Chapter Text
Chapter 1:
Wake up
MIKE WAKE UP
The thought didn’t feel like his.
It slipped in too quietly, too smoothly—like it had always been there, waiting. Mike lay still beneath the covers, eyes closed, caught somewhere between sleep and something heavier, something that pressed against his chest and kept him from breathing right.
There was no dream. Not really. Just fragments. A red haze that pulsed instead of stayed still, a distant sound that wasn’t quite a voice but wasn’t silence either. It felt familiar in the worst way, like remembering something you knew you’d never lived through.
MI-IKE WAKE UP
It came again, louder this time, stuttering half way like a radio might when it has no signal, and the space around him seemed to stretch with it, the dark behind his eyelids bending into something almost—
“MIKE, WAKE UP!”
The world snapped back all at once.
Mike jolted upright, air tearing into his lungs as if he’d been underwater. His room rushed into place around him. The pale morning light, the cluttered dresser, the half open closet door, and for a second he just sat there, disoriented, heart hammering hard enough to make his ribs ache.
“Holly, stop yelling!” Nancy’s voice carried faintly from somewhere downstairs.
“MIIIIIIKE!”
Mike dragged a hand over his face, blinking hard, trying to shake off the lingering weight of whatever that had been. It clung to him anyway, like humidity, like something in the air that refused to clear.
“I’m up!” he called back, his voice rougher than he expected.
It didn’t feel like morning. It didn’t feel like anything, really, just a little wrong in a way he couldn’t pin down.
For a moment, he stayed where he was, staring at nothing. The quiet in his room settled too quickly after the noise downstairs, pressing in around him until he became aware of something else beneath it.
A faint ringing.
Mike frowned.
It wasn’t coming from anywhere specific. Not the window, not the hall, not the pipes in the walls. It sat somewhere deeper than that, low and steady, like it had always been there and he’d only just noticed.
He swallowed, shifting slightly on the mattress, and the sound seemed to shift with him.
“Okay,” he muttered under his breath, like saying it out loud might make it make sense.
It didn’t.
He forced himself to stand, the floor colder than it should’ve been against his feet. His legs felt heavier than usual, like he hadn’t slept so much as just laid there for hours pretending to.
The mirror caught his attention as he moved past it.
Mike hesitated.
He wasn’t sure why, it was just his room. The same scratched-up dresser, the same stupid haircut, the same everything. But something about the reflection felt… delayed. Not wrong enough to point at, just enough to make him step closer without meaning to.
He leaned in slightly, studying his own face.
There were shadows under his eyes that hadn’t been there a week ago. Or maybe they had, and he just hadn’t noticed. His skin looked pale, almost dull, like the color had been drained out overnight.
Mike exhaled slowly.
“Cool,” he said quietly. “Love that.”
For a split second—so quick he almost convinced himself it didn’t happen—something moved behind him.
Not in the room.
In the reflection.
Mike turned sharply, pulse jumping into his throat.
Nothing.
Just his bed, his door, the quiet hallway beyond.
He stood there for a moment longer than necessary, waiting for… something. A sound, a shift, anything that would justify the way his chest had tightened.
Nothing came.
“Yeah,” Mike muttered, more firmly this time. “Not dealing with that today.”
He turned back to the mirror and froze as something warm slid over his lip.
It took him a second to register it. Another to react.nBy the time he reached up, the blood was already there, bright against his fingers.
Mike stared at it, expression flattening in a way that suggested this wasn’t entirely new.
“…Seriously?”
He grabbed a tissue from his desk, pressing it to his nose as he exhaled through his mouth. The ringing in his ears ticked up slightly, almost in response, before settling back into that same low, steady hum.
From downstairs, Karen’s voice drifted up. “Mike! Five minutes!”
“I heard you!” he called back, pinching his nose a little harder.
The bleeding slowed quickly, too quickly to be normal, but not enough to panic over.
Mike tossed the tissue in the trash and grabbed the nearest hoodie, pulling it on as he headed for the door. Whatever that had been—the dream, the noise, the reflection—he shoved it down the same way he’d been shoving everything else lately.
