"No point searching for me here, Nono. I've enhanced my voice. Wait, I'm coming through the window."
The words drifted from the ceiling, disembodied and smooth. A silhouette shifted against the moonlight outside before the roof window slid open with a soft groan. A figure dropped into the room with the silence of a falling feather. Noen sat in a state of total shock, his muscles locked.
"Hey, hey, no reason to panic. Let me introduce myself." The stranger stepped toward the bed. Noen recoiled, burying himself behind his blanket until only his wide, fearful eyes were visible.
"My name is Kaelin Cross." He offered a polite bow and extended a hand. Noen hesitated, his own hand trembling as it slowly emerged from the safety of the covers to meet Kaelin's.
"If you're here to kill me, please... just make it quick," Noen whispered, turning his head away, bracing for the end.
Kaelin cleared his throat and shook his head softly. "I can help you, Nono."
"And how exactly do you plan to do that?" Noen snapped, a flicker of his earlier frustration returning. "And my name isn't Nono."
Kaelin sat on the edge of the bed, but as Noen scrambled further away, the stranger simply stood back up. He began making his way back to the window, swinging one leg over the frame. "Fine. If you don't want it, I'll just leave."
Noen gritted his teeth. The thought of being left alone with the nightmare of the contract and the reporters was worse than the stranger. "Okay, okay! Stay. Just stay."
Kaelin's lips curled into a grin as he stepped back down. "Shall I show you something, Nono?"
Noen didn't trust his voice to answer; he simply nodded. Kaelin pressed his fingertips together, a faint, ethereal hum vibrating in the air between them.
"Enhance: Absolute Awareness."
A small, translucent orb manifested between Kaelin's hands. It was a bizarre, spectral thing—a tiny sphere shaped like an ear with a lidless eye staring out from the center. With a casual flick of his wrist, Kaelin sent the orb sailing toward Noen's chest.
It didn't hit him; it sank into him.
For a heartbeat, there was silence. Then, the world exploded.
The walls of his room didn't just vanish—they became irrelevant. Noen's brain was suddenly slammed with a tidal wave of raw, unfiltered data. He didn't just hear the wind; he heard the vibration of every individual leaf on the trees three blocks away.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. He gasped, clutching his chest, realizing he was hearing the heartbeat of the stray dog wandering the alleyway a mile south.
Then came the voices. Thousands of them. They flooded his mind like a broken dam. He heard his mother's ragged breathing in the next room, the friction of her palms rubbing together in prayer. He heard the neighbors two houses down arguing over a broken vase, their hushed whispers sounding like thunderclaps in his skull.
"It's too much!" Noen screamed, but he couldn't even hear his own voice over the symphony of the city.
His vision fractured. He saw through the walls, through the ground, seeing the heat signatures of the reporters still lingering in their cars at the end of the street. He saw the microscopic dust motes dancing in the air like falling stars. Every floorboard creaking in the apartment complex, every faucet dripping, every distant police siren—it all crashed into his consciousness at once.
Noen's body simply couldn't handle the strain. His eyes swept away into the distance, lost in the overwhelming static of the universe, before he collapsed. He hit the ground hard, his consciousness slipping away into the dark.
Khaelin Cross stood over the fallen boy, his shadow stretching across the floor. He leaned down, whispering into the silence:
"Good night."
Noen jerked awake a few hours later, his head throbbing as if his brain had been put through a blender. His room was silent, the overwhelming roar of the night before gone, replaced by a dull, heavy ache. On the floor beside him, a small slip of paper caught his eye.
He picked it up and read the handwritten note:
"See you in Canada, Nono ;)"
Noen scratched the back of his head, confused, until his memory surged back like a tidal wave. "Oh wait—my flight!"
He scrambled up, his heart jumping into his throat, and lunged for his smartphone. The screen flickered to life:
2:27 AM.
"My flight leaves soon!" He didn't even stop to pack properly. He bolted out of his room, shoved a piece of bread into his mouth, and sprinted out the front door into the chilly night air. "Good thing I don't live that far from the airport!" he panted, his lungs burning as he pushed his "Absolute Zero" body to its absolute limit through the empty streets.
When he finally skidded into the terminal, Ignaz was already there. He was tapping his foot rhythmically, looking nervously at the giant digital clock above the check-in counters, his expression sour. Then he spotted Noen sprinting toward him, disheveled and gasping for air.
"Noen! Why are you so late?" Ignaz barked. He paused, his eyes traveling down Noen's body. "And besides... is that the same suit from yesterday?"
Noen gave a sheepish, nervous smile, tugging at the rumpled, oversized red fabric. "Didn't have time to change, or shower hehe," he said, sounding completely embarrassed.
Ignaz slapped a hand against his forehead. "Unbelievable. Anyway, our flight leaves in twenty minutes. Move it."
Noen followed him through the gate, feeling the eyes of other early-morning travelers on his strange outfit. They boarded the commercial airliner, finding their seats in the crowded cabin. The pilot announced the departure over the intercom, the engines roared to life, and soon they were piercing through the clouds, leaving his home far below.
Noen leaned his head against the cool glass of the window, watching the moonlight dance on the white clouds. His mind was racing.
—That guy yesterday... Kaelin Cross... what was his deal again?— He rubbed his eyes, trying to clear the fog in his head. —Well, he did say he'd be in Canada. Maybe I'll run into him again.—
He got back sraight in his seat, staring up at the cabin ceiling as the constant hum of the plane filled his ears.
—But that technique he used...
I've never seen anything like it.—