Adrian did not go back to his apartment.
He couldn't.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the man's smile.
You've already seen the end of this world.
The words echoed in his mind, repeating like the broken sounds of the city.
He walked.
No destination. No plan. Just movement.
The streets were beginning to fill with people. Morning commuters. Students. Workers. Normal lives continuing as if nothing was wrong.
As if the world wasn't breaking.
Adrian watched them carefully.
He didn't look at faces.
He looked at movements.
Patterns.
At first, he saw nothing.
Just crowds. Random motion. Noise.
Then something shifted.
A man crossing the street paused.
Not naturally.
Too still.
Like a frame in a video.
Then he moved again.
Adrian's eyes narrowed.
A few seconds later, a cyclist passed by.
The cyclist's wheel flickered.
For a brief instant, it appeared in two different places at once.
Then it corrected itself.
Adrian's pulse quickened.
It wasn't random.
It never had been.
The glitches were connected.
He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
Closed his eyes.
Listened.
The city had rhythm.
Traffic. Footsteps. Voices.
But beneath it—
There was something else.
A second rhythm.
Subtle.
Wrong.
He opened his eyes.
The world looked sharper.
Clearer.
And suddenly, he could see it.
Lines.
Invisible threads stretching through space.
They weren't real. Not physical.
But they connected events.
Movements.
People.
Objects.
The threads pulsed.
And every time they did, reality stuttered.
Adrian felt a chill.
"...So, this is how it works."
He began to follow them.
At first, the threads were faint.
Hard to notice.
But the more he focused, the clearer they became.
They led through the city like a web.
And all of them seemed to converge in one direction.
The northern district.
Old.
Abandoned.
Forgotten.
Adrian hesitated.
Every instinct told him not to go.
But something deeper pushed him forward.
The deeper he walked into the district, the quieter the city became.
Shops were closed.
Buildings were empty.
The air felt heavier.
The glitches increased.
Streetlights flickered in unison.
Windows distorted.
Shadows lagged behind their owners.
Adrian felt pressure building inside his skull.
His vision blurred.
But he kept going.
The threads grew stronger.
Brighter.
Pulling him.
Guiding him.
He stopped in front of a large abandoned building.
The structure was cracked and worn, its windows broken, its entrance half-collapsed.
But the threads were strongest here.
They pulsed violently.
Reality around the building looked unstable.
Like a reflection in disturbed water.
Adrian swallowed.
"This is it."
As he stepped closer, the world shifted.
For a brief second, he saw something else.
The building was not empty.
It was broken.
Collapsed.
Burning.
The sky above it was torn open.
Then the vision vanished.
Adrian staggered.
His heart pounded.
"What... was that?"
He reached the entrance.
The air inside felt cold.
Dead.
Each step echoed unnaturally.
The deeper he went, the stronger the pressure became.
The threads were everywhere now.
Covering the walls.
The floor.
The ceiling.
They all led to one place.
The center.
Adrian entered a large, empty room.
And stopped.
The threads ended there.
At something lying on the ground.
A body.
His breath caught.
He stepped closer.
Slowly.
Fear tightening his chest.
He already knew.
Before he saw the face.
Before he saw the scar.
Before he saw the faint, unnatural distortion around it.
He already knew.
Because every instinct in his body screamed the same truth.
That was him.
Adrian Vale.
Older.
Broken.
Dead.
The world around the corpse flickered violently.
The air felt heavy.
Reality itself seemed unstable.
Adrian's legs trembled.
"No..."
His voice shook.
"This isn't real."
But the closer he stepped, the stronger the distortion became.
The body's eyes were closed.
Its expression calm.
Almost peaceful.
As if it had been waiting.
Adrian reached out.
His hand hovered above the corpse.
For a moment, he hesitated.
Because he knew.
The moment he touched it—
Everything would change.
He swallowed.
And touched his own dead hand.
The world shattered.