Pollen's P.O.V.
I stood by the window as the first light of dawn breached the horizon. The morning sun crept across the floorboards until it finally reached me, the warmth sticking to my bare skin like a soft, golden veil. I opened the window wide, letting the breeze in as the sunrise kissed my entire body. It was a beautiful start to a day I wasn't sure I wanted to face.
On my nightstand sat the small plastic bottle. It was time for another blue pill—a daily reminder that my brain was no longer my own. The "Billion Thoughts" were the ultimate proof that I was never truly alone in this world, yet as I looked out over the quiet street, I had never felt more isolated. I was surrounded by minds I could see, but none that I could truly touch.
Embracing this new reality wasn't exactly something I wanted to celebrate. It was just... weird. I felt like a stranger in my own skin.
Two weeks had crawled by since the day I'd collapsed at Cosmos Medical Hospital. In that time, Zachy and Leo had become my permanent shadows. They took turns checking on me, dragging me to our usual corner at the Eat & Read Cafe every weekend just to make sure I was still functioning.
Zachary is the older brother I never had, but he had somehow become the most vital part of my life. He and Leo treated me with a protective kindness that made me feel safe, yet fragile. I knew they were worried. I wanted to get better—not just for them, but to find the version of myself that was happy before the incident. Dr. Valerie called it a Visual Telepathic Ability triggered by brain abnormalities and emotional stress. To me, it just felt like a parasite. I had to take care of myself; I couldn't let this ability be the thing that defined me until the end of my life.
Staring out at the early morning joggers, I realized how long it had been since I'd moved my own body for something other than work. I needed to feel human again.
I forced myself through a light breakfast—a cup of tart yogurt and a single banana—before hydrating with a glass of ice-cold water. I traded my oversized pajamas for athletic leggings and a breathable top, lacing up my running shoes with a newfound sense of purpose. I pulled my hair back into a tight ponytail, feeling the tension leave my neck.
After a quick five-minute warm-up to wake up my stiff muscles, I headed out. The Central Park was only a few blocks away, and as I started a slow, rhythmic jog, I focused on the sound of my own breathing, trying to outrun the mental haze before the rest of the world woke up.
Ten minutes into my jog, and my lungs were already burning. It felt like I was learning how to breathe all over again. I slowed to a halt, bracing my hands on my knees as I gasped for air. It was still early, the park occupied only by a few scattered souls—a distance that gave me a rare, blessed sense of relief. For once, there was no visual clutter crowding my peripheral vision.
I looked around for some shade and spotted a massive, ancient oak tree. Propped against its trunk was a man. He looked like he'd been carved out of the shadows—tall, dressed in dark athletic gear, with a pair of sleek sunglasses shielding his eyes. Wireless earphones were tucked into his ears, and his head was tilted back as if he'd finished an exhausting workout and simply let the world fade away.
I walked toward the opposite side of the tree, careful to keep my distance, but curious. I waited for the shimmer of a thought bubble to appear, but nothing happened. He must be in a deep sleep, I realized. It was a small discovery: my ability seemed to go dormant when people were unconscious or looking away.
"Guess I'm not going to get dizzy today," I whispered to myself, a small, triumphant smile tugging at my lips.
I glanced back at him, intending to move on, when my heart nearly stopped. A small, dark snake was slithering over the toe of his running shoe, its scales glinting in the grass.
"Watch out!" I shrieked.
Panic seized me. My feet tangled in the long grass as I tried to jump back, and instead of escaping, I tripped. With a startled gasp, I tumbled forward, landing squarely—and embarrassingly—on the stranger's lap.
The man bolted upright with a sharp intake of breath. He didn't push me off immediately; instead, he froze, his body turning to granite beneath me. He slowly reached up, stretching his arms with a deliberate, feline grace before his gaze locked onto mine. Even behind the dark lenses of his glasses, I could feel the sheer intensity of his stare. It was heavy, piercing, and entirely unreadable.
"I—I am so sorry!" I scrambled to my feet, my face burning with a heat that had nothing to do with my jog. "There was a snake! Right there on your foot!"
I pointed frantically at the grass, but the creature had already vanished into the brush. The man didn't move. He just sat there, his expression unreadable, his silence stretching out until it felt like a physical weight.
"Asnake," he repeated. His voice was a low, calm baritone that sent a strange shiver down my spine. He didn't sound angry; he sounded... skeptical.
I braced myself for the inevitable. I waited for the jagged red bubble of his annoyance or the mocking yellow of his disbelief to bloom above his head. I looked at the space above his hair, then at his shoulders, then back at his face.
