Chapter 9 — It Notices Him
The shadow leaned closer.
Not threatening. Not careful.
Just enough to see.
Kael felt it then—something tugging at him from the inside. Not pain. Not power. More like a pressure behind his ribs, like a second heartbeat waking up late.
He clenched his jaw. "Don't start anything you can't finish."
The shadow didn't react.
The ground under Kael's knee cracked. A thin line spread outward, glowing faintly, then faded. The pressure eased just a bit.
Enough for him to stand.
He got to his feet slowly, eyes locked on the thing in front of him. Up close, it didn't look solid. Its shape shifted when he focused on it too hard, like smoke trying to remember how to be a body.
The air between them bent.
Then the shadow reached out.
No hand. Just a stretch of itself, thinning and extending toward Kael's chest.
He didn't step back.
The moment it touched him, the world jolted.
Kael gasped as a rush of images slammed into his head—broken lands, empty cities, skies that had already opened like this one. Not memories. Not visions.
Examples.
He staggered but stayed standing. His heart pounded hard enough to hurt.
"So that's it," he said through clenched teeth. "You're checking if I fit."
The shadow pulled back slightly.
The pressure shifted. Changed shape.
Text appeared, shaking.
> INTERACTION REGISTERED
ANOMALY RESPONSE: UNEXPECTED
Kael laughed once. It came out rough. "You keep saying that."
The ground steadied. The sky-eye stopped opening. The ruins behind him stopped floating and settled back into the sand like nothing had happened.
The shadow straightened.
Then it did something strange.
It stepped aside.
The pressure lifted almost completely.
Kael blinked. "You're… letting me pass?"
The shadow didn't answer.
Behind it, the land stretched out farther than Kael could see—dark hills, broken shapes, something like a road that hadn't decided what it was yet.
Text appeared one last time, smaller than before.
> PATH UNLOCKED
CONSEQUENCE DEFERRED
Kael wiped his face with his sleeve and let out a slow breath.
"Of course it is."
He stepped past the shadow.
It didn't stop him.
As he walked forward, the pressure returned—not heavy, not crushing—but close. Like something walking just behind him, watching how he moved.
Kael didn't look back.
Whatever he'd just done, the world hadn't liked it.
But it hadn't rejected him either.
And that felt like the start of something worse.