The morning after brought a clarity that unsettled Kairo more than any dream could. He had barely slept. The visions, the threads, the layers—they weren't hallucinations. They were permanent now. His world had shifted.
After a hurried breakfast and a moment of contemplation, Kairo decided to visit his parents.
They lived two districts away, in a quiet corner of the city where low-rise apartments met narrow streets and the trees still fought for sunlight between buildings. It wasn't far, but Kairo moved cautiously, wary of the sensations that flooded his vision whenever he let his focus slip.
As he walked, he tested the edges of his perception.
The building facades blurred and sharpened. He could see within them—faint outlines of couches, coat racks, people moving behind closed curtains. Elevators sliding behind concrete. Kids watching TV while their parents argued in the kitchen.
It wasn't just sight.
It was *awareness.*
When he reached the door to his childhood home, he paused. The old wooden panel seemed normal. Then, without trying, his mind peeled it open.
Through the door he saw the living room couch, his mother sitting on the edge with her elbows on her knees, her aura a soft teal with flickers of yellow. His father stood in the kitchen, bent over his phone. Over their heads: numbers. Floating. Real.
His mother: 92.4%
His father: 79.6%
The numbers meant something. Emotional state? Health? Truthfulness? Kairo didn't know yet, but he was certain they weren't random.
He rang the bell.
The door opened with a creak, and his mother's worried face immediately replaced the vision.
"Kairo! You look pale. Come in, come in."
She enveloped him in a hug. It felt grounding. Real.
Inside, the apartment was just as he remembered—dim and cluttered, scented with herbs and furniture polish. His father gave a gruff nod from the kitchen.
They talked. Mostly his mother. His father asked about the accident. Kairo played it down, claiming it was a bad fall and nothing more.
But all the while, the numbers above their heads gently shifted. Sometimes higher, sometimes lower. Threads of colored light curled from their shoulders—calm blue for his mother, a thin line of flickering red from his father.
Kairo didn't comment. He simply observed.
At one point, he looked down at the coffee table.
And blinked.
There, ghostlike, was the past. A faded echo. His younger self sitting on the floor, piecing together a model plane while his father lectured him about responsibility. The moment was old—years old. But it was still here.
He leaned forward. The memory didn't react to him. It was like watching film layered on reality. Only when he looked away did it vanish.
After lunch, Kairo excused himself and stepped out onto the apartment complex's common balcony.
He leaned against the railing and looked outward.
This time, he let himself see everything.
His eyes adjusted.
Through the walls, he saw neighbors watching soap operas, arguing, scrolling through their phones. Above him, through three floors of concrete, he glimpsed a teenager sketching angrily in a notebook while loud music played in another room.
Beyond the building, he saw motion inside distant apartments, fractured by rain-speckled windows. Threads crisscrossed the air—glowing faintly, barely visible to the naked eye, but real to him.
And below, near the elevator shaft, a web of cables and metal—but also the shapes of people waiting. Their numbers, too: 43.1%, 88.6%, 56.0%—all visible like stats in a game overlay.
Each figure told a story without words.
And Kairo could read them all.
His hands trembled slightly with exhilaration.
This was what he had always wanted—to see beyond the surface. To see what people hid, what buildings concealed, what the world whispered in places no one noticed.
And now that he could, the thrill was undeniable.
But he knew it was only the beginning.
There was a vast depth to his powers, one he hadn't yet explored. More abilities waiting beneath the surface.
He looked down at his palms.
Still no numbers. No threads. No color.
Only question marks.
Only mystery.
And a future that pulsed with infinite possibility.