the desk like liquid fire.
He imagined stepping into a room and feeling every pair of eyes stay on him—not glance and move on, but stay. Listening. Agreeing. No one talking over him. No one dismissing his words before they left his mouth.
A low hum filled the room, and Kenton realized it was his own breathing, deep and steady.
The shard pulsed in time with his heartbeat now. Each throb made the walls feel closer, not claustrophobic but attentive—like the room itself was waiting for him to decide what to do next.
He smiled, small at first, then wider, almost involuntary.
So many doors could open with this.
So many people would finally—
He stopped the thought before it finished, but the heat in his chest didn't fade.
Outside, somewhere far off, a siren wailed. The sound slid into his awareness like a distant note in a piece of music he was composing, irrelevant except for the way it confirmed that the world still moved—and he could, if he chose, shape it.
He turned the shard once more, watching the light coil around his hand like a living thing.
The night was long, and the crystal wasn't going anywhere.
Neither was he.
Kenton sat alone in the dimly lit room of NOT FRANK'S, the stale air heavy with the faint scent of dust and old electronics. The crystalline shard rested in the palm of his hand, its fractured surface catching the weak glow from the single overhead lamp. To any outsider, it might have looked like a broken piece of glass, a worthless fragment discarded by time. But to Kenton, it was a beacon — a promise.
He turned it over slowly, the shard's inner fissures shifting colors with every subtle tilt. The glow wasn't just light — it was presence. A soft pulse emanated from its core, syncing with his heartbeat, syncing with his breath.
For years, Kenton had wandered through life like a ghost, unseen and unheard. At Sector Delta, he was a specter behind monitors and data feeds, his voice an afterthought in conversations dominated by sharper, louder personalities. He had clung to knowledge as a shield, repeating facts and figures with mechanical precision to compensate for the emptiness inside. But knowledge, no matter how vast, was cold. It did not fill the void.
Now, holding this shard, the void didn't feel so vast anymore.
A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. For the first time in memory, something throbbed beneath his skin — a warmth, subtle but alive. Not control, not power — not yet. But the tantalizing possibility of both.
He let his mind wander.
What if this shard could do more than just shimmer in his hand?
What if it could reach beyond this room, beyond the fragile reality of the Hollow Reach, and tug at the world's threads like a puppeteer?
Could it bend the thoughts of others? Warp their perceptions? Shape belief itself?
Kenton's fingers flexed around the shard, the glow flaring bright for a moment, casting fractured light across the peeling wallpaper.
The room seemed to pulse with anticipation.
His heart hammered louder.
The power to be noticed.
The power to be heard.
The power to no longer be invisible.
He swallowed hard, eyes darting to the shadows pooling in the corners. No one was here to witness this moment. No one to judge him or dismiss him as insignificant.
And yet... even alone, a whisper of doubt stirred.
Is this really what I want?
The question lingered, but the shard did not waver. It promised more — far more than Kenton dared admit aloud.
His lips parted in a breathless whisper.
"Yes."
The word was both a surrender and a declaration.
He set the shard down gently on the desk and leaned back in his chair, fingers brushing over the rough surface. The light inside the crystal flickered, like a heartbeat slowed to a rhythm only he could hear.
Curiosity bloomed inside him, tendrils stretching tentatively into the dark recesses of his mind.
He closed his eyes and pictured his last days at Sector Delta. Not the missions or the cold protocols, but the faces of his colleagues — distant, indifferent, some even outright hostile.
He remembered how his words slipped through conversations like mist, ignored or overwritten. How every attempt to connect felt like reaching for a shadow.
And yet, here he was, holding a shard that might change everything.
Opening a door he had never dared to knock on before.
His fingers twitched as the shard pulsed again — stronger this time, a warmth blossoming in his palm.
A sudden thought seized him:
If I could shift how others saw me...
Not just with words or data, but truly, fundamentally—
Kenton's breath caught.
He pictured stepping into a room, the shard glowing softly at his side, and watching the faces around him tilt in his favor. Their doubts dissolving like mist in the morning sun. Their skepticism replaced by a quiet, unshakable trust.
Would they finally see me?
A sharp smile broke through his usual restraint.
They would have no choice.
Minutes slipped by like hours as Kenton sat, eyes closed, attuning himself to the shard's subtle rhythms. The world outside seemed to blur — the low hum of city life fading beneath the pulse in his hand.
The shard was no longer just an object.
It was a seed.
A promise planted in the fertile soil of his loneliness and frustration.
And with every beat of its fractured light, it whispered possibilities:
You are more than a ghost.You are not forgotten.You can command the room without speaking.
Kenton opened his eyes, and the room looked different.
Sharper. More malleable.
He flexed his fingers, feeling a thrill ripple through his arm.
Just a test, he told himself. A harmless experiment.
He extended his hand and focused on the shard.
A soft pulse radiated outward, and the light along the edges of the desk flickered as if struggling to maintain form.
Kenton's breath quickened.
"Come on," he whispered.
A flicker.
