Chapter 1: Carter
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I was falling.
Through ink. Through smoke. Then—stillness.
I stood on a cliff.
Below, a town burned.
Flames crawled through streets split open like veins. Roofs sagged. Shadows ran. Screams didn't make it to me—they stopped somewhere between sound and air.
The mist moved.
Not wind, not fog—alive.
Shapes flickered inside it—faces, limbs, armor—half-formed, half-forgotten. The soldiers fought anyway, swinging at ghosts. A few raised their hands and light spilled out—circles drawn in fire.
Magic. Real magic.
My rational mind rejected it even as I watched it fail.
It didn't matter.
They were losing.
I watched, unable to breathe. My hands weren't hands anymore—just outlines breaking apart, flickering like smoke trying to remember what shape it had.
Then it looked at me.
From far below, through the flame and haze, something turned.
No movement. No transition.
One moment looking away, the next looking atme.
Tall. Faceless. Still.
The mist bent around it, like the world refused to touch.
It didn't walk.
It approached.
The distance shrank without motion.
It wasn't eyes that met me—there were no eyes.
It was attention.
Direct. Inescapable.
Something whispered—not sound, not words.
Meaning.
The way hunger is meaning.
The way memory is meaning.
The air pressed inward.
Like the world was a lung collapsing around me.
My vision warped—edges stretching, colors bleeding.
Something inside my chest moved.
Not my heart.
Something older.
The world cracked, splitting along invisible seams—
White.
Red.
Black.
"Carter!"
---
The world folded in on itself.
My chest seized—
—desk rattling, pen rolling—
Fluorescent light buzzed.
I jerked upright, blinking against the sudden brightness. Pages fluttered. Someone laughed.
"Mr. Leywin," said a voice, sharp and too real. "Am I interrupting your nap?"
The classroom snapped into focus. Rows of students. Chalk dust drifting in sunlight. Mrs. Quinn, our literature teacher, glaring over her glasses like she'd done this a thousand times.
More laughter rippled through the room. My face felt hot.
I blinked once. Twice. "No, ma'am. You're enhancing it."
The laughter got louder.
Mrs. Quinn didn't smile. "Since you're so refreshed, perhaps you'd like to explain what Hamlet really means when he says 'to sleep—perchance to dream.'"
I stared at the board, brain still trying to scrape off the dream's ash. The words came before I could stop them.
"That even sleep can be… worse."
The class went quiet for a beat too long.
Then Adam, sitting a row back, muttered, "Damn, he's in his philosopher arc again."
The tension broke. Mrs. Quinn sighed. "At least he's awake. The rest of you, take notes."
I looked down at my hands, gripping the edge of my desk. Normal. Solid.
But the memory of that other shape—flickering, hollow—wouldn't leave.
---
Loneliness isn't being without people.
It is being surrounded and still feeling nothing.
I knew that feeling too well.
The classroom buzzed with half-awake chatter. A ceiling fan clicked like it was dying in slow motion. Chalk dust hung in warm sunlight. Everything had a tired weight to it.
I sat in the middle row, silent now. Chin resting on my hand. Eyes steady but distant. The lesson rolled on without shape or meaning. Not because I didn't care, just because caring had stopped sticking.
The dream clung to the back of my skull—heavy, sour, like smoke that refused to leave.
---
When the bell rang, I slipped out before the hallway filled. Adam followed without being asked, hands behind his head, walking like the floor belonged to him.
"You coming to the court later? Chris said he actually got real food this time. Like, flavor was involved."
"I don't play."
"You don't do anything."
"That is consistent."
Adam groaned. "If life were a video game, you'd still be in the tutorial."
"You'd be the pop-up instructions no one reads."
"That is offensive and accurate."
I didn't reply. Adam laughed on his own.
This was our rhythm. It worked.
---
Classes ended early. Again.
Another student missing. Fourth one this month.
Police cars waited at the gate. No sirens. No urgency. Just weight.
Posters clung to the walls. I recognized one—Emily Chen, from English class last year. She'd sat three rows ahead, always had the right answers.
Now just a face on paper, colors bleeding in the rain.
My eyes flicked away. Quick. Controlled.
Jaw tightened.
Then nothing.
I kept walking.
I knew fear. Knew the part where people stop mentioning it out loud.
Quiet never surprised me.
---
I'd been on my own long before adoption. Six years can teach a child to fold himself small. To not ask. To not show need. Silence could feel like safety when the alternative was worse.
I didn't think about it often.