Nothing.
No bubbles. No shimmering text. No mental haze.
My heart hammered against my ribs, but for the first time in two weeks, it wasn't out of fear. I looked around the park in a panic. Fifty yards away, an old man was walking his dog, and I could clearly see his faint blue bubble: 'I hope the cafe is open early today.'
I looked back at the stranger. Still nothing. A void. A beautiful, impossible blank space.
For a split second, I didn't care that I had just tackled a stranger in a park. I felt a surge of pure, dizzying happiness. Is it gone? Did the medicine finally work? But then I looked at the dog-walker again. The ability was still there. It just didn't work on him.
He stood up slowly, and my breath hitched. He wasn't just tall; he towered over me, his presence suddenly dwarfing the space beneath the oak tree. Through his fitted athletic gear, I could see a physique that was lean and powerful—broad shoulders and a narrow waist that could rival even Zachary's top-tier model friends.
He didn't look like an ordinary jogger. He looked like an apex predator who had been rudely interrupted.
"A snake," he said again, his voice dropping an octave. He sounded less skeptical now and more genuinely annoyed.
"That's the best you could come up with?"
"It's the truth!"
I insisted, my voice going a pitch higher.
"It was right there! I was just trying to… to save your toes!"
He didn't say a word. Instead, he reached up and slowly removed his sunglasses. His eyes were a piercing, cold amber, sharp enough to cut through my frantic excuses. He stepped into my personal space, leaning down until we were nearly eye-to-eye.
"Let's try this again," he murmured, his gaze scanning my face.
"What are your actual motives? Who sent you?"
"What? No one sent me! I was just jogging!"
He let out a short, dry huff of disbelief. Then, without warning, he reached out and pressed his index finger firmly against the center of my forehead. He didn't just touch it; he pinned me in place with a force that sent a sharp jolt through my skull.
"Oww!" I groaned, my head snapping back.
The sudden pressure caught me off guard, and I stumbled, my sneakers sliding on the damp grass. I flailed for a second, nearly toppling over for the second time in five minutes, but I managed to regain my balance at the last second, clutching my forehead.
"That actually hurt!" I snapped, glaring up at him.
I waited for the reaction. I stared at the air above his head, desperate for even a flicker of a thought. I wanted to see a bubble that said 'She's a clumsy liar' or 'Is she crazy?' I would have taken an insult over this suffocating, beautiful void.
But there was still nothing. Just the rustle of the leaves and the sound of my own frantic heart. He was staring at me with his eyebrows raised, waiting for an answer I didn't have.
"You're a terrible actress," he said, his eyes narrowing.
"Next time you want to ambush someone, try a more believable script."
"I am not an actress! And I am definitely not ambushing you!"
I stepped back, my confusion warring with a strange sense of awe.
"Don't you have... thoughts? Anything?"
He froze, his amber eyes searching mine as if I were the one speaking a foreign language.
"Excuse me?"
I realized the second the words left my mouth how insane I must have sounded.
Don't you have thoughts? Who even asks that?
"I need to go," I snapped, my voice sharp with annoyance as I let out a heavy exhale.
"Like I said, no one sent me here. Believe me or don't—I don't care."
I turned to leave, but his voice stopped me, cool and commanding.
"Interesting." He didn't move an inch, yet he seemed to fill the entire space under the oak.
"If you're telling the truth, then tell me your name."
I glanced back at him. Up close, his face was... unreal. I'd spent enough time around Zachary and Leonardo to know what top-tier genetics looked like, but this stranger was on another level. He had a bone structure that felt like it was sculpted by an artist, but it was ruined by that arrogant, mocking tilt of his head.
"Pollen. Pollen Anderson," I surrendered. I knew that arguing with a man who thought I was a paid assassin or a stalker was a losing battle. I didn't wait for his reaction. I turned my back on him and started running again, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
As I put distance between us, my mind was spinning faster than my feet could hit the pavement.
Why?
Every day, every hour, I was drowned in a sea of visual noise. From the lady at the bus stop to the grumpy janitor at work—everyone had a bubble. Everyone had a secret. So why was he a void?
I shook my head, my ponytail whipping against my neck as I headed toward the park exit. Is he even human? I wondered wildly. A robot? Some kind of glitch in the system?
For the first time since the "Incident," I didn't feel like a girl drowning. I felt like I'd found a piece of solid ground in the middle of a storm, and I was already wondering when I could find it again.
Third person's P.O.V.
