The Aurelius cut a clean line through the upper currents that morning, but the sky felt nothing like the sky of the day before. The air carried weight—not heavy enough to be called oppressive, not dark enough to be named a storm, but tuned strangely tight, like a string pulled taut somewhere deep in the horizon.
Soren felt it the moment he stepped above deck.
Not danger.
Not even turbulence.
Just… attention.
The same attention that had pressed at him the previous day, but steadier now. More patient. Almost as though the wind, thwarted once, had chosen to observe him in silence before striking again.
Several crew members glanced up at the sky every few minutes. Officer Hale Rennick stood near the helm railing, posture still, reading the shifts in the cloud seams with a narrowed gaze. Officer Lorian Vance moved back and forth along the middeck, quietly checking structural lines as though expecting the ship to jolt at any moment. Diya Crest was bent over an atmospheric gauge, brow furrowed.
Soren clutched his ledger a little tighter.
He had never been surrounded by so many people and felt so profoundly… singled out.
He made his way toward the inner deck where Atticus usually stood during mid-morning transitions. But today, the captain wasn't there. Neither was Marcell.
Instead, Cassian Wolfe was leaning against the starboard support beam with his arms crossed, eyes locked on the clouds like he meant to dissect them with his mind alone.
Soren hesitated.
Cassian rarely stood still unless something warranted his focus.
"Cassian," Soren murmured, approaching him carefully, "is something happening?"
Cassian didn't look at him—just lifted a hand in a gesture that said wait.
Soren obeyed.
Several heartbeats passed before Cassian finally spoke.
"The convergence field is shifting," he murmured. "Subtly. But deliberately."
Soren's breath caught. "Deliberately?"
Cassian's jaw tensed. "Cloud movement isn't intentional. Wind patterns aren't intentional. But this—"
He nodded toward the far-off horizon where the sky seemed to ripple faintly, like heat rising off sand.
"This is neither natural nor accidental."
Soren stared.
He felt the ripple before he fully saw it.
A thin, slow vibration in the atmosphere… like a pulse.
A recognition.
Cassian finally turned to look at him.
"You felt it yesterday," he said evenly, not as a question but as a fact.
Soren swallowed. "I… yes."
Cassian studied him for a long moment—sharp gaze, scholar's mind working rapidly through possibilities.
"It's watching us," Cassian murmured.
Then added, almost reluctantly:
"More accurately, it's watching you."
Soren's stomach dipped.
Before Cassian could continue, the inner door opened and Atticus stepped out onto the deck, Marcell close behind him. Their conversation was low, clipped, and tense, though neither raised their voice.
"Soren."
Atticus's voice cut cleanly across the deck the moment he spotted him.
Soren straightened instinctively.
Marcell gave him a brief nod—professional, composed, but not unkind.
"Report," Atticus said as he approached.
Soren blinked. "Report, sir?"
Atticus stopped in front of him. "You felt a shift. When?"
Soren's heart thudded. "Just now. When the… pulse went through the sky."
Atticus and Marcell exchanged the quickest glance—measured, confirming.
Cassian pushed off the beam and stepped closer. "It was real," he said. "He isn't misreading anything."
Marcell exhaled sharply. "Then it's escalating."
Soren looked between them, unsure if he was meant to speak again. But Atticus stepped nearer—close enough that Soren felt the edge of his shadow brushing his shoulder.
"What exactly did you feel," Atticus asked quietly, "before the ripple?"
Soren hesitated. He didn't want to sound fanciful. He didn't want to give a wrong answer. But the truth was simple, unnervingly simple.
"Attention," he murmured. "Like it was waiting."
Atticus's jaw set.
"Has it targeted anyone else?" Marcell asked Cassian.
"No," Cassian replied without hesitation. "Only him."
Soren's pulse picked up—heat at his neck, a tightness in his ribs.
"Why?" he whispered without meaning to.
But Atticus answered.
"Because it remembers you."
Soren froze.
The words struck something deep inside him—
not memory,
not recognition,
but a shiver of instinct that made his chest tighten.