Ignore it. Move on. Don’t think about it too long.
It worked.
It always worked.
At least, it had so far.
Mike lingered for a second too long on the last step.
It wasn’t enough for anyone to notice— a brief hesitation, his hand tightening slightly around the railing as something sharp threaded through his head, that same thin ringing stretching tighter, higher, before snapping back into place like nothing had happened. The smell of coffee grounded him, bitter and familiar, and he forced himself the rest of the way down.
The kitchen looked the same as it always did. Morning light pooled across the table, catching in the edges of cereal bowls and the rim of Will’s glass. Karen moved between the counter and the stove with practiced ease, the soft clatter of dishes filling the space in a way that should’ve felt normal.
It almost did.
Will sat at the table, already watching him. Not in a way that stood out immediately though. His posture was relaxed, one hand curled loosely around a spoon, expression soft in that quiet, observant way Mike knew well. But there was something about the stillness of it, the lack of distraction, like he hadn’t been doing anything before Mike walked in. Like he had just been waiting.
Mike pulled out his chair, the legs scraping faintly against the floor. The sound felt louder than it should have.
“You look like crap,” Will said, not unkindly.
Mike huffed under his breath, reaching automatically for the coffee mug waiting near his spot. It was already poured, steam curling faintly upward. He didn’t question that—someone must’ve set it down for him. His fingers wrapped around it, the heat seeping into his skin.
“Good morning to you too,” he muttered, taking a sip.
It burned, just slightly, and he welcomed it. Something solid. Something real.
“Did you even sleep?” Will asked.
Mike shrugged, setting the mug down, then picking it back up again without really thinking about it. “Enough.”
Will’s gaze didn’t shift. “You said that yesterday.”
Mike paused. The words landed strangely, like they had weight he couldn’t quite place.
“I did?” he asked, frowning a little.
Will nodded, slow and certain. “Yeah. At breakfast.”
Mike stared at him for a second longer than necessary, searching his face for something. He wasn’t sure what. The memory didn’t come. Yesterday morning felt… thin, like trying to recall something he’d only half paid attention to.
“I don’t remember that,” he said finally, more to himself than to Will.
Will’s expression didn’t change, but something in it dimmed, just slightly. “You were really tired,” he said. “You probably just forgot.”
“Yeah,” Mike said quickly, seizing onto that. “Yeah, that’s probably it.”
That totally made sense.
He lifted the mug again, taking a longer drink this time, letting the bitterness sit on his tongue. When he set it back down, it felt lighter in his hand, the heat already fading.
Mike frowned, glancing down into it. He could’ve sworn it had been full. Now it sat just below halfway.
For a moment, he tried to remember drinking it, really remember it, but the moment slipped through his fingers before he could catch hold of it. All that remained was the faint impression of movement, like flipping past pages too quickly to read.
“…Huh.”
“What?” Will asked.
Mike looked up, blinking once. The thought dissolved almost immediately, embarrassment replacing it just as fast.
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “Just tired.”
Will didn’t respond right away.
Mike became aware of it in the silence that followed, the way it stretched just a beat too long. When he glanced back up, Will was still looking at him, that same steady focus, but there was something tighter beneath it now, something almost hesitant.
“Do things feel weird to you?” Will asked.
The question settled into the space between them, quiet but unmistakable.
Mike let out a short breath, leaning back slightly in his chair. “Weird how?”
Will hesitated. It wasn’t like him, not like this anyway. Usually, if Will had something to say, he either said it or didn’t. This in-between felt… off.
“I don’t know,” he admitted after a second. “Just—off. Like stuff’s… not lining up right.”
Mike let out a quiet laugh, more automatic than genuine. “They literally said the air outside is toxic,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward the window. “Pretty sure ‘not lining up right’ is part of that.”
Will didn’t smile.
“They said headaches,” he replied. “And dizziness. Not…” He trailed off, searching for the word, then shook his head instead. “Never mind.”
Mike watched him for a second, something faintly uncomfortable settling in his chest. “What?”