A bend in the air near the shard, like a heatwave on a summer day.
The chair beside him trembled, just slightly, but enough to make him blink.
The shadows shifted—leaned—as if watching.
A flush of excitement surged, followed immediately by a stab of doubt.
Was this real? Or just a trick of the light?
He reached out with his mind, coaxing the shard to push further.
The room darkened slightly, the edges of his vision twisting, bending.
Kenton's pulse raced.
Then, a sharp crack — like ice fracturing in slow motion — split the air.
The lamp flickered, its glow stuttering as if struggling against some unseen force.
Kenton's heart hammered wildly.
He scrambled to stand, nearly knocking the shard off the desk. The room snapped back to normal, the shadows settling into their usual corners.
He stared at the shard, sweat beading on his forehead.
That was no trick.
He swallowed hard, and for a moment, all the loneliness and invisibility crashed over him like a wave.
But beneath it, a new feeling—power.
Kenton found himself returning to the shard again and again, drawn to its shifting light like a moth to flame.
Each session, the room bent more easily to his will — the shadows stretching, walls shimmering in faint ripples.
But with each test, a darker hunger grew beneath the surface.
He began to imagine not just bending the room, but bending people.
Shaping how they saw him, how they listened, how they remembered.
The possibilities intoxicated him.
He thought of the colleagues who had dismissed him, the voices that had talked over him, the empty silences where his presence should have been.
What if they could never ignore me again?
What if I could rewrite those moments?
A smile curled his lips — cold and calculating, but tinged with something raw and desperate.
He was no longer just curious.
He was hungry.
Hungry for more.
HOURS LATER
The shard glowed steadily in Kenton's palm, a cold pulse that somehow sparked a fever in his veins. The room around him seemed less real, more like clay to be shaped—yet the shadows clung stubbornly to their edges, unwilling to fully surrender. He flexed his fingers, watching the fractured light dance between them as the air thickened with possibility.
He closed his eyes and pushed the shard's energy outward, willing it to warp more than just the light. He imagined twisting perception itself, bending it to his silent command. The room's edges shimmered, the desk warped as if caught in a heatwave. The lamp flickered violently, then steadied, but not without a faint ringing in Kenton's ears.
Not perfect, he thought, his lips twitching. But it's working.
The shard pulsed harder—almost too hard. A sudden tremor ran through his hand as the crystal's glow fractured and flared, and for a split second, the room warped too far, sloshing like water. Kenton staggered, heart pounding in his throat. The air tasted thick and sour, and the shadows in the corner flickered—not with movement, but with something like irritation.
He blinked, disoriented. The shards' light dimmed to a dull glow, and the room slowly snapped back into place. But Kenton's skin prickled with unease. The power was raw, unstable, dangerous. Every push bent reality closer to breaking.
Still, the allure was irresistible.
He reached out again—this time, focusing not on the room, but on himself. His reflection in the cracked monitor flickered oddly. He saw his face twist, features sharpening, shadows deepening beneath his eyes. He smiled, savoring the sudden shift in perception, the subtle sway he now held over his own image.
But the shard pulsed erratically. The reflection fractured, shattering into shards of glass that threatened to cut through his very identity. Kenton blinked hard, trying to steady the vision—and his mind.
There was a cost.
Pushing the shard too far pulled at the edges of his consciousness. His heartbeat quickened unnaturally, breaths coming shallow and fast. The room spun, and for a moment, he felt weightless—adrift in a sea of fractured reality.
This power could consume me, he realized with a cold thrill. But what if it's worth it?
A deep need coiled inside him—a craving not just to be seen, but to be unforgettable. To never be ignored again.
He reached out, daring to bend the perceptions of others.
The door creaked open, the slightest shift in the threshold.
Kenton's eyes darted to the entrance. No one there. Just the echo of footsteps long gone. Yet the shard's glow intensified, and the edges of the room blurred, folding inward like a breath held too long.
He imagined the eyes of a crowd turning toward him, their gazes bending and twisting until he was the center, the gravity that pulled all attention.
A flash of light flickered—and then a sharp crack. The shard splintered, fragments raining across the desk like frozen stars.
Kenton gasped, clutching his hand as a sharp sting bloomed in his palm. The light inside the fragments flared and died, plunging the room into shadow.
The shards were damaged.
His power was fragile, volatile—dangerous to wield and unreliable.
He sank back into his chair, breath ragged. The room felt emptier, colder, the silence pressing in like a weight.
Was this all just an illusion?
He looked down at his shaking hands. The shards had promised validation, power, a way out of invisibility. But the reality was raw and brutal: every attempt came with risk, every success fragile and fleeting.
Yet the craving didn't fade.
If anything, it grew sharper.
Kenton's eyes darkened with a fierce determination.
I will master this.
I will break these limits.
He leaned forward, heart pounding, fingers brushing the scattered fragments.
One shard caught the fading light—a faint pulse still throbbed in its cracked core.
And in that faint glow, Kenton saw a reflection—not of his broken power, but of his broken self.
A man desperate to be more.