Aargh!
A choked cry tore through the darkness.
Lorian's eyes flew open as if forced apart, his body jerking upright in bed. For a brief moment, he couldn't breathe. His chest burned, his heart hammering violently against his ribs, each beat echoing in his ears like a war drum.
The room was dark.
Too dark.
Moonlight filtered faintly through the thin curtains, sketching pale lines across the familiar outline of his bedroom—the old wooden wardrobe, the narrow desk cluttered with books, the chair he never bothered to push in properly.
Everything was the same.
And yet.
"Wh… what the hell…" he muttered hoarsely.
His voice sounded strange to his own ears. Not unfamiliar. Just… slightly delayed, as though it had passed through something before reaching him.
A dull ache throbbed behind his eyes, spreading slowly, insistently. Not sharp pain, but a deep pressure, like a thought that refused to be remembered.
Only then did he realize his throat was raw.
Did I just scream?
The realization came without panic. That, in itself, was unsettling.
Normally, waking up like this—heart racing, breath ragged—would have sent his thoughts spiraling. Monsters, realm breaches, awakened incidents… in the last hundred years, there were plenty of reasons to fear the night.
But now, his mind felt sluggish. Fragmented. Like it was wading through thick water.
He wanted to panic.
The instinct was there, scratching at the back of his thoughts.
But it didn't quite reach the surface.
Instead, he sat there, breathing heavily, staring into the darkness as seconds passed in silence.
Gradually, the burning in his chest eased. The ringing in his ears faded. His thoughts, slow and disordered, began to realign.
And the moment they did, his body reacted as if finally given permission.
Lorian swung his legs off the bed and stood, nearly stumbling as a wave of dizziness washed over him. He steadied himself against the desk, fingers brushing over cool wood worn smooth by years of use.
"…Calm down," he whispered.
The words sounded rehearsed.
He moved toward the wall and flicked the switch.
The overhead light buzzed softly before illuminating the room in a dim yellow glow. Shadows retreated reluctantly, clinging to corners and crevices.
Lorian exhaled and slumped into the chair beside his desk, elbows on his knees, burying his face in his hands.
My head hurts so much…
The ache pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat.
Am I sick? Did I hit my head?
He tried to retrace his memories.
Yesterday, he'd come home late. His father had already been asleep. His mother had left food covered on the stove. The twins had argued about something trivial—he couldn't remember what, only that his sister had shouted at them to keep quiet.
Normal.
Pain lanced through his skull.
Lorian hissed and stopped thinking.
Even that small effort felt… resisted.
His fingers tightened unconsciously.
That's strange.
He lifted his head slowly, eyes unfocused as he stared at the opposite wall. The familiar posters, the faint crack near the ceiling, the shadow cast by the wardrobe—
Everything looked exactly as it should.
So why did it all feel like he was seeing it from a step away?
Like watching his own room through a thin sheet of glass.
A thought surfaced, clear and sudden.
The mirror.
He straightened.
"If I hit my head, I'd know by looking," he muttered, more to hear his own voice than anything else.
Standing again, he crossed the room and stopped in front of the narrow mirror fixed to the inside of the wardrobe door.
For a second, he hesitated.
He didn't know why.
Then he looked.
A familiar face stared back at him: messy dark hair, pale skin, sharp but tired eyes shadowed by poor sleep. Seventeen years old. Ordinary. Entirely unremarkable.
Lorian blinked.
The reflection blinked back.
"…Good," he said quietly.
No blood. No bruises. No sign of injury.
And yet.
His gaze lingered on his own eyes.
Not their color. Not their shape.
But the depth behind them.
It was subtle. So subtle that, had he not been looking for something wrong, he might have dismissed it entirely.
The eyes in the mirror looked… attentive.
Not alert.
Not focused.
Attentive.
As though they were waiting for something to happen.
A chill crept up his spine.
He raised a hand.
The reflection mirrored the motion perfectly.
Still, the sense of wrongness did not fade.
"…I really need to sleep," Lorian said after a moment, forcing a weak chuckle.
Yet even as he said it, he knew that wasn't true.
Sleep had nothing to do with this.
As the thought settled, something stirred quietly, deeply within him.
