(Written by Rohit Malhotra)
Ronin didn't remember falling asleep, but he woke up with a jolt, heart pounding as if he'd just been pulled out of a nightmare. Sunlight was filtering through the curtains, casting soft lines across the floor. For a moment, everything felt normal. The buzzing in his ears was gone. The crack in the sky was nowhere to be seen. His mirror was clean, his phone dead, and the laptop still shut.
Had he imagined all of it?
He splashed cold water on his face and stared into the mirror again, half-expecting his reflection to blink out of sync like it had last night. But this time, it blinked at the same time. Normal. Completely normal.
Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. The air in his apartment felt... heavier. As if something invisible was still lingering around.
He walked into the living room, picked up his laptop, and hesitantly opened it.
Nothing happened.
No weird text, no flashes, no strange images.
He sighed with relief and placed it on the table. Maybe he was just overworked. Maybe it had all been a dream triggered by exhaustion. But just as he turned away, the laptop screen flickered on. It was on the home screen — no programs open. Still, his eyes caught a single icon that hadn't been there before.
It was a folder. Untitled.
He double-clicked it.
Inside was a single video file. No title, no information.
Ronin hesitated, then pressed play.
The screen went black for a moment, then static covered the screen. Through the distortion, a faint image appeared — blurry, but recognizable. It was him, standing at his window from last night, looking up at the crack in the sky. The angle was strange — it wasn't from inside his apartment. It was as if the video had been recorded from the air, through the wall.
The audio was faint, filled with distortion and static. But beneath it, a voice could be heard.
"You are not alone. You never were. They're watching. They've always been watching."
The screen suddenly glitched and the video cut to black.
Ronin's hands were shaking. This wasn't a dream. Someone — or something — had recorded him. Not with a camera, but from a perspective no human could reach.
He stood up, heart hammering, and backed away from the laptop. It powered off on its own.
He didn't know who to call. The police? What would he say? That aliens were spying on him through interdimensional cracks? That a ghost mirror had sent him messages?
No one would believe him.
He picked up his phone and plugged it into the charger. After a few minutes, it turned on. No messages, no calls, except one unknown notification at the top.
One new file received via unknown device.
He opened it.
It was the same video.
Suddenly, his phone rang. No number displayed — just the word: "LOOK."
He hesitated, then answered.
Nothing. Just a low humming noise, deep and constant, almost mechanical. He kept the phone to his ear. Then, after ten seconds, a voice whispered,
"We see you."
He dropped the phone.
---
Across the city, Ruby was pacing her room. Her sketches from the night before were still spread across the floor. She had no memory of drawing them. But she knew they were real.
Each image showed the same scene — a crack in the sky, a man looking up, symbols surrounding him. One drawing had something new. A figure standing behind the man. Tall. Shadowed. Head elongated. Not human.
Ruby's phone buzzed.
It was a message from an unknown number.
"Do you remember Project Zero Sky?"
Her fingers went cold. That name. It was something she hadn't heard in years. Something she thought had been buried in the past.
She replied without thinking: "Who is this?"
No answer.
Instead, another message came through — an image. It was her, at age twelve, standing in front of a facility labeled: ZERO SKY RESEARCH DIVISION.
The photo had never existed. She had no memory of that moment. But the girl in the picture was her, no doubt.
Her phone buzzed again.
"They need you back. He's awakening."
She looked at the drawing of the man in the sky. The one she had sketched last night. Her eyes widened.
Ronin.
---
Back in Ronin's apartment, he tried to calm himself. He knew Ruby. She was the only one who had ever talked about things that couldn't be explained — things from their childhood they'd agreed to forget. He hadn't spoken to her in over eight months, but right now, she was the only one who might understand.
He opened his chat app and found her name.
Before he could type, a message popped up from her first.
"We need to talk. Now."
His fingers froze.
He typed back quickly.
"Are you seeing it too?"
Her reply came instantly.
"It never left. It was just waiting."
Ronin grabbed his keys and stepped outside. The sun was bright but the streets looked too empty for a Thursday. He felt eyes on him — not from people, but from something bigger. Something invisible. Watching.
As he reached the end of his street, a gust of wind passed, and the sky above shimmered faintly. Just for a second.
But Ronin saw it.
The crack was still there — faint, nearly invisible in daylight — but still alive.
And it was growing.