The quiet did not return.
Lior realized that first—not through sound, but through absence. The kind of silence that followed him into sleep, pressing down like a held breath that never released.
He drifted in and out of dreams that weren't dreams.
He was walking familiar streets that bent subtly the longer he looked at them. Streetlights stretched too tall. Shadows pooled where they shouldn't. Faces passed him—blurry, unfinished—turning just a second too late, as if something about him had caught their attention after he was already gone.
Then there was the cube.
It hovered in the center of everything, rotating slowly, each edge catching light that didn't exist. With every turn, the air around it rippled, like reality struggling to agree on its shape.
Lior reached out—
And woke up gasping.
His room was dark, moonlight spilling faintly through the curtains. His heart hammered against his ribs, his shirt damp with sweat. For a moment, he stayed frozen, listening.
Nothing.
No footsteps. No whispers. No movement beyond the low hum of the city outside.
Just a dream, he told himself.
But the feeling lingered. A pressure behind his eyes. A subtle awareness, like the world had shifted half an inch out of alignment.
He sat up slowly.
The cube rested on his desk.
Exactly where he'd left it.
Still, something about it felt… closer. Not physically. Conceptually. Like a word on the tip of his tongue.
Lior swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. The floor felt colder than usual beneath his feet as he crossed the room. When he reached for the cube, his fingers hesitated just above its surface.
The air around it trembled.
Not visibly—but unmistakably.
His pulse quickened. "You're not supposed to do that," he whispered, unsure who he was speaking to.
The moment his skin made contact, the sensation returned.
The Veil.
It wasn't dramatic. There were no flashes of light, no voices proclaiming hidden truths. Instead, it felt like his senses had sharpened by a fraction—just enough to notice what had always been there.
The hum of electricity in the walls. The slow rhythm of distant traffic. The weight of space itself.
And something else.
A presence.
Lior stiffened.
He turned slowly, scanning his room. Nothing had changed. Same desk. Same half-open closet. Same faint crack in the ceiling he'd memorized years ago.
But he knew he wasn't alone.
Not in the way he used to understand being alone.
He took a cautious step toward the window. As he pulled the curtain aside, the city unfolded below him—rows of sleeping buildings, glowing windows scattered like stars fallen into concrete.
Then his vision… slipped.
Not blurred. Not distorted.
Re-layered.
For half a heartbeat, the world doubled. The familiar city remained—but threaded through it was something else. Faint outlines. Silhouettes standing where no one should be. Shapes perched atop rooftops, leaning against lampposts, lingering in alleyways.
Most were dim. Unclear. Like reflections in dark glass.
But one—
One stood out.
Across the street, beneath a flickering streetlight, a figure stood perfectly still.
Too still.
Lior's breath caught.
The figure looked human. Tall. Broad-shouldered. But the edges of its form bled into shadow, as though it refused to be fully seen. The streetlight above it buzzed erratically, its glow failing to settle.
Then—slowly—the figure lifted its head.
And looked straight at him.
Lior stumbled back from the window, heart slamming wildly. He dropped the curtain, pressing his back against the wall as if it could anchor him.
"That wasn't real," he whispered.
The pressure behind his eyes spiked—then faded.
Silence rushed back in.
After a long moment, he slid down to the floor, pulling his knees to his chest. His hands shook, the image burned into his mind.
It hadn't felt hostile.
But it hadn't felt neutral either.
It noticed me.
That thought terrified him more than anything else.
Minutes passed. Or maybe hours. Eventually, exhaustion pulled him back into sleep—but it was shallow, restless, filled with half-formed impressions rather than dreams.
---
Morning arrived too soon.
Sunlight filtered through his curtains, ordinary and warm, as if the night hadn't happened at all. For a brief moment, Lior considered the possibility that everything had been imagination.
Then he saw the cube.
It sat on his desk, unchanged—yet undeniably present.
He exhaled slowly and got dressed, moving on autopilot. His reflection in the mirror looked the same: tired eyes, dark circles, hair slightly messy. No glowing marks. No signs of transformation.
And yet.
Something inside him had shifted.
The walk to school felt different.
The streets were louder than usual, colors sharper. He caught himself noticing patterns—how people unconsciously avoided certain corners, how some shadows seemed heavier than others.
Once, he felt it again.
That faint tug.
He glanced toward a narrow alley between two buildings. For a split second, the world layered again, and he saw movement where there should have been none.
Then it was gone.
By the time he reached the school gates, his nerves were stretched thin.
"Lior!"
Kai waved from near the entrance, jogging over. "You look like you didn't sleep at all."
Lior forced a smile. "Didn't really."
"Join the club." Kai laughed, then frowned slightly. "You good?"
"Yeah," Lior said automatically. "Just… tired."
They walked inside together, blending into the flow of students. The noise, the chatter, the normalcy—it helped. Grounded him.
But even here, the awareness didn't fade completely.
As they passed a teacher in the hallway, Lior felt a brief flicker—nothing visual this time, just a sense of weight. Like the air around the man was denser.
He blinked, shaken.
Stage one, a distant part of his mind whispered.
He didn't know how he knew that.
He just did.
The realization unsettled him more than the night had.
Throughout the day, the feeling persisted in subtle ways. A student who made the hairs on his arms rise. A locked storage room that felt wrong to stand near. A glance exchanged between two strangers that lingered a second too long.
None of it was enough to explain.
All of it was enough to confirm one thing.
The world was layered.
And he had stepped onto the first rung of something vast.
---
That evening, Lior stood in his room once more, cube in hand.
"I'm not ready," he said quietly.
The cube, as always, did not respond.
But somewhere beyond his awareness—beyond the reach of the Veil—forces older than the city, older than the Circle itself, took note.
A fracture had formed.
Small.
Imperfect.
But real.
And fractures, once made, never truly healed.