A human blinks roughly fifteen thousand times a day. That is fifteen thousand moments where you are effectively dead to the world fifteen thousand 'blind spots' where reality is left unattended. Most people use that time to rest their eyes. I use it to rewrite the faith. My name is Ritsu Hazama, and I am the reason you don't remember the world the way it was yesterday.
The windows of Class 3-B glowed strangely with an unusual light. Everyone in the room, including the teacher, looked over at them. Right then, the blackboard suddenly Vanished leaving an empty space where it used to be.
"Ritsu Hazama."
The voice was Mr. Sato's, but it sounded like it was far away from where he was standing.
"Hazama-kun? Are you with us?" Mr. Sato frowned, adjusted his glasses, and looked at me with a mix of pity and anger.
"The entrance exams are in two months. I know the pressure is high, but try not to have a breakdown in the middle of a lecture."
A few students snickered. I could see the Anchor the class president, Julian staring at me. His eyes were wide, unblinking, and cold. He didn't look annoyed; he looked suspicious, as if he were trying to 'lock' me into my seat with his gaze alone.
Sorry, I whispered, sitting back down. My hands were shaking.
I looked down at my desk. Ten seconds ago, I had been holding a standard-issue plastic stylus. Now, gripped in my fingers, was a jagged piece of blackened iron. A medieval dagger.
No one else noticed it. To them, I was just holding a pen. Because they hadn't seen it change, their brains had simply 'filled in the blanks' to keep their sanity intact.
I looked at the dagger, then at the back of the student in front of me. A thought cold, dark, and entirely unlike me entered my mind.
If I look away... if I imagine this classroom doesn't exist... will it simply stop being real?
I closed my eyes again. This time, I didn't wait for the gap. I reached for it.
I didn't reach for the classroom, or the teacher, or the gold. I reached for the silence.
"Ritsu, I won't ask again," Sato warned. I heard his footsteps.
I opened my eyes.
The classroom was still there, but it was 'wrong.' The blue light from the tablets was flickering, struggling to maintain its form. And on my desk, right where my plastic stylus should have been, sat a heavy, leather-bound book. The edges were singed by fire, and the cover was embossed with a symbol that looked like a closed eye.
Mr. Sato stopped at my desk. He reached out to grab the book, his face twisted in anger. "What is this? This isn't on the curriculum"
He froze. He looked at his own hand, then at the desk, then at me. His brain was staggering, trying to reconcile the reality he knew with the 'Gap' I had just forced into existence. To him, the desk looked empty. To me, the book was so real I could smell the rotting parchment.
He was terrified. Because he couldn't 'Observe' what I had created, his reality was beginning to tear.
I looked up, and for the first time, I didn't look at the teacher. I looked past him, at the very back of the room.
Julian, the class president, wasn't looking at the desk. He was looking at me. His eyes were bloodshot, refusing to blink, as if he were trying to hold my very soul in place. He saw the book. I knew he saw it.
I looked at the book. On the first page, in ink that looked suspiciously like fresh blood, a single sentence had been written:
[Character: Ritsu Hazama has successfully accessed the Blind Spot of God.]
I leaned back, the 'weak student' persona slipping just a fraction. I had lied to them. I had lied to the teacher. And as I looked at the shimmering, glitching air, I realized I was lying to the person reading this right now, too.
"Don't look away," I whispered to the empty air.