Will opened his mouth. Then stopped.
It was abrupt enough to be noticeable. His expression flickered, like a thought had been cut off halfway through, leaving nothing behind to replace it.
“…Nothing,” he said, a little too quickly.
Mike frowned. “You were just—”
“I said it’s nothing,” Will repeated, softer this time, but firmer.
The conversation dropped. It didn’t end naturally either. It hadn’t run it’s course. It just… ended, leaving a hollow space where it should have continued.
Mike looked down at his coffee again, more to avoid that feeling than anything else.
It was empty.
He blinked.
He just stared at it, trying to reconcile the image in front of him with what he thought he remembered. He hadn’t finished it. He was sure of that. He would’ve noticed.
Wouldn’t he?
“Mike.”
He looked up.
Will was leaning forward slightly now, his brows drawn together in a way that made something twist uncomfortably in Mike’s chest.
“You should slow down,” Will said. “That’s your third cup.”
Mike let out a quiet scoff, pushing the mug away. “You sound like my mom.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know,” Mike said, softer now, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “I just haven’t been sleeping well. It’s fine.”
Will didn’t look convinced.
Mike didn’t give him time to argue. He pushed back his chair, the motion coming quicker than he meant it to, like he needed to move before the conversation could circle back to something he didn’t want to think about.
“I’m gonna go call Dustin,” he said, already stepping away from the table. “See if he’s coming over or something.”
“Mike—”
“I’m fine,” he cut in, not harsh, but final.
Will went quiet.
Mike didn’t look back as he left the kitchen, but he could feel it anyway, that same sense from earlier, of being watched, of something lingering just behind him. It followed him into the hallway, up the stairs, pressing lightly at the edges of his awareness like a thought he couldn’t quite access.
By the time he reached his room, the ringing had started again.
He closed the door behind him, leaning back against it for a moment, eyes unfocused as the sound stretched thin and steady through his head.
“Yeah,” he muttered under his breath, swallowing against the dryness in his throat. “Totally the air.”
The words didn’t sit right.
They didn’t sit wrong, either.
They… existed, like everything else did lately, slightly out of place but not enough to stop.
Mike pushed himself off the door, moving toward his desk. The phone sat where it always did, coiled cord slightly tangled, receiver resting in place. He reached for it without hesitation, dialing from memory, each number coming automatically beneath his fingers.
It rang once.
Twice.
On the third, it clicked.
“Hello?”
Mike opened his mouth to respond and paused. Something about the voice felt off. Like it was slightly misaligned, like hearing something through a wall instead of directly.
“Dustin?” he said slowly.
“Yeah,” the voice replied. “Who else would it be?”
Mike frowned, gripping the receiver a little tighter. “I don’t know, you—”
He stopped.
The words slipped away mid-thought, leaving him staring at nothing, his reflection faintly visible in the darkened surface of the window beside him.
For a second, it didn’t move with him. The ringing sharpened.
“Mike?” Dustin’s voice came again, a little louder now. “You there?”
Mike blinked, the moment snapping back into place so cleanly it almost hurt.
“Yeah,” he said quickly, forcing his tone back to normal. “Yeah, I’m here.”
Outside, the sky hung dull and colorless, the kind of gray that didn’t shift, didn’t move. For a moment, he had the strange, fleeting thought that it hadn’t changed at all since he woke up.
That it wouldn’t.
He shook it off immediately.
“Just give me a second,” he said into the phone, though he wasn’t sure why.
Because something, just beneath everything else, had started to settle into place.
Not a realization.
Not yet.
More like a feeling.
Quiet.
Patient.
Waiting.
Mike didn’t remember hanging up the phone.
One second the receiver was pressed to his ear, Dustin’s voice spilling through in that slightly off, too-even rhythm, and the next it was back in place, the dial tone long gone, the room quieter than it should have been.
He stood there for a moment, hand still resting against the side of it, like if he stayed still enough the missing seconds might come back. They didn’t.