The stranger stood motionless under the ancient oak long after Pollen had vanished into the distance. The morning air was quiet, but the atmosphere around him remained thick with an unsettling intensity. He repeated the name softly, letting the syllables roll off his tongue with cold precision.
"Pollen Anderson."
A small, dangerous smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a sleek, obsidian-black smartphone. He dialed a number, his thumb tapping the screen with practiced speed. The call was picked up on the first ring.
"Check a name for me," he commanded, his voice as sharp as a blade.
"Pollen Anderson. I want to know if she's on the list—any connection to those 'big shots' who have been trying to sabotage us lately. See if she's a plant they've sent to get close to me."
He listened for a moment, his amber eyes tracking a bird in flight.
"I don't care if she looks innocent. No one 'accidentally' falls into my lap with a story that ridiculous. If they're using her to find a weakness in me, I want to know about it before the day is over."
Without waiting for a response, he ended the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket. He didn't look like a man who had just had a pleasant morning encounter; he looked like a man preparing for a war he was already winning.
He adjusted his earphones, the silence of his own mind reflecting the cold focus in his eyes. With a sudden burst of energy, he started running again, his long, athletic strides eating up the pavement as he disappeared into the heart of the park.
***
The encounter in the park lingered in the back of Pollen's mind like a half-remembered dream, but the reality of the weekend was much less mysterious. After her jog, she spent the day deep-cleaning her apartment. There was something grounding about the smell of lemon polish and the rhythmic hum of the washing machine. For a few hours, the "visual noise" stayed outside her front door.
But by sunset, her pantry was bare.
The moment she stepped outside to head to the supermarket, the haze returned. The street was alive with the flickering bubbles of neighbors arguing about dinner or teenagers worrying about their social media likes. Pollen pulled her hood up, trying to shield her peripheral vision.
Inside the supermarket, it was worse. The narrow aisles forced her into close proximity with dozens of minds.
'I hope I have enough on the card for this steak,' thought a middle-aged man blocking the pasta sauce.
'Does this dress make me look old? He didn't even look at me today,' a woman whispered in a bubble of dull, bruised violet.
Pollen gripped her shopping cart until her knuckles turned white. She moved like a woman on a mission, tossing toothpaste, shampoo, and soap into the basket without checking the prices. When she reached the snack aisle, a wave of vertigo hit her—a dizzying collision of five different people's thoughts about calorie counts and cravings.
She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, the cold handle of the cart the only thing keeping her upright. Just get the noodles and get out, she told herself.
At the checkout counter, the atmosphere shifted to a heavy, stagnant gray. The cashier, a girl no older than twenty, was scanning items with robotic precision. Above her head, a large, translucent bubble leaked a slow, watery blue: 'I just want to go home and cry. I miss him so much it hurts to breathe.'
Pollen felt a pang of genuine sympathy, but she didn't dare make eye con
tact. She couldn't risk accidentally "answering" another silent prayer like she had at the bus stop. She paid quickly, her hands shaking slightly as she took her bags.
Once back in the sanctuary of her kitchen, the silence felt like a cool cloth on a fever. She meticulously arranged the groceries before setting a small pot of water to boil. The steam rose in soft, quiet curls, untainted by anyone's thoughts. She prepared a simple bowl of noodles, eating them with a side of rice and a single banana—the kind of soft, brain-friendly fuel Dr. Valerie would approve of.
She took the small blue pill, the neuro-stabilizer washing down with a final gulp of water.
As she stood at the sink, the warm soapy water sudsing around her wrists, her mind drifted back to the park. She saw him again—the man with the amber eyes and the impossible, beautiful silence. She tilted her head, a frown of confusion pulling at her features. Why him? Out of a billion thoughts, why was he the only one who didn't scream at her eyes?
She let out a heavy, tired sigh that echoed against the tiles.
"At least there's one person," she whispered to the empty room, "who makes my mind calm and peaceful."
"...and the world go quiet." She added
She finished the last of the dishes, the clink of porcelain the only sound in her peaceful apartment.
Her phone buzzed on the counter. [Zachy: Meet me at the Eat & Read tomorrow at 10. Don't be late!]
Pollen stared at the screen, her thumb hovering over the keypad. She thought about the "Blank Mind" in the park—the man who felt like solid ground. Should she tell him?
No, she decided, typing a quick: [See you there.]
It was probably just a fluke. A one-time glitch in her broken brain. There was no point in worrying Zachary over a stranger she'd likely never see again. She put her phone away, but as she climbed into bed, she couldn't help but wonder if the park would be quiet again tomorrow morning.