Memory wasn't nostalgia. Just a room with no furniture.
Adam and Chris were… there. Not quite warmth. Not quite distance. Something in between. Close enough to prove I existed.
Sometimes that was enough.
---
We walked out together. Adam's friends trailed behind, laughing about something I didn't catch.
Chris jogged up beside us. "Hey, Carter. You gonna do the homework today? The literature teacher's gonna kill you if you don't."
"Nah," I said, barely looking up. "You can lend me yours."
Adam slung an arm around me. "Damn, Carter. And here I thought I was supposed to be the bully."
"I was joking."
Chris frowned, unconvinced. He was always like that—rule-following, polite, trying too hard. I didn't dislike him. We just didn't talk much. But for some reason, he still treated me like a friend.
Adam's friends peeled off toward their clubs. Adam himself got swept away by Emma before I could comment.
"Guess I'll be busy doing my productive work," he said with a sly grin, letting himself get dragged away.
I waved half-heartedly and started the long walk home alone.
---
The streets were quiet—the kind of stillness that made every footstep sound too loud. I kicked a rock along the sidewalk.
"Ouch," I muttered when it rebounded into my shin.
After a while, my soles started to ache. A vending machine glowed on the corner.
"Well… might as well spend some of that allowance."
I squatted beside it, can in hand—a picture of peak motivation.
The first sip was cold, sharp, grounding. But halfway through, something shifted.
The air.
Not wind—just cold. A faint pressure on my skin, like the air itself had weight. The shadows along the street thickened, and color drained from the world as clouds gathered overhead.
I stood, scanning the dim street.
"Well, what the hell? Why's it suddenly so dark?"
That's when I saw it—at the far end of the road.
A figure.
Or maybe the shadow of one.
Bent. Twisted. Wrong in all the wrong places.
My heart kicked. Instinct screamed run, but curiosity held me still.
I took a step forward. Then another.
"This is how horror movie idiots die, isn't it?" I muttered.
I tossed the half-empty can aside and turned the corner—
—and stopped.
A bent mail post.
"…Okay, what the hell. Who puts a mailbox at the corner of a street?"
A pause.
"…Right. Probably everyone."
I rubbed my face. "I seriously need to stop playing so many video games."
---
Home was quiet.
Shoes off. Bag dropped. Computer on.
Routine that didn't require decisions.
Games made sense. Clear rules. Clear outcomes. Do well → win. Fail → try again. Life rarely offered retries.
Hours passed. Victory flash on screen. Empty as soon as it appeared.
I set the controller down and stared for a moment.
"Impressive," I said to no one. The tone didn't match the words.
My reflection stared back from the dark monitor. Just me. Still breathing.
But for a second—just a second—the outline seemed wrong.
Like my shadow had moved a frame late.
I turned the monitor off quickly.
---
"Dinner," my mom called.
I went downstairs. She ate while scrolling her phone. Work fatigue hung heavy around her shoulders.
"Dad working late?" I asked.
"Mhm."
We ate in calm silence. Not tense. Not warm. Just two quiet lives sharing a table.
I didn't mind it. Quiet was familiar.
---
Later, I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling. The day sat in me without shape.
Missing faces. Hallway noise. Adam's jokes. Everything moved, yet stayed the same.
But underneath it all, that thing had looked at me.
Through fire. Through distance. Through everything.
"Same day, new wallpaper," I murmured.
I should sleep. I needed to sleep.
But what if...
What if I get nightmares again?
I scoffed at myself. "Bah. Nothing to worry about. I may be stupid, but I'm not childish enough to freak out over a dream."
The words sounded brave enough. Almost convincing.
Still, my chest tightened at the memory of that gaze—cold, curious, wrong.
Outside, a car passed. Headlights flickered across my walls.
For half a heartbeat, the shape they made looked like the same outline from my dream—tall, faceless, waiting at the edge of sight.
My pulse jumped—sudden and animal.
Then the light moved on.
Just a car. Just a shadow.
Justparanoid,I thought.
But I still checked the window before closing my eyes.
I closed my eyes.
For a while, there was only darkness—blank, peaceful.
Almost too peaceful.
Sleep didn't come easily.
The memory of the burning town clung to me, faint but unshakable.
Not fear.
Recognition.
I didn't know what it meant—only that the world felt thinner now, like something on the other side had finally started looking back.
Eventually, exhaustion won.
My breathing slowed. My thoughts blurred.
Sleep came.
And the door was waiting.
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