Logan woke with the number 11.3 etched into the backs of his eyelids. It wasn't a premonition of disaster or a scream of terror; it was simply persistent, a mathematical burr caught in the fabric of his subconscious. It felt like a song you didn't realize you'd memorized until it started playing in the quiet corners of your mind, unbidden and rhythmic.
He lay perfectly still for a long moment, watching the way the pale morning light crawled across the ceiling, illuminating the tiny fissures in the plaster. He felt the weight of his own limbs, the slow thrum of his pulse, and finally, he rolled onto his side to check the digital clock on his nightstand.
6:32 a.m.
It was a normal time. A safe time. The "4:04" from his dream felt like a feverish hallucination, a glitch in his own internal hardware. Seeing the mundane numbers of a Tuesday morning was enough to push the shadows back into the closet. He exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, swung his legs out of bed, and felt the cool, solid floor beneath his feet.
Downstairs, the house was already humming with the comforting friction of life. He could hear the muffled, rhythmic clink of his mother's coffee mug against the ceramic coaster and the mechanical groan of the toaster popping. A radio murmured low on the kitchen counter, playing a classic rock ballad that sounded older than his parents—something with heavy drums and a singer who sounded like he'd swallowed gravel. It was the sound of a world that made sense.
Logan moved through his morning ritual with a mechanical efficiency.
He ate his toast, tied his laces with double knots, and hoisted his backpack over one shoulder. By the time he stepped out onto the porch, the air hit him like a cold glass of water—sharp, grounding, and smelling of damp pine and woodsmoke.
You're fine, he told himself, his boots crunching on the gravel driveway. Don't make it bigger than it is. It's just a recorder. It's just noise.
Jamie was already at their usual corner, the collar of his denim jacket turned up against the breeze. He was flipping through a comic book with a spine so bent it looked like it had been through a war.
"You're late," Jamie said, not looking up from a panel of a superhero punching a monster.
"By thirty seconds," Logan replied, adjusting his glasses.
"Thirty seconds is the difference between a save and a funeral in this issue," Jamie grunted, finally snapping the book shut.
Lyra arrived a moment later, her ponytail pulled back with clinical precision, her jacket zipped halfway despite the rising sun. Adison followed, trailing slightly behind, his lips moving as he argued with himself under his breath. He was counting something on his fingers, his eyes fixed on the pavement as if searching for a hidden equation in the cracks.
They walked toward the sprawling brick edifice of Redwood Academy together, and for the first time in days, the conversation didn't center on the Aurora Lab. It drifted naturally, caught in the slipstream of teenage normalcy.
"Did you hear?" Jamie said, his eyes brightening. "The old man who owns the property on Maple Street? They might reopen the arcade."
Logan's eyes lit up. "No way. The one with the Galaga cabinet?"
"That one's long gone," Jamie said, waving a hand dismissively. "Sold to a collector in the city. But the word is they're bringing in a Street Fighter II and a Pole Position. Real cabinets, not the emulated junk."
Lyra scoffed, though a small smile played at the corners of her mouth. "You'll waste all your lunch money in a week, Jamie. You don't have the reflexes for Pole Position."
"Worth it," Jamie said proudly, puffing out his chest. "I'll be the king of Maple Street by mid-October."
Adison looked up from his fingers, nodding solemnly. "Statistically, the dopamine return on arcade gaming justifies the capital loss, provided you can maintain a win-rate above forty percent."
They laughed. For a few glorious hours, everything felt easy. The weight of the "Dead Frequency" was replaced by the weight of textbooks and the trivial drama of the hallway.
Classes passed in a blur of chalkboard dust and graphite. Logan sat in Mr. Albert's physics class, listening to the man's calm, fluent voice explain the laws of momentum and conservation. Mr. Albert had a way of making physics sound like a grand narrative instead of a series of dry equations—a story of how the universe kept its own books balanced. Logan took diligent notes, even raising his hand once to ask about kinetic energy loss in closed systems.
Nothing strange happened. No lights flickered. No shadows moved out of step. The day behaved itself as if it were trying to prove a point: I am just a Tuesday. Nothing more.
By the time the final bell rang, the morning's dread felt like an old coat that no longer fit. They split at the school steps, promises of meeting up tossed casually into the air.
"Don't forget," Jamie shouted over his shoulder as he headed toward the bus. "Arcade this weekend. I'm holding you to it."
"If it actually opens," Lyra yelled back, though she waved.