From downstairs, the muffled sound of the front door opening carried up through the house, followed by voices overlapping in a way that should have felt familiar. It grounded him just enough to move, to step back into something that resembled a normal day instead of standing alone in a room that didn’t quite feel like his anymore.
By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs, they were already inside.
Lucas stood near the doorway, a basketball tucked under his arm like it belonged there, like it had always been there, his fingers tapping absently against the rubber in a steady rhythm that didn’t quite match anything else in the room. Dustin hovered a little further in, already talking, words spilling over each other with an urgency that felt less like excitement and more like compulsion. El stood just behind him, quiet, watchful, her gaze moving slowly across the room before settling, without hesitation, on Mike.
Max lingered near the door. She hadn’t stepped fully inside yet.
It was a small thing, easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it. One foot still angled toward the exit, like she hadn’t decided whether she actually wanted to be there. Her eyes flicked briefly toward Mike, then away again, something unreadable passing through her expression before it flattened into something more neutral.
Mike felt it immediately.
Not the look itself, he was used to Max being distant, sharp around the edges, but the way it didn’t sit right. Like it didn’t line up with everything else. Everyone else had already settled into the space, into their roles, into something predictable.
Max hadn’t.
“—I’m telling you, it makes total sense,” Dustin was saying, barely pausing for breath. “If the air quality is compromised, even slightly, it can affect cognitive processing speed, short-term memory, auditory perception—”
“Yeah, yeah, we get it,” Lucas cut in, bouncing the ball once against the floor. The sound was louder than it should have been, echoing faintly before disappearing too quickly. “Everything’s about conditions. You adjust, you play through it.”
He caught the ball again, spinning it briefly in his hands before tucking it back under his arm.
Mike watched the motion for a second longer than necessary.
“Play through it,” he repeated, quieter.
Lucas glanced at him, brow furrowing slightly like the reaction didn’t match the statement. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s how it works.”
Mike didn’t respond.
El took a step closer.
“You feel wrong,” she said.
Not a question.
The words landed flat, direct, cutting through the overlapping noise in the room with a precision that made something in Mike’s chest tighten.
“I’m fine,” he said automatically, a little too fast.
Her gaze didn’t shift. “No.”
A beat passed.
Mike forced out a short laugh, rubbing the back of his neck like the tension there had a simple explanation. “Okay, what is this, an intervention? I didn’t sleep well. That’s it.”
“That aligns with what I was saying,” Dustin jumped in immediately. “Sleep deprivation combined with environmental factors can create the illusion of—”
“I said I’m fine,” Mike cut in, sharper this time.
The room stilled.
Not obviously but enough that he felt it, like a shift in pressure, like something had adjusted slightly out of view.
For a second, no one spoke. Then Lucas bounced the ball again. The sound landed wrong this time. Too late.
Mike’s head snapped slightly toward it, his focus narrowing without meaning to. The rhythm had been steady before, tap, catch, tap, but now there was a delay, a fraction of a second that stretched just long enough to be noticeable.
Lucas didn’t react. He just kept going, the same motion, the same casual ease, like nothing had changed.
Mike swallowed.
Across the room, Max had gone completely still. Her gaze wasn’t on Lucas. It was on Mike.
There was something sharper in it now, something more focused, like she was watching for a reaction instead of just observing.
Mike felt his jaw tighten.
“What?” he asked, the word coming out more defensive than he intended.
Max didn’t answer right away.
She stepped fully into the room now, letting the door swing shut behind her with a quiet click that seemed louder than it should have been. Her arms crossed loosely over her chest, posture relaxed in a way that didn’t match the intensity of her attention.
“Nothing,” she said finally.
Mike didn’t believe her.
“You’re staring,” he said.
Max tilted her head slightly, like she was considering that. “So are you.”
“I’m not.”
“You were,” she replied easily. “At Lucas.”
Mike opened his mouth to argue, then shut it, because she was right. He had been.
The realization sat uncomfortably in his chest, heavier than it should have been, like it meant more than just getting caught looking.
“It was just the noise,” he said, forcing the explanation out before the silence could stretch too far. “It sounded weird.”
Lucas frowned. “It’s a basketball, man.”
