They say the world is as it should be.
That everything is running as intended.
Kael didn't buy it.
No visions. No prophecies. No divine signs etched into the sky. Just a whisper. Faint. Persistent. Threading through the cracks of his mind whenever things felt too… orderly.
Question everything.
He had seen it first when he was seven.
A thin strip of parchment, yellowed and brittle, tucked under a loose brick in his childhood home. The texture was strange. Fibrous. Almost warm. And the ink… it shimmered if he didn't look directly at it.
His parents dismissed it. Logic ruled their world.
"Probably some old advertisement," his father said. "People printed nonsense like this all the time."
Kael didn't care. He kept it anyway.
It wasn't a prophecy. Just another oddity for his collection — old coins, misprinted tickets, things that didn't belong. Yet… that parchment pulsed. Like a heartbeat he didn't yet understand.
Twenty years later, Kael stood in a luxury hotel suite.
The city spread beneath him, millions of lights perfectly arranged. He was tall, six foot three, wrapped in a bathrobe still warm from recent company.
"Nothing beats hot, passionate sex after a long day in an unfamiliar city," he muttered.
He laughed softly at the lights below.
"God. Whoever came up with that idea was a genius. And completely deluded."
Then something hit him.
Not a sound. Not a movement. A sudden awareness — crushing. Focused. Like something unseen was studying him, slicing through him with attention.
Kael frowned.
"What's tha—"
"Babe, come back to bed!"
The voice broke the moment. Relief? Not quite. The feeling faded, but it didn't leave.
Present day.
The city looked normal. Screens buzzed. People moved on the same routes, faces blank. Choice existed only in theory.
Kael tapped his ID at the metro terminal. The scanner beeped softly — low, resonant, slightly uneven. Not wrong. Just… odd.
Another day. Another perfect life.
CEO by day. Gym instructor by night. Efficient. Controlled. Rarely surprised.
Until recently.
Something had changed.
Not the world. The way the world responded to him.
People avoided his gaze. Conversations stalled. Screens flickered for a split second, showing fragments of his own reflection — warped, wrong. Shadows stretched backward as he passed. Streetlights dimmed.
Coincidence? Maybe.
But not consistently. Not repeatedly.
Kael didn't ignore patterns.
He began documenting everything. Time stamps. Visual anomalies. Temperature drops. Pressure changes. Even his heartbeat rhythm in certain districts. Clean. Methodical. Precise.
The conclusion came anyway.
Something was watching him.
Or waiting.
That night, Kael ran.
The streets were quiet. Pools of light flickered. His breath rose in clouds. Pressure pressed around him — heavy, intimate, undeniable. Metallic tangs pricked his nose.
Then it vanished.
No fade. No fog. Just gone.
He slowed.
Relief? Not here.
Dread.
It hadn't left.
It had moved closer.
Why?
An alley. Familiar. Hundreds of runs through it before.
And there…
Someone was waiting.
Tall. Relaxed. Leaning against the wall like a man waiting for a late appointment. Eyes dark. Deep. Endless.
Kael didn't flinch.
He didn't ask. He didn't need to.
Some part of him already knew.
The stranger smiled.
"God," he said. "Whoever came up with that idea was a genius. And completely deluded."
And then — subtle, almost imperceptible — the world bent. Shadows twisted. A faint echo of Kael's own voice whispered back to him, just out of sync. A puddle reflected something impossible. Blink, and it was gone.
Kael shivered. Not fear. Not recognition. Doubt.
The first crack had formed.
And it was only beginning to spread.