Chapter XXIV: Systematic Time Error
The sound of his own sobs filled the room.
Nathaniel Cross sat slumped on the couch, hands covering his face, the faint hum of the radiator pushing warmth into a world that suddenly felt unbearably cold.
But the cracks above him glowed.
Thin, jagged veins of light across the plaster, pulsing like the heartbeat of something alive, something breathing beyond the walls of his flat. They shimmered faintly, then dimmed, then brightened again—like they were waiting. Watching.
Nathaniel lowered his hands, chest heaving. His eyes locked on the notebook lying sprawled open on the floor. He hadn't touched it, hadn't dared open it, yet there it was—pages flipped wide, filled with handwriting that wasn't his.
The silence watches.
The words crawled across the paper like they had been burned in, etched by some hand unseen.
His mouth went dry. He whispered aloud, voice trembling:
"...What do you want from me?"
No answer. Just the hum. The glow. The silence pressing against his ears so hard it was louder than any scream.
Nathaniel staggered up, his legs half-numb, and stumbled into the bathroom. He slammed the door behind him, gripping the sink with white knuckles. His breath fogged against the cracked mirror.
"Just me," he said, forcing the words through clenched teeth. "It's just me. Nathaniel Cross. Student. Son. Nothing else."
The mirror looked back.
Normal, for a moment. Just his pale, exhausted face, eyes ringed with sleepless nights.
But then—the reflection smiled again.
His lips hadn't moved. His jaw was clenched. Yet the figure in the glass grinned wide, almost mockingly, silver eyes shimmering like mercury.
Nathaniel's stomach turned. "Stop..."
The reflection tilted its head, as though listening to something far away. Then it lifted its hand, pressed its palm flat to the other side of the glass, and mouthed three words:
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Nathaniel's scream caught in his throat. He grabbed the towel from the rack, flung it over the mirror, and stumbled back. His heart hammered so violently it hurt.
The covered mirror didn't move. But the towel bulged outward, pressing toward him—like the reflection behind it was still reaching through.
He couldn't stay in the flat. Couldn't breathe there anymore.
By noon, Nathaniel was on the streets again, coat pulled tight against the drizzle, shoes splashing through puddles that reflected broken fragments of a gray London sky. The city bustled around him—horns, chatter, footsteps, life carrying on indifferent to his unraveling.
But the rhythm was wrong.
Every sound felt delayed, echoes coming half a second too late. A car door slamming across the street lingered like a gunshot. A woman's laugh stretched into a distorted cackle.
And then the knocks.
Always the knocks.
From passing doorways. From storm drains. From the glass panes of shopfronts.
Knock. Knock.
The world was talking to him. Or warning him. Or taunting him. He didn't know anymore.
By afternoon, he forced himself onto campus. If he could just hold onto normality—just stay in routine—it would tether him.
The engineering lecture hall was buzzing, students chattering as they found their seats. The smell of ink and paper filled the stale air. For a second, it almost felt safe.
Nathaniel sat near the back, pulling out his notes, forcing his eyes onto the neat rows of formulas he'd once loved. Equations. Logic. Things that always made sense.
Professor Alderton shuffled in, clearing his throat, adjusting his spectacles. "Today, we'll discuss-"
His voice warped.
The words stretched and fractured, syllables scattering like shards of glass. The professor's mouth moved, but the sound lagged behind, fractured into whispers.
Nathaniel blinked hard. The students around him sat upright, attentive, scribbling notes. Not one of them reacted.
He swallowed. "What... what are you hearing?" he whispered to the girl beside him.
She turned her head slowly. Too slowly. Like a puppet pulled by strings.
Her face was blank. No eyes. No mouth. Just smooth skin.
Nathaniel recoiled, breath trapped in his throat. He looked around.
Every student was the same.
Faceless. Scribbling endlessly into notebooks filled with nothing but a single word:
Watch.
His chair scraped back violently as he stood. "No—no, this isn't real—"
The professor lifted his hand. Not pointing at the board. At him.
The whole class turned their blank faces toward Nathaniel in perfect unison.
The silence pressed in, deafening.
Then the walls of the lecture hall cracked, splitting wide into veins of silver light.
Nathaniel fled before the room could collapse, his footsteps pounding against the pavement outside campus. Rain blurred the world into streaks of gray.
And there—waiting under the awning of an old stone building—stood the man.
Gray coat. Sharp features. Eyes like pits.
Nathaniel skidded to a stop, chest heaving. "Why—why me? What are you doing to me?"
The man tilted his head, rain sliding off his shoulders without touching him. "Doing? No. Showing."
Nathaniel's fists trembled. "I don't want to see this."
"You never did. But doors open, Nathaniel Cross. They do not wait for permission."
The scar on his chest blazed with heat. He stumbled, clutching at it through his shirt.
The man stepped closer, shadows bending with his movement. His voice dropped to a whisper that somehow filled the entire street.
"The silence does not only watch. It prepares."
Nathaniel staggered back. "Prepare for what?"
The man's lips curved into something too thin to be a smile. "For you."
And then—he was gone.
Like smoke dissolving in rain.
That night, Nathaniel didn't sleep. He sat at his desk, lamp flickering, textbooks open but unread. The notebook lay beside him, shut tight under his trembling hand.
But the knocks grew louder.
Through the walls. Through the ceiling. Through the floor.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
He pressed his palms to his ears. "Stop it. Stop it—please—"
Then the lamp burst. Glass scattered across the desk. Darkness swallowed the room, broken only by the glow of the cracks spreading like roots across the walls.
And the notebook snapped open.
Pages turned violently, whipped by some unseen wind, until they stopped on a blank spread. Ink bled across it in jagged strokes, forming words as if written by invisible hands.
The hour fractures.
Nathaniel staggered back, his chair toppling. His scar burned so hot he could barely breathe.
The cracks in the walls widened, spilling white fire. His flat dissolved into static, peeling away until he stood again—
In the cathedral.
The vast mirrors stretched endlessly, each one showing him broken, twisted, faceless. They whispered in unison:
"Knock. Knock. Knock."
At the center—the black door. Towering. Waiting. Pulsing in rhythm with his scar.
Nathaniel fell to his knees, shaking, tears streaming down his face. "I don't want this... I don't want this anymore..."
The reflections slammed their palms against the glass, teeth bared in silent screams.
The door throbbed with light.
And this time—it knocked back.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Nathaniel clutched his chest, gasping. The fire spread through his veins. His vision blurred. The whispers merged into one voice, terrible and infinite:
"You are the fracture."
The black door split down the center. Light spilled out.
Nathaniel screamed.
And then—
Darkness.
He opened his eyes.
Back in his flat. Morning light dripping through the blinds. The radiator ticking. The world ordinary.
But the notebook lay on the desk, open to the last page.
One final message scrawled across it in ink that looked like blood:
You are already inside.
Nathaniel pressed his forehead to the desk and wept.
Because he realized he hadn't escaped anything.
He'd only just begun.