Not a voice.
Not a presence.
But a clarity that had not been there before.
For the first time, Lorian became aware of a space behind his thoughts, vast and still, like a darkened room he had somehow always possessed but never entered.
And in that space
Something had already been waiting.
Lorian woke up as if normally starting his day.
Not hurried. Not cautious. Just the unremarkable rhythm of someone starting their day.
For a moment, he lay still, staring at the ceiling. Pale light seeped through the curtains, outlining faint cracks he'd memorized years ago. The pressure behind his eyes had faded to something dull and distant, like a bruise that only hurt when touched.
Morning already…
He pushed himself upright and sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing his face. His black hair fell messily over his eyes, as always. He didn't bother fixing it.
The events of the night surfaced slowly—not as panic, but as unease. The scream. The pain. The strange clarity afterward.
And beneath it all—
That sense of space.
He stopped himself from thinking further and stood.
The kitchen was already alive when he entered.
His mother, Maribel, stood by the counter slicing bread, her movements efficient but unhurried. She wore a simple house dress, sleeves rolled up, hair loosely tied back. The twins sat at the table, backpacks at their feet.
"Morning, Lore," Maribel said without looking up.
"Morning," he replied.
His younger sister, Elia, glanced at him briefly before returning to her notebook. Her brow was furrowed in concentration, lips moving faintly as she practiced something under her breath.
Her twin brother, Tomas, was occupied with disassembling a mechanical pencil, pieces laid out carefully in a row.
"You're going to lose the spring again," Elia said absently.
"I won't," Tomas replied. "I remember this time."
"You said that yesterday."
Lorian poured himself a cup of water and leaned against the counter, watching them. Their voices overlapped comfortably, without tension. Familiar. Real.
His father, Henric, entered moments later, adjusting the strap of his work bag. He nodded at Lorian. "Sleep alright?"
"Yeah," Lorian said after a fraction of a second.
Henric studied him briefly, then hummed. "You look pale. Don't skip breakfast."
"I won't."
That was enough. No interrogation. No concern stretched into suspicion.
His older brother, Calen, emerged last, already dressed, jacket slung over one shoulder. He grabbed a piece of bread and glanced at Lorian. "You're up early."
"Didn't feel like sleeping in."
"Fair."
Calen checked his watch. "I'll be back late tonight. Inventory ran long yesterday."
Maribel nodded. "Dinner's on the stove if you miss it."
As the conversation drifted toward schedules and errands, Lorian found himself oddly attentive—not to words, but to moments.
Maribel hesitated before choosing a knife.
Calen paused at the door, then turned back to grab his keys.
Elia erased a line just before Tomas asked her a question.
They were tiny things. Meaningless.
Except Lorian felt them just before they happened.
Not clearly. Not as certainty.
More like… a soft nudge.
His grip tightened slightly around his cup.
I'm imagining patterns, he told himself.
He took a breath and deliberately stopped paying attention.
The sensation receded.
Later, alone again in his room, Lorian sat at his desk, staring at an open notebook without seeing the page.
The house was quieter now. His parents had left. The twins were at school. Calen was gone.
He exhaled slowly and closed his eyes.
Immediately, that inner space unfolded.
It was clearer now than it had been the night before—not brighter, but more defined. Like a fog that had thinned just enough to reveal depth.
This isn't normal, he thought.
Carefully, he let his awareness sink inward.
The pressure behind his eyes returned, mild but insistent. His heartbeat slowed. Thoughts aligned unnaturally well, each one neat, ordered.
Then he sensed it.
A shape.
Not fully present. Not fully absent.
It hovered in the distance of that inner expanse, a faint geometric outline formed of intersecting lines and symbols he didn't recognize. Incomplete. Dormant.
A gate.
The realization did not come with shock.
It came with recognition.
Lorian's breath caught.
Realm gates were external phenomena. Everyone knew that. They appeared in reality, tore space open, and dragged people into trials they might not return from.
They did not exist inside someone's mind.
And yet, this one did.
He tried to focus on it.
Pain flared instantly.
Lorian gasped and snapped his eyes open, clutching the edge of the desk as nausea rolled through him. His vision blurred, dots of light dancing at the edges.
