"When you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."
— Friedrich Nietzsche
The first time I realized I could control people without touching them, it felt like solving a riddle the world didn't want me to know.
All it took was a whisper, a suggestion, a carefully placed truth disguised as concern.
A small experiment.
Her name was Clara — a coworker at the publishing house. Bright eyes, trembling confidence. She admired my intellect; I admired her predictability. Every conversation with her felt like watching cause and effect unfold in real-time.
So I tested a theory.
I told her she should confront her manager about being underpaid. I even quoted Seneca:
"He who is brave is free."
She smiled, thanked me, believed me.
Two days later, she did it.
Three days later, she was fired.
I didn't feel guilt. I felt clarity.
The world punishes bravery when it threatens structure.
The strong don't speak truth — they weaponize it.
That was my first experiment.
And it worked.
The nights grew quieter after that.
I started walking more — through backstreets and alleys of Erevale where the polished glass turned to cracked bricks.
Here, the city dropped its mask.
Here, the weak begged, and the strong survived.
Once, I watched a boy steal bread from a stall.
The vendor caught him, slapped him, made him kneel.
I should've looked away.
But instead, I watched.
Measured.
Calculated.
The boy's eyes were calm. No tears, no fear — just hunger.
And I realized something chilling.
Even among prey, there are predators waiting to evolve.
I gave the boy a coin, not out of kindness, but curiosity.
Would he beg again, or would he learn?
He ran off without a word.
I respected that.
Lately, I've been feeling something... foreign.
Not remorse — I don't believe in that — but emptiness.
Like I've outgrown everything around me.
Books, people, even my own thoughts.
I've read enough to understand every emotion but never felt any deeply enough to care.
Even loneliness feels like an intellectual puzzle to me.
I keep wondering — what if love isn't weakness?
What if it's evolution's trick to make two predators hunt together?
I hate that thought.
And yet… it lingers.
It was raining again when I saw it — her art.
Another mural, this time near the abandoned clocktower.
A pair of hands, bleeding into each other, merging into one form.
Beneath it:
"Love is the only violence we forgive."
L. Noir.
There it was again.
Same signature.
Same haunting symmetry.
Something about it unsettled me.
It wasn't the beauty — it was the understanding.
Whoever she was, she saw the same world I did — the same hunger beneath the illusion of kindness.
I stared at that mural for what felt like hours, rain dripping from my hair, the city glowing behind me like a false heaven.
I felt something shift.
Not attraction. Not yet.
Recognition.
Like two stars burning separately, destined to collide only once the sky goes dark enough.
Back home, I write in my journal again:
Observation 33: To test morality is to test nature itself. The next stage of evolution is emotional precision — the ability to choose what to feel and when.
I pause, staring at the words.
My hand trembles slightly — not from fear, but from anticipation.
Change is coming.
I can sense it.
Something — someone — is about to disrupt my equilibrium.
And maybe that's what I've been waiting for all along.
Not peace.
Not truth.
But a mirror — sharp enough to cut me back.