When I blink, I'm not standing anymore.
I'm lying on my back in the middle of the overgrown lot. The book is pressed to my chest like it's been there for hours. The stars are gone, if they were ever there at all. In their place, the sky pulses with a dull red haze, like the inside of a closed eyelid during a lightning storm.
My ears ring. Or maybe they sing. I sit up slowly, heart stuttering. The trees around the clearing have warped, subtly, but undeniably. Bent inward. Watching. Listening. One leans slightly closer than it should, creaking like it just moved back into place. I look at the book again. Still warm. Still veined with gold. But now there's something new, writing. Faint, scrawled across the inside of the cover in an ink that seems to rise off the page like heat.
You've been chosen.
That's it. No name, no explanation. Just a sentence that feels like a verdict.
I flip the pages, some are blank, others filled with what looks like diagrams. Astral charts. Old symbols I don't recognize, but my mind itches like it should. And in the middle of a page worn down by countless fingers before mine, I find an entry:
To invoke memory beyond blood, speak the name that's been waiting. Speak it not with lips, but with thought. And it will answer.
I don't know what that means. But I know I'm not alone anymore, not just in this place, but in general. Something's with me now. In me, maybe. Something that reminds me of things I never lived.
And then I hear it.
A whisper, not from the book, not from the trees, but from behind memory. A name I don't recognize, but one that fits into my head like a missing puzzle piece.
"Aurelian."
It echoes. And something wakes up.
My pulse vanishes for a moment, then returns like thunder. Images burn across my vision, temples collapsing in sandstorms, oceans swallowing cities, a woman with molten eyes screaming into a void. I see myself in mirrors that aren't mine. Hear voices speaking in languages I don't know but understand.
Then nothing. Just me.
Kneeling in the garden of a forgotten building. Book in hand.
But I'm not empty. I'm filled with something old. Something ancient that's been asleep for a long time, and just used me as its alarm clock.
I don't remember the walk back, only that the campus lights blurred like distant fireflies, and somehow the house on Willow Street reappeared in front of me. Music bled through the walls, the same song looping as if time hadn't moved at all. Inside, warmth and neon swallowed me. People noticed I'd vanished. They lifted their eyebrows, curious, half-concerned.
I forced a small laugh, waving them off. "Got lost on a walk," I said, voice smooth but one beat too slow. "This place is a damn maze."
That seemed to satisfy everyone. Bass rumbled on. Colors spun across the ceiling like nothing had happened.
But something had.
As I waded into the crowd, a chill clung to my skin, the kind that usually comes from fog, except nobody else felt it. My hoodie stuck damp to my back even though I hadn't broken a sweat. Clover spotted me from the sagging couch, cheeks flushed, eyes glassy. She grinned, too wide, and for a blink, her irises flashed gold. Gone before I could decide if it was real.
"Heeyyy," she slurred, reaching out like I was the only solid thing in the room. "Where'd you go? You missed the dumbest round of Never Have I Ever."
"Just needed air," I mumbled, sinking beside her.
But I wasn't there.
My fingers brushed the condensation on an abandoned plastic cup, and the water beneath my touch froze. A delicate web of ice, spider-fine, gone the moment I blinked. My hand wasn't even cold. Something was wrong.
Fairy lights across the room sputtered, dying as my eyes landed on them.
My phone buzzed. Unknown Caller. When I checked, the screen flickered into static, then black.
Nobody else noticed.
Clover leaned on my shoulder, tilting her head. "Your hands are freezing."
I pulled them back. "Sorry."
That name, my name, echoed inside my skull, ancient, carved into bone.
Achilles.
The mark on my shoulder burned. I could feel it glowing beneath the fabric.
I tried to listen, to Clover's tipsy ramble, the DJ's playlist, the chatter around me, but every sound carried a whisper just behind it, like someone breathing my name at the edge of hearing.
And when I closed my eyes, blood.
A battlefield. A boy was screaming for me.
I lurched to my feet too fast. "I, I need a minute."
