Chapter Text
Chapter Zero: Alignment
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I USED to think people exaggerated moments.
They talked about time stopping, about the world changing in an instant, about knowing something before it ever made sense. I assumed it was hindsight doing what it always does, smoothing the world into meaning once the danger had passed.
I know better now.
Time doesn't stop. It loosens.
The first thing you notice is the quiet, not silence. The world is still moving, still breathing, but the noise fades, like someone has stepped between you and everything else. Even fear hesitates, as if it's waiting to see what happens next.
Your body knows before you do.
Your heart stumbles, just once, then settles into a rhythm that feels... wrong. Or maybe right in a way you've never experienced before. Breathing comes easier. Heavier. Like you're no longer doing it alone.
I felt pain that wasn't mine.
Not physical, not exactly. Something deeper. A weight that pressed against my ribs and didn't belong to me, but fit there anyway.
I didn't know his name when it happened. I didn't know his past, or what he had done, or what had been done to him. I only knew that the space around me felt altered, like gravity had changed its mind.
Like I had been walking through static my entire life and hadn't noticed until it cleared.
They call it a click.
I think that's wrong.
Clicks are small. Mechanical.
This wasn't.
This was the moment everything I'd learned to carry alone suddenly had a place to rest, even if I didn't understand why, or how long it would last.
For the first time in my life, the world felt still enough for me to breathe.
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