He opened his mouth. "But I don't remember—"
"I know," Atticus said quietly.
The wind stirred at that moment—soft, almost gentle.
It brushed against Soren's cheek in a way that felt horribly akin to someone lifting a strand of hair to examine it.
Soren flinched.
Atticus stepped forward so quickly that the wind recoiled.
"Enough," Atticus murmured—not loud, but firm, as though he were speaking to the sky directly.
Soren stared at him.
Atticus stared at the air.
The wind fell still.
Marcell cleared his throat. "We'll need to adjust formation. Cassian—coordinate with engineering. Hale, Vance, Crest—spread the word. No one alone on deck unless necessary."
"Aye, sir."
Officers and crew moved instantly.
Soren didn't.
He moved only when Atticus spoke again—gentle, but with authority that left no room for refusal.
"Soren. Walk with me."
Soren swallowed hard and followed.
They didn't go far—just to the quiet side of the midship deck, where the noise of crew faded enough for their voices to remain private.
Atticus faced him.
"You are not in danger," he said.
The sentence should have comforted him.
It didn't.
"But something is trying to reach you. And I'd prefer it didn't."
Soren stared at him, chest tight.
"Captain," he whispered, "why me?"
Atticus held his gaze for a long, long moment—expression unreadable, eyes intense.
Finally, he said the one thing Soren expected least:
"When the time comes," Atticus murmured, "you'll remember why."
The sky pressed faintly against Soren's senses again—
listening,
waiting,
wanting.
And for the first time, Atticus stepped in front of him as if shielding him from something invisible.
_________________________
The walk back toward the inner deck should have felt like relief—distance from the railings, from the open sky, from whatever had leaned close enough to sense his breath. But even as Soren followed Atticus, the air felt thick with everything unsaid.
Atticus didn't speak immediately. His steps were firm, deliberate, but his expression had shifted into something far more contained than usual. Not anger. Not irritation.
A quiet vigilance.
They stopped beneath the overhang near the midship corridor, where the sky's glare softened and the wind's reach felt slightly dulled. Atticus turned to face him fully.
"You should not be by the railings at all for the next few days," he said.
Soren nodded. "I understand."
"It's not about understanding." Atticus's gaze sharpened. "It's about minimizing contact."
Contact.
The word felt both too clinical and too intimate. Soren swallowed, nodding again, though something inside him bristled at the idea that the sky—something so enormous, so untouchable—would think in terms of contact.
Atticus must have sensed the question behind his silence, because he added:
"It is behaving with intention. And intention implies purpose."
Soren exhaled slowly. "And that purpose is… me?"
"For now," Atticus said softly, honestly, "yes."
Something inside Soren tightened—fear, embarrassment, confusion. But also an echo of something else, something he had no name for.
A faint call in the distance, like the memory of a sound he once heard in a dream.
Atticus stepped closer, lowering his voice.
"You are not a passive observer in this. Whatever happened four years ago left a mark. Whether you feel it or not."
Soren's heart kicked.
"I don't remember anything from the ruins."
"No," Atticus replied. "And you weren't meant to."
Soren looked up sharply. "Meant to?"
Atticus didn't answer directly. His gaze drifted toward the horizon, where the faint rippling seemed to be fading into a glassy stillness.
"It would be easier if you did," Atticus said. "But much more dangerous."
Soren's breath stalled.
He had no idea what to say to that.
Before he could try, Marcell's voice echoed across the deck.
"Captain!"
Atticus turned immediately.
Marcell jogged toward them with Officer Hale just behind him.
"We've identified a pattern in the convergence maps," Marcell said, lowering his voice as he reached them. "It's cycling. Almost like… drifting tides."
Hale added, "It repeats every thirty-two seconds. A pulse, then a quiet interval, then another pulse."
Soren's hands tensed around his ledger.
Cassian strode across the deck to join them. "It's not random. If it were natural atmospheric drift, the intervals would fluctuate. This is controlled."
"By what?" Soren whispered before he could stop himself.
Everyone fell silent.
Even the wind seemed to pause.
Atticus finally answered—not loudly, but with complete clarity.
