Chapter Text
Something stirs where nothing should.
Not movement. Not sound. Only a distortion in stillness, like the air itself has learned to hesitate. The world continues as it always has—breath follows breath, time follows time—but a flaw has entered the pattern.
Small.
Patient.
Unnoticed.
Shadows begin to linger a moment too long. Reflections hesitate before settling into place. Silence grows heavier in rooms that were never meant to carry weight.
There are times when the dark feels crowded.
No voice speaks. No shape forms. And yet, the sense of nearness spreads—an unnamable pressure behind thought, behind instinct, behind fear, that has not yet learned its purpose.
Nothing is wrong.
That is what makes it wrong.
It does not hunger.
It does not rush.
It doesn’t need to.
It already knows when it will be needed.
And when that moment comes, the world will understand what has been inside him all along.