The air outside the school felt heavier than it should have.
Juson stepped beyond the school gate without looking back. Students continued entering and leaving the campus behind him, their conversations blending into a distant, meaningless murmur that faded with every step he took. Their lives moved forward with ordinary concerns, untouched by the strange chain of events that had quietly wrapped themselves around his own. Yet his thoughts refused to leave the classroom. It was not the lesson that lingered in his mind, nor the expressions of the students who had listened to him speak. It was a single name. Hakiten. He had not intended to say it aloud. The name had escaped him before he had even realized he was thinking about it, and ever since then an uncomfortable feeling had settled somewhere deep inside him. It was the kind of feeling that appeared before a storm, when nothing had happened yet but every instinct insisted that something soon would.
He stopped near the roadside and instinctively glanced at the watch fastened around his wrist. Only then did he notice the fracture running diagonally across the glass. The crack split the surface into uneven sections, bending the hands beneath it until the time became impossible to read. They were still moving, still measuring the passing moments, yet the broken glass distorted them so badly that the watch had become useless. Juson frowned slightly. He couldn't remember striking it against anything. He couldn't remember dropping it. In fact, he couldn't remember the exact moment it had broken at all. The realization unsettled him far more than the damaged watch itself.
He continued walking towards his car, his footsteps slow and absent-minded. Just as he reached the edge of the road, the loud growl of an approaching engine shattered the silence. A large transport truck thundered past, momentarily blocking his entire view. The force of its movement pushed a wave of wind through the street, making loose leaves scatter across the pavement. One of its rear tyres suddenly struck a stone lying near the roadside. The impact jolted the massive vehicle sharply, throwing up an enormous cloud of dry dust that exploded into the air like smoke. Within seconds the entire road disappeared behind the thick grey curtain. Juson instinctively turned his face away, coughing as the fine particles surrounded him. The dust scratched against his eyes and throat until the world beyond it dissolved into vague shadows.
Gradually the wind weakened. The floating dust began settling back onto the road, revealing shapes one after another as though the world itself was slowly returning from concealment. Buildings regained their outlines. Parked vehicles became visible again. The truck had already disappeared into the distance. Then something else caught his attention. A single sheet of paper drifted lazily through the remaining dust, carried by the last weak currents of air. It floated without purpose for several moments before finally pressing itself flat against the windshield of his car. The sight stopped him completely. It should have been nothing more than an ordinary piece of paper, yet something about it immediately stirred an uncomfortable familiarity deep within him.
Juson stepped closer and carefully peeled it away from the glass. The instant his fingers touched its surface, a strange tension spread through his hand. The texture felt oddly familiar. Not because he had seen that exact page before, but because he had experienced something like it. The weight. The roughness. Even the faint smell clinging to it seemed to belong somewhere inside memories he could no longer fully reach. His lips parted almost unconsciously. "It can't be here..." he whispered beneath his breath, staring at the page as though expecting it to explain its own existence.
His eyes moved across the strange writing covering the surface. The words refused to form proper sentences. Instead they appeared broken apart, separated by slashes as though someone had intentionally dismantled their meaning. Word after word stood isolated from the next, creating fragments rather than language. It looked incomplete at first glance, yet the longer he stared at it, the more certain he became that nothing was actually missing. The message had not been damaged. It had been hidden. Someone wanted it to be read differently. Someone expected whoever found it to understand something beyond the visible words. Juson's fingers slowly tightened around the paper. His first instinct urged him to chase after the truck that had stirred the dust, to demand answers from whoever might have left this behind. But even before the thought fully formed, another part of him rejected it. Deep inside, he already knew the truth. This was not something a person chased. It was something that quietly found the people it wanted.
Without unfolding it again, Juson carefully folded the paper into smaller sections and slipped it into the compartment inside the car. He lowered himself into the driver's seat, started the engine and quietly pulled away from the roadside.
The road leading home seemed far longer than usual. Sunlight filtered through rows of buildings in irregular patterns, flashing across the windshield before disappearing again behind passing trees and electrical poles. Every few seconds the changing light transformed the interior of the car from brightness into shadow and back again, creating the strange illusion that reality itself flickered around him. Juson kept his attention fixed firmly on the road ahead, yet his thoughts drifted endlessly between everything that had happened over the last twenty-four hours. Yokina's missed call. The strange paper. Herik's glowing eyes. The maid. Hakiten. None of them felt like separate incidents anymore. Invisible threads had begun tying everything together into something much larger, and Juson had the growing suspicion that he had already stepped far too deeply into it to turn back.
