​Chapter 1

 

 

There’s a spot on my ceiling that looks exactly like a screaming face. Not the horror-movie kind, either—more like a Greek statue after a thousand years of weather, half-eroded, mouth frozen wide in something between terror and awe. I study it every morning while the alarm on my phone ratchets up from soft digital burble to shrill panic. Today, I let it scream for nearly a minute before I punch it silent and roll over into the mound of laundry masquerading as a bedspread.

 

The rest of my room is basically an evidence locker for the past month’s unexplainable crap. Printouts of the symbol—my symbol, the one that first showed up in the locker at school—plaster the walls above my desk in a crime-board collage, red thread optional. I’ve got Miri’s sketches taped up next to the blurry phone pictures, her looping notes crowding the margins: Runic alphabet, celestial calendar, Occult? Her handwriting slants like it’s in a hurry to escape the page, which fits, since Miri never seems to sit still long enough for gravity to find her.

 

The actual symbol itself—three nested loops with slashes at precise intervals, faintly phosphorescent when you catch it in the right light—stares at me from the crumpled paper in my fist. I try, for the hundredth time, to decide if it’s an ancient warning or a cosmic inside joke. The internet is zero help. Reddit is a wasteland of misattributed memes and conspiracy theories, none of which are as weird as what happened to me in the hallway outside Chemistry.

 

Which is why I’m scrolling through the dankest, most aggressively stupid meme thread I can find, trying to cauterize the anxiety in my chest with a transfusion of pure digital nonsense. It works, barely, until Mom yells up the stairs, voice hoarse from a night spent arguing with insurance companies and sleeplessness.

 

“Jack! Breakfast or you’re late—again!”

 

She doesn’t say “again” like an accusation. She says it like a fact of weather, or physics: time only moves in one direction and my mornings are always slow. I drag myself upright, peeling my shirt off the floor and giving it the world’s most perfunctory sniff test. Passable. As I head down the hallway, I catch a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror—bedhead in all directions, eyelids scored with the aftermath of three hours’ sleep, and that hollowed-out look you get from too many consecutive days of being haunted by your own thoughts. Nothing a gallon of coffee and a hoodie can’t mask, at least until third period.

 

Mom is at the kitchen table, already halfway through a mug of black sludge she calls coffee. She’s wearing her default business casual: faded gray sweater, black pants, reading glasses perched on top of her head like a tiny crown of thorns. The laptop in front of her is open to a spreadsheet that makes my brain throb just looking at it. She doesn’t glance up as I slouch into the chair across from her, but I catch the twitch in her jaw when I scrape my chair on the tile.

 

There’s cereal on the table, but it’s the off-brand kind with a name that’s just different enough to avoid lawsuits. I ignore it and reach for the toaster, which has already coughed up two blackened slabs of bread. I eat them dry, chewing each bite into paste before swallowing.

 

“You got your math test first block?” she says, eyes glued to the screen. I nod, mouth too full to answer, and she finally looks up, pinning me with those dark, sharp eyes that miss nothing and forgive less.

 

“You’ll need to hustle,” she says. “I’ve got an eight-thirty with a client, and your bus is—”

 

“—three minutes early all week, I know,” I say. I can’t help it; the words come out coated in sarcasm, like they’re dipped in some kind of self-defense mechanism. She frowns, not at the comment, but at the way I keep flicking my gaze past her, like there’s something waiting to leap out of the pantry.

 

She sets the mug down and folds her hands. “Jack. Can you look at me for a second?”

 

I do, and there it is: the same exhaustion that’s been pulling at her features since I was twelve. But lately, it’s metastasized. Her skin looks thinner, almost translucent in the morning light, and there’s a tremor in her fingers when she drums them against the ceramic.

 

“Did you sleep last night?” she asks.

 

“Sort of,” I say. “Had some homework.” I don’t mention the part where I spent two hours pacing the hallway, listening for the click of our mailbox slot, positive I’d see another envelope from the symbol people. Or worse, from that freak in the suit.