“Yeah, I know what it is,” Mike shot back.
“Then what’s weird about it?”
Mike hesitated.
The answer felt obvious—it didn’t line up, it didn’t sound right, it lagged—but the moment he tried to put it into words, it slipped, dissolving into something that sounded stupid even in his own head.
“I don’t know,” he muttered instead. “Just forget it.”
Dustin stepped forward slightly, already ready to fill the gap. “Auditory distortion is actually one of the most common side effects of—”
“Dustin,” Mike said, more tired than irritated now. “Please don’t.”
Dustin stopped, lips pressing together as if physically holding back the rest of the explanation.
The room settled again.
Mike exhaled slowly, dragging a hand down his face. The ringing had crept back in, low and persistent, threading through the edges of every sound until it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began.
“Okay,” he said, more to himself than anyone else. “This is stupid.”
“Yeah,” Max said.
Mike looked up sharply.
She was still watching him.
Not casualy or like everyone else, who had already started to drift back into their own rhythms. Her focus hadn’t wavered, her expression still caught somewhere between curiosity and something more cautious.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.
Max shrugged one shoulder, like it didn’t matter. “Just that something’s off.”
Mike let out a short, humorless laugh. “You too now?”
“I didn’t say it was the air,” she replied.
There it was again. That feeling. Sharp this time. Unsettling in a way the others hadn’t been. Because Dustin had an explanation. Lucas had a pattern. Even El’s bluntness fit into something Mike could push aside.
Max didn’t.
“What are you saying?” he asked, quieter now.
Max held his gaze for a second longer, like she was deciding how much to say. Then she shook her head.
“Nothing,” she said.
The word landed heavier than it should have. Mike felt something twist in his chest, irritation flaring just enough to cover the unease creeping in underneath it.
“Right,” he muttered. “That’s helpful.”
Max didn’t respond. She just kept looking at him. And for the first time since they’d all walked in, Mike had the distinct, unshakable sense that whatever was wrong—
it wasn’t just happening to him.
He didn’t like that. Not even a little.
Because if it wasn’t just him, then there was no easy explanation left.
And somehow, that made Max the most suspicious thing in the room.
The conversation didn’t come back all at once. It reassembled itself in pieces, like everyone had silently agreed to move past whatever that had been without acknowledging it directly. Lucas drifted toward the couch, the basketball never quite leaving his hands, the steady, absent rhythm of it grounding the room whether anyone wanted it to or not. Dustin lingered near the table, already half turned toward a new thought, like the previous one had simply run out of space. El moved closer to the window, her attention fixed somewhere outside, though there wasn’t much to see beyond the dull, unmoving gray of the sky and the weird snow like specs falling from the sky.
Max didn’t move. Mike became aware of that before anything else.
He hadn’t meant to keep track of her, but his attention kept circling back anyway, catching on the way she held herself slightly apart from everything, like she wasn’t fully stepping into the same version of the moment as everyone else. It made something restless settle under his skin, a low, persistent discomfort he couldn’t quite shake.
“Okay, but you guys didn’t hear about Steve?” Dustin said suddenly, the shift in topic so abrupt it almost felt like it had been cut in from somewhere else.
Lucas glanced up. “What about him?”
Dustin’s expression lit up, not excited, exactly, but focused, like he’d been waiting for the opening. “He’s doing this whole thing at his house,” he said, words picking up speed as he went. “Like, a full setup. His parents got this huge barrier put up around the backyard—like, all the way around, not just a fence, like an actual enclosure—and he’s been out there basically all day.”
Mike frowned slightly. “Doing what?”
“Coaching,” Dustin said immediately. “A baseball team.”
There was a brief pause.
“Since when does Steve coach baseball?” Lucas asked, brow furrowing.
Dustin didn’t hesitate. “Since now. He’s, like, really into it. Timing, technique, swing consistency—he’s got drills and everything. I think he said something about muscle memory being the key factor in performance repetition.”
Mike felt his attention snag on that.
Something about the phrasing.
