Morning came slowly.
Soft light filtered through the curtains, warm but muted, as if the city itself had not yet recovered from the night's disturbance. Kayden sat at the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor.
He hadn't slept.Not after the breach.Not after feeling something look back at him through the clouds.
His friend was still sleeping on the floor, curled beneath a thin blanket he pulled from Kayden's chair. His breathing was steady, peaceful—too peaceful for what hovered quietly at the edges of reality.
Kayden rubbed the back of his neck, trying to ease the tension there. It felt like the weight of last night had settled deep into his bones.
He stood and walked to the window.
The sky looked normal again.Blue. Empty. Unbroken.
But Kayden knew better.He could still feel the residue of the breach—the faint echo of something that had stretched reality open like cloth.
As he watched the quiet morning outside, his friend stirred.
"Kayden…?" he murmured, voice thick with sleep.
Kayden turned. "…Yeah?"
His friend sat up slowly, running a hand through his hair. His eyes found Kayden instantly, studying him with that same sharp intuition from the night before.
"You didn't sleep," he said softly.
Kayden didn't deny it. "Couldn't."
His friend nodded, pushing himself to his feet. "You want breakfast? I—"
He stopped mid-sentence.
His eyes widened.Fixed on something behind Kayden.
Something only Kayden should have been able to see.
Kayden turned sharply.
The air beside him shimmered.
A faint geometric shape—thin like a ghost, flickering like a glitch in the sunlight—had appeared without a sound. A warning symbol. A half-formed panel.
A system echo.
Weak.But visible.
Too visible.
Kayden's breath froze.
His friend stepped backward, confusion slicing through his expression."Kayden… what is that?"
Kayden's heart dropped.
He wasn't supposed to see this.No one was.
His friend looked from the shimmering hologram to Kayden, fear creeping into his eyes.
"T-that— that wasn't here a second ago," he whispered. "What is happening? Is this some kind of projection? Are you—?"
Kayden swallowed hard.His pulse hammered in his ears.
The hologram flickered violently—as if struggling to hide itself.
Then the system's voice whispered through Kayden's mind, urgent and thin:
"Commander… anomaly residue is unstable.Your friend is perceiving it due to proximity."
Kayden exhaled shakily.
"Stop," he whispered under his breath. "Hide it. Please."
The system dimmed—but not fast enough.
His friend had already taken another step back, eyes locked on the fading symbol, disbelief written across his features.
"That wasn't a hallucination," he said quietly. "I saw it. Kayden, I saw it."
Kayden closed his eyes.
This was exactly what he feared.
The line between his life and the system was supposed to stay invisible.He could survive chaos.He could endure anomalies.He could face breaches and warnings and impossible truths.
But letting someone he cared about see that world?
That was different.
His friend's voice broke the silence again—soft, trembling, afraid to understand.
"Kayden… what have you gotten into?"
Kayden opened his eyes.
He didn't answer.
Couldn't.
Because he didn't know where to begin.
His friend walked forward slowly, stopping a few steps away, searching Kayden's face for anything familiar.
"Talk to me," he pleaded. "Please. I'm your friend. I've always been here. But this—" He gestured weakly at the air where the hologram had been. "This is not normal. You're not acting normal. And now I'm seeing things that shouldn't exist."
The room fell into a heavy quiet.
Kayden felt the weight of two worlds pressing on him—the life he used to live, and the one dragging him forward into something vast and dangerous.
His friend's voice lowered to a whisper.
"Are you in danger?"
Kayden's throat tightened.
The truth sat painfully on his tongue.
"…Yes," he said softly. "But not the kind you think."
A subtle tremor passed through his friend's expression—fear, confusion, worry blending together.
"Then tell me what I'm supposed to do," he said. "Tell me how I can help."
Kayden looked away.
"You can't," he whispered.
Pain flickered across his friend's face—but he didn't step back.
He stepped closer.
"If something is happening to you… I won't leave. Just tell me what you can. Anything."
Kayden let his breath out slowly.
"There are things you're not supposed to see," he said. "Things that weren't meant for this world. And I'm… connected to them somehow."
His friend studied him quietly.
"You mean that… thing? That symbol?"
Kayden nodded.
His friend swallowed hard.
"Is it going to hurt you?"
Kayden hesitated.
"…I don't know."
His friend's jaw tightened—and then, with a steadiness Kayden didn't expect, he said:
"Then I'm staying."
Kayden looked up sharply. "You don't understand—"
"I don't need to," his friend said. "You're scared. Something is happening. And I don't care how strange this gets… I'm not letting you handle it alone."
Kayden stared at him.
This loyalty—this quiet, stubborn devotion—felt heavier than fear itself.
Outside, the morning sky brightened.Birds began to call.Life continued.
But inside the room, something fundamental had shifted.
The breach saw Kayden.The system warned him.And now, for the first time…
Someone else had seen the impossible.
The world was expanding around him—And the circle of those tied to his fate had silently grown by one more soul.