 

She seems about to press, but then the phone on the counter buzzes, and she snaps into multitask mode, tapping a reply with one hand while she rifles through her legal pad with the other. “You remember I’ve got the late shift tonight?” she says, barely pausing for my answer. “If you need dinner, there’s pasta in the freezer. Just—don’t leave the stove on this time. I don’t need another insurance claim.”

 

I try to laugh, but it comes out strangled. “I promise to avoid open flame unless absolutely necessary.”

 

She softens a little, the corners of her mouth twitching. “Good. You have enough trouble as it is.” She says this the way you’d say, You have enough freckles. Or, You have enough rain in your shoes. It’s just a fact, something woven into the genetic fabric of our family.

 

I shovel down the last of my charcoal toast, and for a second, I consider telling her about the man in the gray suit, the way he’s started showing up in places he shouldn’t. But I know how that story ends. She’d give me that look—half-worried, half-exasperated—before reminding me to focus on the tangible world, not the “otherworldly nonsense” I keep collecting like stray cats.

 

The silence between us stretches, full of unsaid things. I stand to go, scraping my plate into the trash. Mom watches me, her gaze softening just for a breath. “Be good,” she says. “Or at least be careful.”

 

I want to say something reassuring, something like “Don’t worry,” but I can’t remember the last time that felt true. So I just nod and grab my backpack, already dreading the gauntlet of the day ahead.

 

At the door, I look back once. The morning light paints Mom’s face in grays and blues, and I swear the room itself seems to bend away from her, like the shadows are retreating. I wonder, not for the first time, if something is draining her, or if it’s just the steady attrition of single-parent survival.

 

On the porch, the air bites cold. I pull my hood up and step into the day, the symbol burning a hole in my pocket and the question burning a hole in my mind: Is it me, or is the world actually getting weirder?

 

Hard to say. But I have math in first block and, if I don’t hustle, a detention in second.

 

The walk to school takes exactly sixteen minutes if I don’t stop to stare at the cracks in the sidewalk, or the black birds that line up on the telephone wire above Jefferson like undertakers at a mass funeral. Most days, I pop in my earbuds and let the white noise of someone else’s existential dread—usually punk or lo-fi hip hop—bludgeon the thoughts I don’t want. Today, it’s a playlist Miri made for me, with track titles like “You Are Not Alone (But That’s Not Necessarily Good)” and “Spectral Analysis.”

 

It works, until it doesn’t. Because as I round the corner by the old strip mall, there’s a man standing on the other side of the street, perfectly still. He’s tall, gaunt, and the gray suit fits him too precisely, like it was poured on instead of tailored. The part that gets me is the way he stands—weightless, arms at his sides, no visible breath despite the sharp cold. Not even the tiniest muscle twitch. He’s not watching the traffic or staring at his phone or doing any of the things people do to look like they belong in the world. He’s just… present.

 

I speed up, eyes glued to the phone in my hand, but curiosity wins over fear. I sneak a glance across the street. The man’s still there, but something is off. His outline isn’t solid—it flickers at the edges, just barely, like the border of a heat mirage. When I lock eyes with him, for the briefest second, the world around him blurs. Then he turns and walks away, each step disturbingly smooth, as if he’s on a conveyor belt nobody else can see.

 

I stop dead. The song on my playlist drops into a glitchy instrumental bridge. I replay what I saw, twice, three times, but the memory only gets stranger. When I look again, he’s gone.

 

By the time I reach school, my pulse is a hummingbird trapped in my chest. The lot is a chaos of late-model sedans and teachers chain-smoking by the dumpsters. I duck through the doors and merge with the morning tide of backpacks and drama. Locker 319 waits at the far end of the north hall, just past the smell of ammonia and overcooked bagels from the cafeteria.

