He sat on a crate near the back wall, tucked between shelves of discarded sim parts and dust-choked consoles. The hum of the academy faded out here. No announcements. No footsteps. Just silence, heavy and unfiltered.
Kael hadn't come to dig through the files again. He just wanted to breathe.
His slate rested in his hands, but the screen was off.
He traced the edge of the casing with his thumb, over and over, as if trying to feel something through the surface.
He hadn’t opened the Calderon file again since that night.
He wasn’t sure if he wanted to.
The door slid open.
Kael stiffened—but relaxed when he saw her.
Annabelle stepped inside, holding two thermos cups. She didn’t say anything at first. Just took a seat beside him on the crate like it was the most natural thing in the world.
She handed him one.
“Tea,” she said. “Not machine sludge. Figured you could use something warm.”
He took it, nodded. The cup was warm in his hands. Grounding.
They sat in the quiet.
After a while, she spoke.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
“You’ve been going somewhere lately,” she said. “I didn’t follow. Didn’t dig. Just thought maybe I’d come with you this time.”
Kael glanced at her. She didn’t meet his eyes, just sipped her tea and looked at the metal walls like they were stars.
He didn’t respond.
He didn’t need to.
Annabelle didn’t ask questions. She just showed up.
That was enough.
Later, in Systems Theory, the instructor’s voice droned about internal logic loops and reactive delay chains.
Kael stared ahead but wasn’t listening.
A display screen at the front of the room flickered.
Only once.
The diagram on screen—a feedback circuit—twisted. Just for a frame. Into a spiral.
Kael blinked. Gone.
No one else reacted.
Except a girl two rows ahead, who turned her head toward him just slightly.
Her eyes met his.
She looked terrified.
Then she looked away.
That night, Kael sat alone in his dorm, lights off.
He opened the file.
The one he told himself he wouldn’t touch again.
It loaded slowly. Frame by frame. Glitching at first, like something didn’t want to be seen.
There was Calderon again.
Young. Pale. Calm.
He walked through the impossible terrain, and the world bent around him. Stone fractured in silence. The spiral pulsed, and space curled like paper in fire.
But Kael didn’t feel afraid this time.
He felt cold.
And watched.
The moment Calderon raised his hand—
He stopped.
Turned.
And for the first time in the recording, he looked directly at the lens.
Not at the instructor.
Not at the system.
At Kael.
The playback paused on its own. Glitched.
And Calderon moved.
Only slightly.
Only impossibly.
His eyes twitched—a microexpression that didn’t match any frame Kael had seen before.
Then he smiled.
Only for a second.
“You can feel it, can’t you?”
“The shape under your skin.”
The screen blacked out.
The slate powered off.
Kael sat in total silence.
The room didn’t feel empty anymore.
He got up for water, breathing shallow, moving on autopilot.
Passed the mirror above the sink.
Didn’t look at it.
Didn’t want to.
But something made him stop.
Turn.
Look.
His reflection stood still.
A second too long.
And smiled.