The morning after felt colder.
Not the weather—something deeper. Like the city had exhaled in the night and left behind only silence.
Kael stared at his reflection in the window of the train. The city buzzed around him, digital ads flashing, people moving in predictable patterns… but none of it felt real.
He blinked.
For a moment, he saw it again—the crack.
A fracture in the glass, splitting his reflection in two.
It vanished the moment he blinked again.
Work was routine. Efficiency reports, system reviews, two briefings, one unnecessary meeting. It should have distracted him.
But the pressure hadn't returned.
That presence—the one that had watched him for months—was still gone.
Instead, what remained was… emptiness.
And that, somehow, was worse.
At sunset, Kael returned to the alleyway.
The stranger was gone.
But something lingered. A faint trace. Like a sound that had already faded, but still echoed in your bones.
There was no proof anyone had stood there.
No footprints. No cameras nearby.
But Kael knew what he felt.
He hadn't imagined it.
And that terrified him more than the idea that he had.
He kept walking.
No destination. No map.
Just instinct.
The streets grew narrower. Older. Parts of the city he hadn't visited in years. The kind of districts where the digital signs glitched more often than they worked. Where reality seemed… less polished.
Kael's pulse quickened.
A noise behind him.
He turned.
Nothing.
The air shifted.
Like the city itself had taken notice.
Then… silence. But not peaceful.
Heavy. Intentional.
Kael stopped in front of an abandoned bookstore. The kind of place that shouldn't still exist in a world like this. Faded wooden sign. Windows boarded shut. No visible entry.
He didn't plan to enter.
He just stood there.
Staring.
Feeling something stir in his chest he couldn't name.
"Why here?" he whispered to himself.
Then, for the first time since he was a child, Kael felt something he couldn't rationalize.
Connection.
Like this place had been waiting for him.
Not watching.
Not threatening.
Just… waiting.
He didn't sleep that night.
But not because of nightmares.
There were no dreams at all.
Just… absence.
The next few days blurred together.
Kael began noticing things—small, fragmented images that flickered through his mind like corrupted memories:
A shadow behind a door that didn't exist. The sound of bells in a place with no churches. A language he didn't speak… but somehow understood.
Each moment was gone as quickly as it came.
But they left behind static.
Not on screens.
In his thoughts.
What was he forgetting?
Or more disturbingly… what had he already chosen to forget?
On the fourth day, it happened.
Kael met them.
Not one. Not all at once.
Just… the first.
A girl, younger than him. Sitting cross-legged on a rooftop near the edge of the city.
Kael didn't remember how he got there. He didn't even speak first.
She did.
Her eyes didn't match her age.
And her voice was hollow, like someone who had seen too much to still be considered young.
"You noticed the silence too… didn't you?"
Kael didn't answer.
Because deep down, he knew she wasn't asking a question.
She was confirming a truth.
One he hadn't admitted even to himself.
And for the first time in a long while, Kael realized something.
He wasn't being watched anymore… because he wasn't alone.
End of Chapter 2