Not wrong, just… overly precise. Like it had been pulled from somewhere else and dropped into the conversation without quite adjusting to fit.
“He never even liked baseball,” Mike said slowly.
“He does now,” Dustin replied, too quickly, like the answer had already been decided. “People pick things up. It’s normal.”
Lucas shrugged, bouncing the ball once against the floor. “Makes sense,” he said. “If you’re gonna do something, you do it right. Repetition, drills, getting the form down, it’s the same with anything.”
The ball hit the ground with a dull thud.
Mike barely heard it. His focus had shifted, pulling sideways without his permission.
Max.
He glanced at her, expecting… he wasn’t sure what. Another look, maybe. That same sharp attention turned on him.
But she wasn’t looking at him this time. She was watching Dustin. Her gaze was fixed, narrowed slightly, like she was trying to catch something before it slipped past.
For a second, nothing happened.
The room held.
Dustin kept talking, filling the space without noticing it had gone thin around the edges. “And I mean, if you think about it, it actually lines up really well with behavioral patterning, because once you establish a consistent—”
He stopped.
Not mid-sentence.
At the end of one.
There was a beat.
Then—
“Okay, but you guys didn’t hear about Steve?” Dustin said.
The words landed in exactly the same tone.
Same rhythm.
Same inflection.
Mike’s stomach dropped.
He didn’t move at first. Couldn’t. The moment stretched too tight, every sound around it fading just enough that the repetition sat there, exposed, impossible to ignore.
Lucas didn’t react. He just looked up again, the same way he had before, like this was the first time he was hearing it. “What about him?”
Dustin’s expression shifted into that same focused intensity. “He’s doing this whole thing at his house,” he said, identical to before. “Like, a full setup. His parents got this huge barrier put up around the backyard—like, all the way around—”
Mike’s gaze snapped to Max. She was already looking at him. There was no hesitation this time. No delay. Whatever uncertainty had been there before was gone, replaced by something sharper, something that mirrored the cold realization settling in Mike’s chest.
She’d heard it too, not just heard it— recognized it. The exact same way he had.
Dustin kept going.
“—and he’s been out there basically all day. Coaching. A baseball team.”
The words pressed in around them, wrong in a way that couldn’t be brushed off, couldn’t be explained away by lack of sleep or bad air or anything else Mike had been clinging to.
This wasn’t just a feeling anymore. It wasn’t a distortion. It had happened. Twice. Exactly the same.
Mike swallowed hard, his grip tightening slightly against the edge of the table without him realizing it. His pulse had picked up again, not fast enough to panic, but steady and insistent, like it was trying to warn him of something he couldn’t quite see yet.
No one else reacted.
Not Lucas, who just nodded along like this was new information. Not El, who had turned from the window but showed no sign of noticing anything wrong. Not even Will, who sat quietly at the table, his attention drifting between them in that same soft, steady way.
Just Max, still watching him, her gaze a little different, holding a different meaning now.
The moment locked into place, connecting things he hadn’t wanted to connect before. The coffee. The missing time. The way conversations slipped. The way people felt… narrower, like parts of them had been stripped down and left behind.
And now this.
His gaze hardened slightly.
Max didn’t look away.
For a second, something almost like understanding passed between them and Mike rejected it immediately.
Because if she saw it too?
if she had noticed before him, if she had been watching for it?
Then that didn’t make her safe. It made her part of it.
“What?” he asked, the word quieter now, but edged with something sharper than before.
Max’s expression didn’t change, but there was a flicker of something behind it, something cautious, something measuring.
“You heard that,” she said.
Not a question.
Mike let out a short breath, his jaw tightening. “Yeah,” he said. “I did.”
Dustin’s voice continued in the background, filling the space with explanations that didn’t land anymore, that slid past without sticking.
Max held his gaze for another second. Then, just slightly, she nodded.
Simple acknowledgment.
Mike didn’t like that either.
It meant that whatever was happening— whatever he thought was happening in his head, it wasn’t in his head anymore. It wasn’t just him. He wasn’t sure if he saw the thought as comforting or wrong in completely different ways.
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