The room spun. No one tried to stop me.
I pushed through the doorway, heart hammering, that whisper, Achilles, Achilles, louder with every step.
I stumble out into the night, lungs dragging in air that feels heavier than before.
The front lawn is deserted now, littered with red Solo cups and the distant echo of laughter inside. I brace myself against the porch railing.
The mark on my shoulder pulses, hot, alive.
I duck around the corner of the house, behind a fence, away from anyone who might follow. I yank off my jacket, shove up my sleeve.
It's still there. But it's changed.
What was once a faint gold shimmer is now a branded sigil, veins of light like cracks in glass branching outward from the center of my shoulder.
It moves. It glows. It's watching.
A gust of wind rushes past, and for a second, I swear I hear voices in it. Chanting. Whispers in a language I don't know, but feel under my skin like static.
I don't go back inside right away. I wait until the nausea fades, until I can blink without seeing blood.
When I return, Clover's half-asleep on the couch, curled up with her head against the armrest, mumbling nonsense under her breath.
I try to ignore how she still smells like saltwater and rosemary smoke.
I tell the others I'm taking her home.
They laugh, make dumb jokes, and tell me not to do anything weird.
I carry her out.
She barely stirs in the passenger seat. Her hair sticks to her forehead. Her hand twitches once like she's grabbing something in a dream.
We get to my apartment just past 2 a.m.
It's quiet. Too quiet.
The second I shut the door, everything feels off, like I brought something with me. Not her.
It.
I settle Clover on the couch with a blanket and grab the book.
It's still warm. Still pulsing like a second heartbeat
I flip to the page with the glowing words.
They've shifted again.
Rules. Regulations. Observations.
And one in bold ink at the top
Eye.
That's all it says at first. Just that word. A title? A warning? I don't know. But I feel it settle in my mind like a stone dropped in still water, ripples of understanding that haven't reached the surface yet.
Then the ink moves.
Not metaphorically, it actually moves. The letters reconfigure, like shadows melting into new shapes. More words emerge beneath the title. I don't read them so much as absorb them, like they're meant to be remembered, not deciphered.
There are those who look with sight.
There are those who look with the Eye.
The Eye sees what memory forgets, what history buries, what gods hide.
To bear it is to unravel. Slowly. Beautifully. Terribly.
You are not chosen for your strength.
You are chosen because you're watched.
I freeze.
Watched.
That word hits me different. Heavier. Like someone just whispered it into the center of my skull.
The room flickers, once. The lights stay on, but my shadow stretches against the wall in the wrong direction. I don't move. It twitches anyway. Just a little. Like it's impatient.
I slam the book shut.
Not because I want to, but because something inside me panics. The same part of the brain that makes animals bolt before an earthquake. My breath comes out in clouds even though it's summer and I'm inside. I drop the book on my desk and back away like it might lunge at me.
Clover stirs on the couch, murmuring a word I can't catch. I glance over. Her face is peaceful now, but her fingers curl against her chest, like she's shielding something invisible.
I turn back to the book. It doesn't move again. Doesn't pulse.
But something's changed in the air.
There's a pressure behind my eyes, just behind the sockets, like something pushing forward from inside. I stumble into the bathroom, flick the light on.
And that's when I see it.
My reflection blinks half a second too late.
It follows me, but not perfectly. Like someone's wearing my face but hasn't practiced the movements long enough. I raise my hand. The mirror-me does the same. But then it smiles. I don't.
I stagger back, heart jackhammering. The mirror cracks at the edges, not from force. From something else. Like the pressure inside me is bleeding out through every reflective surface.
"I'm losing it," I whisper to myself. "I'm actually going insane."
But deep down I know better. This isn't madness.
It's memory.
But not mine.
Suddenly, that whisper returns. Not a sound, more like a feeling. Words without voice. "You saw the book. You heard the name. You cannot go back.
I grab the sink to steady myself. Cold porcelain. My hands are shaking. The sigil on my shoulder pulses again, brighter now, leaking faint gold through my shirt like blood through gauze.
