I didn't sleep.
Not because I couldn't,but because something inside me refused to.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him. Not clearly, not completely,just fragments. The way he stood, the way he looked at me, and his eyes… like something inside them had already ended and kept moving anyway.
Morning came without feeling like morning. The city looked the same, but it didn't feel the same.
People moved. Lights flickered. Systems ran. Everything continued exactly as it should.
And that was the problem.
It was too precise. Too aligned. Like something had corrected the world overnight.
I stood by the window, watching the street below, trying to find anything out of place.
But the only thing that felt wrong…
was me.
"You're still thinking about it."
I didn't turn. Lian's voice came from behind me, quiet but certain.
"You saw him too," I said.
A pause.
"Yes," he answered. "But not the same way you did."
That made me look at him.
"What does that mean?"
Lian hesitated. For the first time since I met him, he didn't have an immediate answer.
"It means," he said slowly, "whatever that was… it wasn't just appearing."
He paused.
"It was connecting."
Something tightened in my chest. Not pain,recognition.
Before I could respond, my communicator vibrated.
Once.
Then again.
Then it didn't stop.
I pulled it out. The screen was already active. No signal. No source.
Just text.
"Synchronization: Incomplete."
My fingers froze.
Another line appeared.
"Signal detected."
Lian stepped closer. "What is that?"
"I don't know," I said.
But I did.
Not consciously,but somewhere deeper, I recognized it.
Another line appeared.
"Origin: Unknown."
The screen flickered.
Then changed.
The text vanished, replaced by something else,not words, but a pattern. Lines connecting, shifting, rearranging themselves in real time.
I had seen it before.
In the file.
My breathing slowed, because this time it wasn't reacting to me.
It was aligning.
The room felt wrong,not visibly, but something in it had shifted.
Lian stepped back suddenly.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
He didn't answer immediately. He was staring at me.
Not at the device.
At me.
"Your eyes," he said quietly.
Something dropped in my chest. "What about them?"
"They're not…" he stopped, then shook his head. "No. They're changing."
The screen pulsed again.
"Secondary signal confirmed."
My grip tightened.
Because I understood.
Not the message..
the meaning.
The signal wasn't coming from outside.
It was coming from me.
The air shifted again,heavier now, familiar.
Like the chamber.
Like the fracture.
Like him.
I closed my eyes for a moment.
And I saw it.
The shard.
The café.
The fracture.
All connected.
Not by place..
by me.
I opened my eyes.
The screen went dark.
Silence followed.
Then..
one final line appeared.
"Phase One: Complete."
I didn't breathe.
Because for the first time..
I wasn't reacting to what was happening.
I was part of it.
And somewhere ahead…
the version of me I saw on that tower..
had already reached this point.
And kept going.