Anyway.
I have to go.
I hate being late.
I get moving again.
I work in a flower shop.
A window planted in the middle of the city.
Inside, everything grows without lying.
No need for Awakened Words. No need for gods.
You plant.
You water.
It grows.
Or it dies.
That works for me.
I'm going to take a shortcut.
An alley out of sight.
I know these passages by heart.
But now…
Something's off.
This alley—
it has never been this long.
I'm riding.
But I'm not moving.
Or not the usual way.
My legs turn,
but I feel like I'm floating at two kilometers an hour.
Is it me slowing down?
Or is the world around me freezing?
My senses derail.
I no longer really feel the handlebars.
The wind is gone.
Sound? Distant.
As if drowned under a thick cushion.
I look at my hands.
They move. Slowly.
As if underwater.
I don't fall.
I'm still riding.
But everything is… blurred.
Time.
Body.
Space.
Everything is here.
But everything is slowed.
— What's happening?
I don't understand.
I'm not afraid. Not yet.
But for the first time in a long while…
I feel I am no longer alone.
He's there.
In front of me.
Out of nowhere. As if he had always been there. As if I were the parasite.
A young guy. My age, maybe. A bit shorter.
Too calm.
He's wearing a white hoodie, black hourglass patterns inked on it like a bad omen.
His gray hair spills from the hood, styled in a rush but… too neat. As if it had never known wind.
A piercing splits his nose, discreet but assured.
His gaze? Sky blue.
But not the gentle kind of sky.
The kind of sky just before a storm.
He's in cropped pants, white sneakers, standing like an ordinary kid.
But he stares at me.
Not like someone who looks.
Like someone who is hunting me.
And then, without moving.
Without raising his voice.
He speaks.
— Hi, Heyo. I've come to capture you.
…
My throat tightens.
I don't answer right away.
Because he said my name.
And because he spoke of me like an object.
As if I already belonged to him.
I try to speak.
My mouth twists. My lips move slowly, as if the air itself had turned to cement.
I don't panic. Not yet.
But something is slipping out of my hands.
My body no longer responds.
And him, he looks at me.
Calm. Hands in his pockets.
As if I were a stray dog he had just tamed.
— Forget it.
His voice is steady. Flat.
No aggression. Just… certainty.
— You don't move anymore. You don't speak anymore.
You're in slow motion.
He tilts his head, studies my sluggish gestures, almost amused.
— It's nothing against you. But a man has to eat, you see.
He crouches, looks straight into my eyes.
Too close. Too calm.
— Well… might as well explain. The Guild of Word Hunters put a bounty on your head. Apparently, you're about to awaken a rare Word. Something that excites them. No one told me which, but I think it's worth a lot.
He straightens, pulls his hood back up.
— Me? I'm just a mercenary. I do my job. Nothing personal.
He steps back once, without letting go of my gaze.
— Honestly, I'm even being kind. I'm warning you.
There are others out there… They won't talk. They won't offer you that luxury.
He smiles.
Not meanly. Not kindly either.
An empty smile.
— You might thank me later.