For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Kael woke up in a world that wasn't distorted. The heavy weight of the Pulse was gone, the suffocating grip of the darkness had lifted, and the overwhelming sense of dread was—temporarily—absent.
It was like stepping into a dream. A normal dream.
The sunlight streamed in through the cracked blinds, casting a soft glow over the empty room. The walls were beige. The bed was… well, normal. Everything looked… normal.
Kael sat up, rubbing his eyes. He was alone, but the room felt oddly peaceful, and for once, it didn't feel like the air was closing in on him. He stood up, his feet touching the cold wooden floor. Everything felt real—too real.
His breath was steady. His hands weren't trembling. His mind wasn't fractured.
He glanced at the clock on the wall. It ticked steadily, without the usual glitches, without the sense of time being torn apart.
The hands of the clock moved forward. Time was moving forward again.
He sighed, a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
He went to the bathroom. The reflection in the mirror was his own.
No glitching face. No empty eyes. He was just Kael.
For the first time in forever, he felt like himself. There were no dark figures lurking behind him. No Pulse beating at the back of his mind. No girl, no distorted memories. Nothing.
For a moment—just one small, fleeting moment—Kael allowed himself to smile.
---
He got dressed in his normal clothes. A simple black hoodie, jeans, and his favorite pair of sneakers. Everything felt… normal.
He walked outside, the sunlight brushing against his skin, the air fresh, crisp. It felt like a peaceful day. It was a normal day.
No threats. No voices. No nightmares. Just… life.
Kael stood on the sidewalk for a moment, watching people walk by. A girl with a red scarf smiled at him as she passed, and for some reason, Kael smiled back. It felt like an eternity since he'd felt like this. Normal.
But the moment was fragile.
Kael's smile faltered as something tugged at his mind. A flicker, like a static pulse—just a brief, faint buzz in the back of his skull. The air around him shimmered.
The world—his peaceful, normal world—flickered.
For just a split second, he saw it—the girl.
But she was different. She was standing right there, just across the street, her eyes locked on him, her lips curling into that twisted smile.
And as he blinked, she was gone.
Kael's heart raced, his breathing quickened. No.
He reached for his phone, trying to ground himself in something real. He pulled it out—but the screen was… flickering. The static was back. The Pulse was back.
And before he could react, the ground beneath him cracked open.
---
Crash.
The world cracked.
Kael's vision blurred as the familiar world disintegrated in front of his eyes. Buildings crumbled. The people around him vanished into the air like they were never real. Everything was fading. The sky above him turned a sickly, glitching purple.
Pulse.
The girl's voice echoed from everywhere.
> "You can't escape, Kael. You never could."
Kael tried to scream, but no sound escaped his mouth.
His surroundings distorted, twisted. The street he had just been standing on melted away. The world was breaking apart, piece by piece.
And in that last, fleeting moment, as everything was consumed by the Pulse, Kael saw something that shattered him completely.
It wasn't the girl this time.
It was himself.
He was standing in the center of the destruction.
Everything—everyone—was gone.
And it was his fault.
---