The world did not break when the Eye opened.
It hesitated. For a fraction of a moment—too small to be called time, yet too heavy to be ignored—the air lost its certainty. Sound thinned. Distance faltered. The space between things forgot how far it was supposed to be.
Eiden felt it before he understood it.
A pressure settled behind his eyes, sharp but silent, as if something inside his skull had turned to face the world. He did not scream. He did not move. Instinct told him that any sudden action might tear something loose.
The street before him remained intact. Stone did not crack. Buildings did not collapse. People continued walking, unaware that reality itself had briefly paused to reconsider its own shape.
Only Eiden noticed the flaw.
Lines that should have been straight bent slightly at the edges of his vision. Shadows lagged behind their sources, as if unsure where they belonged. The world looked… misaligned.
Then it passed.
The pressure receded. Space corrected itself. Sound returned to its proper weight.
The world continued.
Eiden exhaled, unaware that he had been holding his breath.
Around him, life resumed its meaningless rhythm. A merchant argued with a customer. Metal rang against stone. Somewhere, laughter rose and fell, untouched by what had just occurred.
No one reacted.
No one asked why the air had felt wrong.
No one remembered the hesitation.
Eiden lowered his gaze to his trembling hand.
This was not the first time.
He pressed his fingers together until the shaking stopped. The sensation behind his eyes lingered, dull now, like an ache left behind by a wound that refused to fully close.
He had learned not to look directly at the world immediately after it happened.
The first time, curiosity had nearly cost him his balance. The second time, it had cost him a night of sleep, haunted by the feeling that the space around his bed was breathing.
Now, he waited.
Three slow breaths.
Only then did he lift his head.
Everything looked normal again. Too normal.
That was the part that unsettled him most.
There was no visible damage. No scar in the street. No sign that anything had gone wrong. Whatever had happened left no mark that others could see.
Yet Eiden knew—without knowing how—that something had been removed.
Not destroyed.
Removed.
The thought settled in his chest with quiet certainty.
He turned away from the street and continued walking.
The path ahead led toward the inner districts, where stone gave way to older structures and watchful silence. Eiden kept his pace steady, ignoring the faint awareness that followed him like a second shadow.
Each step felt heavier than the last.
Not from exhaustion.
From restraint.
He could feel it behind his eyes again, dormant but attentive. As if waiting for permission. As if the world itself were balanced on a fragile tolerance, and he was standing too close to the limit.
Eiden clenched his jaw.
He did not know when the Eye had first opened within him. There had been no ceremony, no prophecy whispered into his ear. Only moments like this—brief distortions, quiet absences, and a growing understanding that whatever he carried was not meant to be used freely.
The world endured.
That much was clear.
But endurance, he was beginning to learn, came at a cost.
As he reached the edge of the district, Eiden paused. The sensation behind his eyes stirred, responding to his hesitation.
He ignored it.
For now.
Because some doors, once opened, could not be closed without consequence.
And some powers, once noticed by the world, were never truly unseen again.
Eiden stepped forward, unaware that the world had already begun to adjust—to remember less, to tolerate less, and to prepare for the day it would decide whether he was still necessary.
The world moved on.
And somewhere within it, something had already been lost.