"By the same force that reached for you on deck… and hasn't stopped watching since.."
Soren's pulse skipped.
Marcell cleared his throat gently. "Captain, the helm needs you."
Atticus nodded once, then looked to Soren again.
"Stay with the archivist or navigator," he instructed. "No wandering."
Soren nodded, though his chest felt tight.
Atticus began to step away, then paused—and for the briefest moment, Soren saw something flicker in his expression. Not softness. Not worry.
Recognition.
As if Atticus could already see the path ahead, and knew Soren would be walking it blind.
"Do not panic," Atticus said finally. "And do not isolate yourself."
Then he was gone, coat sweeping behind him as he followed Marcell toward the helm.
The moment Atticus disappeared into the knot of officers and helmsmen, Soren released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
Something above him stirred.
Not a gust.
Not a draft.
A pressure.
Light, but focused.
Centering itself directly over where he stood.
He stepped back instinctively—right into someone.
"Careful."
Everett Caelum steadied him with a hand on his elbow.
Soren jumped. "Everett! When did you—"
"I noticed you weren't in the archive room." Everett's voice was mild, but his eyes were scanning Soren's face with open concern. "Are you alright?"
Soren hesitated.
Everett lowered his hand but didn't step away. "What happened?"
Soren glanced upward. The sky had gone very still again, nearly glass-smooth. Too smooth.
"The wind tried to… align itself," Soren said quietly. "Again."
Everett exhaled slowly. "And Atticus intervened."
"Yes."
"That explains the captain's sudden disappearance from the archive schedule." Everett rubbed his thumb along the edge of the folder he held. "He came by earlier, checking for any atmospheric discrepancies in our records."
Soren blinked. "Discrepancies?"
Everett nodded. "Specifically from the year of the previous expedition."
Soren felt his breath catch.
Everett's gaze softened. "He's trying to protect you, Soren. Whether he shows it or not."
Soren looked down at his ledger. "I don't know why it's happening again. I don't remember anything that would cause this."
"That's precisely the problem," Everett murmured.
Soren stiffened. "What do you mean?"
Everett leaned closer, speaking quietly so no nearby crew could overhear.
"Every one of us who was present on that expedition remembers… something happened in the ruins. Something large. Something that changed the Empire's research protocols."
Soren swallowed.
"But none of us remember the details. None. Not a single one."
Soren's eyes widened.
Everett continued, voice low:
"Whatever happened—whatever you were involved in—the Empire scrubbed it clean. Every report, every record… every memory."
Soren felt the world tilt.
"But I wasn't important," he whispered. "I was just a student researcher."
Everett held his gaze.
"You are important now."
The wind pulsed faintly in the distance, as if agreeing.
Soren closed his eyes.
"Everett," he whispered, voice trembling more than he intended, "what if the wind recognizes me because I'm the only one who doesn't remember?"
Everett didn't answer immediately.
Then—
"Then perhaps forgetting was not protection," he said softly. "Perhaps it was the very thing that left you exposed."
Soren's heart thudded painfully.
"Come," Everett said, guiding him gently toward the archive room. "Let's work. The more grounded you stay, the less room there is for imagination to spiral."
Soren followed him, though his legs felt unsteady.
Inside the archive room, the air was calmer. Dimmer. Safer, in the way only quiet enclosed spaces can be when the outside world feels far too wide.
Soren sat.
Opened his ledger.
Forced his hand to steady.
He wrote:
|| Morning shift. Atmospheric disturbance consistent. Patterned pulses detected. No mechanical cause. Crew on alert.
No personal thoughts.
No intuitive interpretations.
Only factual observation.
But when he lifted his pen, a faint exhale of wind brushed across the page—
—right across the words he had just written.
Not enough to disturb the ink.
But enough to be unmistakable.
Soren froze.
Everett stopped mid-sentence in his own transcription and looked up.
"Soren?"
Soren stared at the page, throat tight.
"I didn't imagine that," he whispered.
Everett's expression darkened.
"No," he said.
"You didn't."
The wind outside fell eerily still.
As if reading.
As if waiting.
_________________________