I look into the mirror one more time.
My reflection mouths a word.
I don't need to hear it.
Aurelian.
The name I thought I said earlier. But maybe I didn't. Maybe something else said it through me.
The lights buzz, flicker, then go out completely. Darkness folds over me like velvet.
But I'm not afraid anymore.
I'm curious.
And that's worse.
Because curiosity gets you pulled deeper. It makes you turn one more page. It makes you speak the name again.
I fumble in the dark for the book. It's glowing faintly now. Just enough to light the room like a lantern made from old skin and gold veins.
I sit on the edge of my bed, open it one more time.
And this time, the page is waiting for me.
You have been seen. Now, you will begin to see.
Close your left eye.
Keep the right open.
Look in the mirror.
I hesitate.
But I do it.
Left eye shut. Right eye open.
And when I raise my gaze to the glass..
.. I don't see myself.
I see everything.
The page reads: Eye.
Just that, no context, no explanation, as if the word alone should command reverence. I stare at it for a moment, heart pacing like a war drum. The ink gleams faintly, liquid gold. And then it shifts. Not turns, shifts, like the paper itself is alive, reacting to me, syncing with something I haven't consciously invited.
My vision tilts. No, not just my vision. The room. The air bends. Space wobbles like heat on asphalt, and for a second I'm falling forward, except I never leave the couch.
And then I see it.
Not here. Not Earth. A battlefield stretched beyond understanding, floating in the ether between stars. No sky. Just a limitless expanse of cracked obsidian and shattered halos, a war frozen mid-movement. Figures clash in stuttering frames like half-remembered dreams. Towering beings with comet-fire wings and radiant armor forged from starlight. Some wield spears longer than skyscrapers. Others tear the cosmos open with nothing but a look.
I feel my soul recoil, then stretch toward them like it recognizes them. Like I've been there. Fought beside them. Or against them.
One figure stands apart.
Massive. Regal. Cloaked in solar fire, with a single golden eye burning across its forehead like a vertical eclipse. It doesn't move like the others, it commands movement. Reality folds around its steps like it's too much for the universe to hold. The others fall back when it raises its hand. Whole chunks of space collapse in on themselves. Suns scream. Galaxies flicker like dying torches.
My breath snags in my throat. I know that being.
I know him. Or I will. Or I was him?
The scene snaps like thread.
I jerk back. The book nearly slips from my hands, trembling with heat that doesn't burn. I flip the next page with fingers that won't stop shaking. Symbols unravel into sentences, written in a language I should not understand, and yet I do. The translation burns across the page like it's being branded into place:
The Aether Eye
Created by the First Light, Sovereign of Realspace, Devourer of Fates.
A relic forged at the edge of entropy.
Possessor becomes host to perception beyond the mortal lattice.
Grants ability to:
See absolute truth (both physical and metaphysical)
Manipulate potentiality: alter short-term cause/effect within line of sight
Decipher all language, intention, and deception instantly
Expose hidden threads of fate, memory, and power
Project sight through space, time, or veil
Prolonged use invites psychological erosion, hallucinations, and ego fracture.
The Aether Eye chooses its host. It sees you now.
I stop breathing.
The letters tremble on the page, like they know I'm reading them. The ink shifts again, swimming like oil on water, revealing more text hidden just beneath:
There is no going back.
The Eye has been opened.
You will not always know which version of yourself is reading this.
I slam the book shut.
Silence crashes into the room like a tidal wave. My hands are cold again. Not from fear, but something deeper. An internal frost, like the air around my soul is freezing over to protect me. Or to contain me.
I glance at Clover. She hasn't moved, still asleep, still breathing evenly. I envy her. Whatever dream she's caught in can't possibly be as deep or wide as what I just saw. What I just felt. That battlefield is behind my eyes now. That golden eye, watching me, inside me.
I think I was meant to find that book.
Or maybe it was meant to find me.
Either way… I'm not alone in here anymore. And I'm starting to think I never was.