Kael skipped lunch.
He wandered past the cafeteria and out behind the science block, where reality seemed thinner. Where sometimes the air shimmered like a heatwave, even in winter.
He opened the red notebook again. A new line had appeared:
"Touch her hand. Listen closely."
He hadn't written it. He hadn't even held a pen.
But he obeyed.
The next time he saw Aria—alone in the hallway, humming a tune she swore she never knew—he reached for her hand.
It was warm.
But beneath the warmth, Kael heard something. A frequency. A pulse.
Not a heartbeat.
Something... mechanical. Like the whir of a machine trying to mimic a soul.
Aria blinked, pulling back slightly.
"You okay?" she asked, tilting her head. The same head tilt. The exact same blink. Again.
Kael smiled back, hollow.
"Yeah. Just... zoned out."
She nodded and walked off, her steps the same as yesterday. Seven to the corner. Pause. Look back. Smile.
Except this time, when she smiled—Kael caught it.
Her pupils flickered. Just for a second. Like static across a screen.
And then the hallway folded in.
Not literally. But everything tilted, cracked, realigned. Kael gripped the wall as the glitch wave passed. A single bell rang, but no one moved. The world froze.
Everyone except him.
And her.
Aria turned back around.
"You touched the thread," she whispered. But her voice layered—like two people speaking at once.
The notebook burned hot in his hand. Words bleeding through the paper:
"They're watching. Now they know you remember."
He looked up.
And the hallway was gone.
He stood in a field of clocks—floating, ticking, breaking mid-air.
Aria stood ahead, her skin glitching, eyes glowing.
She wasn't smiling now.
She looked terrified.
"You weren't supposed to find me," she said.
Behind her, the sky split open.
A hand—not human—reached through.