Logan waved as well and turned toward his street, his pace light. But as he rounded the final corner toward his house, the lightness vanished.
A dark sedan—a government-issued Chevrolet Caprice—was parked too neatly along the curb in front of his house. His heart did a slow, heavy roll in his chest. His pace quickened, his sneakers hitting the pavement with a frantic rhythm. He pushed the front door open without knocking.
Thomas Briggs was standing in the living room. His sheriff's jacket was draped over the back of the sofa, and he looked smaller somehow, the lines of exhaustion around his eyes deeper in the afternoon light. Sitting on the coffee table, looking entirely too ordinary for something so dangerous, was the recorder.
"You're home early," Briggs said. His voice was gravelly, lacking its usual authoritative edge.
Logan barely heard him. His eyes were locked on the small black device. "You said—"
Briggs raised a hand, stopping him. "I know what I said, Logan." He sighed, a long, weary sound that had nothing to do with physical sleep and everything to do with a tired soul. "I've got one day. That's it. Tomorrow morning, this thing moves to a different chamber. Different people. Different rules. People who aren't from Redwood Town."
Logan swallowed hard, the air in the room suddenly feeling thin. "And…?"
"And I trust you more than I trust them," Briggs said simply. He looked at the recorder, then back at Logan. "I've spent twenty years in this town. I know when a storm is coming. And I know that sometimes, you have to let the people who can actually see the wind take the wheel."
Logan didn't hesitate. He stepped forward, his breath hitching, and picked up the recorder. It felt warm, as if it had been sitting in the sun, though the room was cool. He held it with a mixture of terror and reverence, like a holy relic or a live wire.
"Thank you," Logan whispered. "Uncle Briggs. I won't mess this up. I promise."
Briggs snorted, though his eyes remained soft. "You already have, kid. We all have." He reached out, ruffling Logan's hair with a heavy hand. "Just don't be stupid. If it gets weird... if it gets like it was at the lab... you throw that thing into the river. You hear me?"
Logan grinned, a spark of his old adventurous self returning, and bumped fists with his uncle. "I hear you."
Briggs left a minute later. From the window, Logan watched him slide into the Caprice. He saw his uncle tap a cigarette out of a crumpled pack, light it, and sit there for a long moment, the smoke curling out of the open window like a ghost. Then, the engine roared, and the Sheriff pulled away, heading back toward the station.
Logan spent the evening with a calculated, forced calmness. He took a shower. He finished his geometry homework. He ate dinner with his family, nodding and smiling in all the right places. He didn't rush. He didn't want to alert whatever invisible forces might be watching.
When he finally retreated to his room and sat at his desk, the recorder was the only thing on the table besides his notebook. He didn't turn it on. He didn't even touch the plastic casing at first. Instead, he opened his notebook to a fresh page and began to organize his thoughts, writing in a steady, disciplined hand.
* Time: 6:32 PM (Observation Start)
* Exposure: Limited to auditory secondary sources.
* Interval: 11.3 seconds (Constant).
* Dream Imagery: Unclear. Recurring motif of "Five Cores." Possible abstraction of a power grid or something physical?
* Physical State: Device shows no external heat or magnetic discharge.
He checked the casing of the recorder, noting every minor scratch and the way the metal grille was slightly dented on the left side. He placed it carefully back in the center of his desk, precisely aligned with the edge of his lamp.
Tomorrow, he told himself. Tomorrow I'll bring the others. We'll do this right. Together.
Satisfied, he set his alarm for an hour earlier than usual. He glanced at the clock on his desk.
10:00 p.m.
He smiled, a genuine feeling of readiness washing over him. He turned off the light, climbed into bed, and fell into a deep, heavy sleep, comforted by the weight of the secret sitting just three feet away.
The house grew silent. Outside, the wind died down, and the Redwood forest stood still under the silver light of a waning moon.
At 11:03 p.m., the silence in Logan's room was broken.
It wasn't a loud sound. It wasn't an urgent alarm. It was a soft, almost polite vibration—a digital sigh that seemed to ripple through the air of the room.
—bzzz… sss—
The recorder's small screen didn't light up. The tape didn't spin. But for a fraction of a second, the metal grille glowed with a faint, microscopic blue light.
Logan slept through it, his breathing slow and rhythmic. He didn't hear the sound. He didn't see the light.
But somewhere, in the dark spaces between the walls, or perhaps in the ruins of the lab across town, something noted the time.
Exactly.