"Okay," he whispered hoarsely. "Okay. Not doing that again."
The pain faded quickly, leaving behind only exhaustion.
As his breathing steadied, a single thought surfaced, unbidden and disturbingly calm:
It isn't active yet.
He froze.
That wasn't an assumption.
It was knowledge.
Lorian stared at the wall, pulse quickening.
Whatever was inside him whatever had changed it wasn't trying to harm him.
It was waiting.
Lorian remained seated long after the pain faded.
He did not close his eyes again.
Whatever that shape was, whatever space it occupied inside him, it responded too readily to attention. He had no desire to provoke it further, not without understanding what he was dealing with.
Understanding came first. Action later.
That had always been his way.
He pushed the chair back and stood, stretching slowly. The faint soreness behind his eyes lingered, but it was manageable now. More like a reminder than a warning.
Outside his window, the neighborhood carried on as usual. Distant voices drifted through the air. Someone laughed. A vehicle passed, tires humming against pavement.
Life continued, indifferent.
Lorian grabbed his jacket and left his room.
His older sister, Ilyra, was sitting at the dining table with her tablet propped up beside a half-finished cup of tea. Unlike Calen, who moved through life with quiet efficiency, Ilyra did nothing halfway. Her posture was straight, her eyes sharp, fingers tapping thoughtfully against the tabletop as she skimmed through lines of text.
She glanced up as Lorian entered.
"You're still home," she said. "I thought you'd already left."
"Gave myself time," Lorian replied, pulling out a chair. "Didn't feel like rushing."
She studied him openly this time. Not critically, but attentively, the way she did when something didn't quite add up.
"You don't look sick," she said. "But you don't look fine either."
"I'm aiming for somewhere in between."
That earned a faint huff of amusement. "That's not reassuring."
Lorian shrugged. "It's accurate."
She tilted her head slightly. "Bad dreams?"
He hesitated, then nodded. It was close enough to the truth.
Ilyra accepted the answer without pressing. She rarely pried unless she thought it necessary. "You're thinking too much again," she said instead. "Your face does that thing."
"What thing."
"That one," she replied, gesturing vaguely. "Like you're trying to solve a problem that doesn't want to be solved."
Lorian smiled faintly. "Occupational hazard of being me."
She rolled her eyes. "You're not that complicated."
He did not respond.
From the hallway came the sound of heavy footsteps. Calen entered, tugging on his gloves as he moved, his jacket already on. He paused when he saw Lorian.
"Didn't you say you were heading out early," Calen asked.
"Plans changed."
Calen nodded, then frowned slightly. "You sure you're alright?"
"Yes," Lorian said, more firmly this time.
Calen held his gaze for a second longer, then accepted it. "If you say so. Just don't skip meals."
"I won't."
Calen nodded once, satisfied, and headed for the door. "I'll be late. Again."
"Try not to make it a habit," Ilyra said without looking up.
"No promises."
The door closed behind him.
Silence settled briefly.
Ilyra sipped her tea, then spoke casually. "You've been reading about realm gates again."
It was not a question.
Lorian's fingers stilled.
"…What makes you say that."
"You do this," she said, tapping her temple lightly, "when you've been thinking about something dangerous without telling anyone."
He considered denying it. Decided against it.
"Just general stuff," he said. "Nothing specific."
She nodded slowly. "Good. Because whatever you're thinking, don't let it spiral. You don't need to carry the whole world on your shoulders."
He looked at her then.
"You know I don't," he said.
"I know you try not to," she corrected gently.
Lorian exhaled. "I'll be careful."
"That's all I ask."
She returned her attention to the tablet, conversation clearly over.
Lorian stood and headed for the door.
As he stepped outside, the sunlight felt sharper than it should have. Not painful. Just vivid.
He paused.
The street stretched out before him, ordinary and familiar. Houses, people, passing cars.
And yet, faintly, just at the edge of awareness, threads seemed to connect moments together. Not visibly. Not clearly.
But he knew, with quiet certainty, that if he lingered here long enough, something would happen.
Not because of fate.
Because patterns always resolved.
He shook the thought away and started walking.
Whatever was waiting inside him could wait a little longer.