Morning arrived without ceremony.
The sea outside the apartment was calm—too calm, as if it had decided to behave after overhearing too much the night before. The windows were open, salt drifting in thin, lazy breaths. Sylence had been awake long before the light touched the walls.
He sat at the small dining table, fingers wrapped around a mug he hadn't touched.
The fire from the night before still lived somewhere behind his eyes.
Not the warmth.
The shape of it.
Andrew emerged first, hair damp, sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. He paused when he saw Sylence.
"You didn't sleep," Andrew said.
It wasn't a question.
Sylence didn't look up. "I did. Just not forward."
Andrew huffed softly and leaned against the counter. "That's becoming a pattern."
Lucia appeared next, barefoot, Heaven padding silently beside her. She stopped when she sensed the air—too still, like a room waiting for someone to confess.
"Did something happen?" she asked.
Sylence finally lifted his gaze. "No."
The lie was clean. That bothered him more than if it had cracked.
Andrew crossed his arms. "Then why do I feel like we left something burning?"
Silence settled again. Not awkward. Not heavy.
Measured.
Lucia moved closer, resting her hands on the back of the chair opposite Sylence. "You've been distant since the bonfire," she said gently. "Not cold. Just… elsewhere."
He studied her face—how carefully she chose words, how she watched for fractures instead of reactions.
"That place doesn't exist yet," he said. "But it's calling."
Andrew straightened. "That's not a place, Sylence. That's a direction."
Sylence's fingers tightened around the mug.
"Directions lead to conclusions," Andrew continued. "And conclusions don't usually ask permission."
Lucia's eyes flicked briefly to Heaven, then back to Sylence. "Are you planning to leave?"
"No," Sylence said.
Then, after a pause, "Not physically."
That earned him silence from both of them.
He stood, pushing the chair back. "I need to check something."
Andrew watched him carefully. "The board?"
Sylence didn't answer.
The room with the soft board felt different in daylight.
Not quieter.
More aware.
The strings were still in motion—barely perceptible shifts, tension correcting itself as if the board were breathing. Sylence didn't touch it at first. He just observed.
A new connection had formed overnight.
Not from him.
A white thread now extended from the unlabeled pin at the center—branching outward, splitting into three directions.
Each marked only by a symbol:
A spiral.
A broken circle.
A line that refused to end.
Sylence felt the pressure behind his temples.
"You're categorizing time," he murmured.
Not past, present, future.
Possibility states.
The board wasn't predicting events anymore.
It was sorting inevitabilities.
Behind him, the door creaked.
Lucia stood in the doorway, hesitant now, as if stepping closer might pull her into something she couldn't unsee.
"Is this… about the people you were investigating?" she asked.
Sylence exhaled slowly. "It's about what they're preparing for."
Lucia swallowed. "And what are you preparing for?"
He turned to her.
"For something that doesn't want to be stopped," he said. "Only delayed."
Her hand tightened around the doorframe. "Sylence… that sounds like a reason to step back."
He shook his head. "That's the reason I can't."
From somewhere deep—too deep—the watch on his wrist vibrated once.
Lucia noticed.
"What was that?"
Sylence covered it instinctively. "Nothing."
That lie cracked.
Lucia didn't press. She never did. Instead, she took a step closer, eyes fixed not on the board, but on him.
"You don't talk like someone who's fighting an enemy," she said. "You talk like someone negotiating with an ending."
The words landed harder than any accusation.
Sylence looked away.
That night, sleep came violently.
Not drifting.
Not fading.
Falling.
He stood in a place without shape—no ground, no sky. Only depth. Only presence.
A voice spoke, not aloud, but directly into the space between thought and fear.
You are early.
Sylence didn't answer.
That is acceptable. You always are.
A figure began to form—not whole, not broken. Serpentine in motion, but fractured in outline, as if multiple concepts were failing to agree on a single shape.
"You called me," Sylence said.
You touched the edge of me.
The presence coiled—not around Sylence, but through him.
Names are permissions, it said. You may use mine now.
Sylence felt the word before he heard it.
Schyper.
The sound resonated like a misaligned chord.
"You're part of the Septet," Sylence said.
The presence paused.
Not denial.
Consideration.
I am what they allowed to leave.
Sylence's breath caught. "A fragment."
A compromise, Schyper corrected. Consensus leaves debris.
Images flooded Sylence's mind—seven viewpoints colliding, arguments without sound, reality bending under the weight of internal debate.
They cannot act while I exist separately, Schyper continued. I delay them by being incomplete.
Sylence clenched his fists. "Then why come to me?"
The presence leaned closer.
Because fragments seek alignment. And you are already misaligned enough to listen.
A final instruction pressed into Sylence's consciousness like a brand.
Bring the gift. Bring the one who watches without knowing. Come alone.
The space collapsed.
Sylence woke with a sharp inhale, heart racing.
Morning light filtered through the curtains.
From the hallway, he heard Lucia humming softly—unaware, alive, grounded.
On the floor beside his bed, the soft toy rested exactly where it hadn't been left.
Its stitched smile seemed… sharper.
Sylence sat up slowly.
Whatever he was walking toward next—
It had already started walking toward him.
Sylence told Andrew to leave and return because he was updated with a warning
a horrible warning!!