Kenji didn't remember when he finally passed out.
One second he was sitting against the cold concrete wall, counting his breaths—
the next, nothing.
Not rest.
Just… absence.
The warehouse was quiet.
Too quiet.
The kind of quiet that settles after something breaks.
Kenji's body slumped to the side, head tilted, breathing uneven but deep enough to pass for sleep.
But the shadow didn't sleep.
At first, it stayed where it always did.
Close.
Attached.
Still.
Then—
it moved.
Not like a person.
Not like a shape.
More like something remembering how movement works.
It peeled slightly away from him.
Thin.
Stretching.
Testing the distance between itself and the body it was tied to.
It paused.
As if listening.
Then the air changed.
Subtle.
Like something far away had answered.
The shadow shifted again—this time more certain.
It dragged across the floor, darker than the rest of the darkness.
And then—
it stopped.
A signal.
No words.
No sound.
But something had been sent.
Across the city—
something responded.
Back inside the warehouse
Kenji's fingers twitched.
His breathing hitched once.
Like something inside him had felt it.
But he didn't wake.
The shadow slowly returned.
Not fully.
Just enough to stay connected.
Waiting.
Because whatever it had reached…
was coming.