Back at the house, Yokina remained quietly inside the kitchen, absent-mindedly arranging a few utensils after finishing the morning chores. The silence inside the house felt ordinary enough that she almost managed to forget the uneasiness lingering since the previous night. Then, without warning, a strange sensation passed through her. It was impossible to describe. Not a sound. Not a movement. Simply the unmistakable feeling that someone was present somewhere inside the house. She stopped what she was doing and slowly turned her head toward the hallway leading to Herik's room. The sensation remained.
"Herik?" she called softly.
Receiving no answer, she walked towards the bedroom, her pace calm despite the growing uncertainty inside her. She reached the door within seconds and gently pushed it open. Herik lay peacefully asleep upon the bed exactly as she had left him earlier. His breathing remained slow and even. Nothing inside the room appeared disturbed. Yet Yokina continued standing there for several silent moments. She could not explain why, but something about him felt different. Not visibly. Nothing she could point at. Just... different. Unable to understand what troubled her instincts, she quietly closed the door again and returned to the kitchen, convincing herself she was simply worrying too much.
Nearly half an hour later, Juson's car rolled slowly into the driveway. He switched off the engine and stepped outside. The very moment his shoes touched the ground, he felt it. A silence unlike any he had known before settled across the property. It was not peaceful. It was not comforting. It simply existed, pressing gently against his senses as though the house itself had become aware of his return. No voices drifted through the windows. No sounds of movement came from inside. Everything stood perfectly still beneath the afternoon light.
Juson walked toward the entrance with measured steps, each one feeling strangely heavier than the last. He unlocked the front door and quietly stepped inside. The corridor greeted him with complete emptiness. Even the air felt cooler than it had that morning. The wooden floor creaked beneath his weight as he advanced further into the house. Above him, one of the ceiling bulbs flickered weakly several times before returning to a steady glow. He noticed it only briefly before continuing onward, drawn almost instinctively toward Herik's bedroom.
Reaching the door, he rested one hand upon the handle without opening it immediately. For several long seconds he simply stood there listening. Finally he pushed the door open just enough to look inside. Herik remained exactly where Yokina had left him, sleeping quietly upon the bed with the blanket partially covering his small body. His face appeared peaceful. Too peaceful. Juson studied him in silence, unable to explain why the sight unsettled him. Everything looked perfectly normal, yet every instinct insisted something had changed.
A sudden thud echoed somewhere behind him.
Juson immediately turned his head toward the sound. At that exact moment, Herik shifted slightly upon the bed as though reacting to it even while asleep. The movement lasted only an instant before he settled once again into complete stillness. Juson slowly stepped backward, gently closed the bedroom door, and turned toward the hallway.
Yokina stood near the kitchen entrance.
She hadn't spoken.
She simply stood there looking at him, tears quietly gathering in her eyes until one finally escaped and rolled slowly down her cheek. Juson's expression softened immediately. Without saying a word he crossed the remaining distance between them, gently wiped away the tear with his thumb, and pulled her into a quiet embrace. For those few moments the strange paper, the maid, Hakiten, the dust, and every terrifying mystery disappeared beneath something far simpler. Warmth. Familiarity. Home.
Still holding her gently by the shoulders, Juson guided Yokina toward one of the kitchen chairs. He switched on the kitchen light above them. The bulb flickered violently for nearly two full seconds before stabilizing into a steady glow. Neither of them paid much attention to it.
"What happened?" he asked quietly. Yokina remained silent for several moments before finally answering.
"I'm... confused."
Juson sat beside her and gently held one of her hands.
"About what?"
She lowered her eyes before replying. "I don't know. It just feels like something is wrong." Juson glanced briefly toward the hallway leading to Herik's room before forcing a calm smile.
"Everything's fine," he assured her gently. "You're just thinking too much."
She slowly shook her head.
"It isn't only that."
She hesitated before continuing.
"It's Herik."
Juson's heartbeat slowed almost imperceptibly.
"He's different," she whispered. "He hardly talks anymore... and when I bathed him today..." She struggled to finish the sentence. "...his skin... it was peeling."
Juson remained completely still.
Children change as they grow, he told himself. Children get sick. Children recover.
"That happens sometimes," he finally replied in an even voice. "Children change as they grow." The explanation sounded convincing enough.
Only he no longer believed it himself.
Before either of them could continue, a violent cracking sound echoed somewhere deep inside the house. Both of them froze instantly.
Yokina slowly turned toward the hallway.
"Did... you leave the bedroom door open?"
Juson never answered because by the.....He was already looking toward it.