 

I hesitate, as always, before spinning the combination. I half-expect the symbol to flare back to life, that sickly afterimage haunting the inside of my eyelids. Instead, I get a locker full of cold, bland textbooks and a half-eaten protein bar. No omens, no warnings. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

 

But as I reach for my math book, the metal under my fingers is warm. Not room temperature—body temperature, as if someone’s been clutching it from the inside. I pull my hand back, then press my palm to the surface. There’s a faint, almost imperceptible vibration. Not enough to set off alarms, but enough to let me know it’s there.

 

I lean close and whisper, “Not today, weird locker stuff.” The vibration ticks up a notch, like a heartbeat, then fades. The sense memory of it lingers in my hand, pins and needles running up my wrist.

 

First block is the dreaded math test—Advanced Algebra, of course. The kind that sends a cold spike of anxiety down my spine before I’ve even cracked the booklet open. Mr. Peterson stands at the front, passing out test sheets with the grim solemnity of a funeral director. Each desk receives its own packet and, with it, the unspoken threat of academic doom.

 

I try to keep my head down, reading the first question through the buzz of the fluorescent lights and the low-grade panic humming in my skull. Every time Peterson’s marker squeaks across the whiteboard—writing “SHOW ALL WORK”—my nerves fray a little more. I blink, and for a moment, the numbers on the page seem to bend, the edges of the room warping whenever I avert my gaze.

About halfway through, my pencil slips from my grip. It rolls off the desk, hits the floor, and keeps going—doesn’t stop like it should, but instead starts spinning in place, a lazy orbit that makes no physical sense. No one else even looks up. I reach down, grab it, and the spinning halts as if nothing happened.

 

When I set the pencil back on my desk, it vibrates. Just a tiny tremor, as if it’s waiting for me to give it orders. I really don’t have time for this, so I grab it and get back to the test.

 

It happens again in second block. This time it’s the window behind me: every time I get frustrated, the glass hums, just softly enough that nobody else reacts. I stare out at the courtyard, at the bare trees and the crows lined up on the fence. For a split second, the world outside the glass wavers, as if someone’s pressed a thumb against the projector lens.

 

By third period, I’ve convinced myself it’s all in my head. Maybe I’m sleep-deprived. Maybe it’s a side effect of last week’s sinus meds. I make it almost ten minutes into Chemistry before I forget and say, out loud, “This is so pointless.” The beaker in my hand rattles so hard I nearly drop it. The kid next to me, a sophomore with a backpack full of anime patches, looks over and mouths, “You okay?” I force a nod, but the glass keeps shaking until I set it down.

 

The rest of the class blurs. Every object I touch seems to respond—microscopes tilting, lab stools creeping closer, even the dry erase marker on the teacher’s desk rolling toward me when I look at it too long. I keep my hands jammed in my pockets, willing everything to stop.

 

After the bell, I stand in the hallway and try to breathe. My hands won’t stop buzzing. The symbol in my pocket feels heavier than before, like it’s absorbing the charge from my nerves.

 

I look over my shoulder, half-expecting to see the man in the gray suit waiting for me in the crowd. He isn’t, but that only makes it worse.

 

Something is definitely wrong. I just hope it’s still fixable.

 

Lunch is chaos. Not the fun, movie-version kind with food fights and hot girls trading secrets over trays of fries—more like a bad ecosystem documentary. The apex predators (varsity, debate, drama club) circle their prey while the rest of us try to fade into the linoleum. My table is in the far corner by the emergency exit, a zone reserved for the chronically overlooked and the actively avoided. I like it that way.

 

Today, though, I can’t shake the sense that every single person in this room is watching me, even when their eyes are glued to phones or the back of their best friend’s head. I unwrap my lunch (prepackaged hummus and pita triangles, because Mom doesn’t trust the school food), set my can of Mountain Dew on the table, and try to project maximum invisibility.

 

It lasts maybe five minutes before Mr. Peterson, whose job description must include “tormenting kids outside of class,” prowls by with his clipboard. He’s collecting names for the after-school math lab, which I’ve managed to dodge for three weeks straight.

