Sunlight filtered through the curtains in long, sleepy streams, cutting pale shapes into Aaron's room. He blinked slowly, trying to shake off the residue of fractured dreams, but Lyra's face remained carved in memory. Her icy gaze, the way she vanished into the dark—he still felt the aftershock.
He stood, pulled on his shirt, and saw the bandage wrapped around his wrist. Nera's instructions had been simple but powerful: keep it covered, change it at dawn, blend is your armor. The cloth felt snug, warm, and unlike anything else in his life, it grounded him.
In the kitchen he found Aunt Tola softly singing to the radio while boiling eggs. The warmth of home held steady, even when everything felt like it wanted to slip.
"Morning, Auntie," he said, taking his seat.
She slid a plate toward him gently. "You're pale, child."
"I'll be fine." The lie curled around his tongue, tighter than usual.
She didn't press, yet he sensed her concern. Just as she always did, she tucked an extra egg onto his plate. "Eat, yes?"
He nodded and ate, the buttered egg settling in his stomach like promise.
Outside, the city shimmered. Vendors called over the hum of traffic. Boys chased each other with battered footballs. The city's pulse was steady but there was an undercurrent—like static humming beneath the hum. When Veronica, the school gate guard, gave him a nod as he passed through, he noticed she looked past him, eyes flicking to vacant air where no one stood.
"What did I miss?" Kenny leapt out from nowhere, grinning like he'd been tracking Aaron's sideways gaze.
"Nothing," Aaron said, tucking the plate away. The day felt brittle, balanced on something invisible.
School unfolded in rituals—chemistry formulas scribbled in haste, history dates repeated quietly, mathematics drilling his fingers into machine motion. But every now and then he caught a movement he couldn't place.
Like when he glanced toward the corridor and swore he saw Lyra's silhouette turn the corner.
That night, he'd wake up—seconds before the alarm—and catch the room in misaligned shadows, like something had prowled beyond sleep.
---
At lunch they sat under the same tree as always, but the air felt different—denser, waiting. Kenny nudged him again.
"You've been out of it for days," he whispered. "Wanna tell me what's up?"
Aaron hesitated. Kenny deserved truth, but the weight of the strange world waiting for him felt too heavy.
"Nothing," he said again, but his voice trembled.
Then something happened—a leaf fell between them, drifting in a circle, as though guided by a breath neither could feel. It landed on Aaron's snack.
He stared, frozen. Kenny reached out, grabbed the leaf, and peered at it.
"Did you see that?"
Aaron nodded. He could feel breath in the leaf's spiral, a voice in its fall.
Kenny's expression changed. "Dude, this… you okay?"
He managed a small smile. "Yeah."
But he wasn't.
---
After school, he walked home alone, following old patterns that seemed distant now. The horizon pressed the sun into a furnace glow. Neon lights began to pulse on.
When he neared Aunt Tola's apartment, he noticed the same man from before—hooded, still, watching the night. Aaron's pace faltered. He stared, heart hammering.
Aunt Tola opened the door before he could knock. "There you are," she said, relieved but calm.
But when Aaron glanced back, the figure was gone, melted into the early dusk.
---
That night, he couldn't sleep again. He lay on his side as shadows gathered by the window. At 10:13, a soft tap sounded.
Lyra.
She leaned on the sill again, perfected coolness in her posture. "We're close," she said.
Aaron sat up. "How close?"
Her expression was unreadable. "Tonight, you will remember what you must. Tomorrow, the gate begins to gape."
He had no clue what that meant. "Why are you doing this?"
Lyra's voice softened, flickering like candlelight. "Once, I was not sure what to guard. Now, I know. You need to choose—stand at the gate yourself, or vanish before it opens."
She traced his scar with a fingertip. He could feel heat where she neared.
Before he could ask another question, she was gone. The window rattled shut, and nothing remained but moonlight slicing the floor.
---
The next day was overcast, air pregnant with rain. At school, the world seemed dimmer, colors muted.
In Literature class, he read a poem about gates and thresholds. Each line felt personal. Next to him, Kenny winced as Pierrot's words twisted oddly on the page. Aaron closed it, heartburn of recognition.
He slipped out at lunch, avoiding friends. He found the library empty, chose a table in the farthest corner, and opened his notebook.
He wrote:
She said the gate would gape. That I must choose. The mark burns. Patterns shift around me — shadows, words, memories I almost can't recall.
Then he paused, feeling eyes behind him.
Something in the air moved, a page in his book flipping without wind.
Lyra was there.
Not at the window this time but standing behind the last stack of shelves, bathed in lamplight. "They watch the cracks first," she said. "Cracks in glass become doorways."
Aaron swallowed. "They?"
"Layers beneath." Her voice wavered. "And you're the cut between them. They've felt you."
He pressed both hands against the table. "Show me."
"Not yet. Remember," she said gently, "if the moon shivers, you must run."
Then she faded among the stacks and Aaron was alone with the musty tang of old pages and the pulse of his scar.
---
When he left, rain had begun to fall—soft silver threads. He ran down silent corridors and crossed the yard, skin pricking with cold and something else—anticipation, fear, readiness.
At Aunt Tola's, he paused at the door. She was in the living room, reading, calm as a tide. He shut the door gently and went to his room.
He sat at the desk. On it lay the cloth Nera had given him: warm, protective, small.
He wrapped it again, adjusting the knot until the scar was hidden but the knot anchor-fast.
And in the silence, he realized he was ready. No longer the boy in the bedroom with broken dreams.
The gate waited.
He would choose.
---