 

“Maddox,” he says, barely looking at me, “are you planning to pass this semester, or should I start prepping your summer syllabus?”

 

I want to tell him to go choke on a quadratic equation, but instead I mumble, “Yeah, I’m on it.” My voice is so low it barely makes it across the table.

 

He grunts and moves on. I glare at his receding comb-over and say, just loud enough for myself, “Peterson’s tests are literally explosive.”

 

The word “explosive” is barely out of my mouth when the soda can detonates in my hand. There’s no warning—no hiss or slow buildup—just a sharp metallic pop and a geyser of sticky yellow-green that arcs straight into my face and across the table. Hummus, notebook, hoodie: all instantly baptized in neon sugar water.

 

The nearest table goes dead silent. Three freshmen start laughing, high-pitched and synchronized like a flock of crows. I’m frozen, droplets of soda dripping from my nose, my hand still clenched around the crushed, spurting can.

 

For a second, I can’t move. The cafeteria noise rushes back, a wave of whispers and stares. My ears burn. I wipe my face with a napkin and try to clean the table, but the more I dab, the stickier it gets. I hear someone say my name—“Jack, dude, what even was that?”—and I realize it’s Anime Patch from Chemistry, standing two tables over, eyebrows raised.

 

I shrug, mouth dry. “Guess I shook it too hard.”

 

But I know I didn’t. I know exactly what I did: I said “explosive,” and the universe obliged.

 

The bell can’t come fast enough. I dump my trash and bolt for the bathroom, detouring past the lockers to grab a change of shirt from my gym bag. The men’s room is empty, thank god. I pick the farthest stall and lock myself in, peeling off my wet hoodie and staring at the constellation of yellow stains spreading across my chest.

 

I fish my phone from my pocket and text Miri, hands trembling:

 

my soda just exploded. like LITERALLY exploded when i was talking about peterson’s test. please tell me i’m not losing my mind.

 

I stare at the screen, waiting for the dots to appear. None do. I tap out a second message, pretending it’s all a joke:

 

also, pretty sure i’m being watched. guy in gray suit again. edges went all blurry when i looked at him. normal tuesday stuff, right?

 

This time, I hit send and immediately regret it. Miri is probably in choir, her phone in a locker or dead at the bottom of her bag.

 

I try to breathe. My hands won’t stop shaking. I wipe the stickiness off my skin with cheap brown paper towels, which only makes me smell like a janitor’s closet. I bury my face in my arms and count to twenty, then try again.

 

When I look up, the stall door is pulsing. Not moving, exactly, but the edge of the gray metal vibrates, as if every sound in the building is bottlenecking right here. I press my palm to it; the vibration climbs my bones, all the way to my teeth.

 

Someone else comes in. Their footsteps are measured, deliberate. I can’t see who it is, but every sense in my body goes on red alert.

 

They don’t head for the urinals. They don’t make any noise at all. Just a single pair of shoes—leather, I think—moving closer, then stopping directly outside my stall.

 

For a moment, all I hear is the blood thumping in my ears.

 

The silence stretches. Then, slowly, the shoes turn and walk away. The bathroom door creaks open, then swings closed with a soft hiss.

 

I don’t move. I don’t breathe. I wait another full minute before daring to unlock the stall.

 

When I finally step out, the bathroom is empty. The only evidence of anyone having been here is the residue of my own nervous system and the faint, lingering warmth on the outside of the stall door.

 

I check my phone again. Still no reply from Miri.

 

Fine. If the universe wants to play games, I’ll play. But I’m not going to lose.

 

I slick my hair back with cold water, pull on the spare shirt, and stare myself down in the mirror. My reflection holds, eyes wide and wild, mouth set in a line I don’t recognize.

 

“Get it together, Maddox,” I say, and the fluorescent light above me flickers in agreement.

 

I leave the bathroom ready for the next round, whatever that means.