My sixteenth birthday is a paradox in denim shorts and bug spray: everyone outside smiling, but everyone inside running the numbers on how long before the first awkward silence. The sun beats down in a contest of endurance, daring us to admit we’re hot and miserable, but none of us want to be first.

​​

It’s June 21st, which apparently matters—Summer Solstice, longest day, all the thresholds and transitions, at least according to my mother’s ancient calendar and newer bottle of wine. Every year it’s the same: she brings out the trivia, tries to make it special, and I pretend not to roll my eyes so hard I sprain an optic nerve.

​​

Today, though, the weather is a living thing, stalking us. Humidity clings to the back of my neck like the breath of some old world monster. I keep one hand on the condensation-slick glass of ginger ale, and the other crammed into my pocket, fingers worry-stoning a house key that’s already wearing a groove into my thigh. The yard is as prepared as it ever is: folding chairs, battered lawn games, a vinyl tablecloth with a repeating pattern of bluebirds that my mother claims is “vintage,” which I guess is true if you count Target 2004 as a bygone era.

​​

Miri is the first to arrive, her hair a defiant violet this week, and somehow she makes “slightly wilted in the sun” look like a deliberate mood. I half expect her to melt into a puddle of sarcasm and eyeliner. She gives me a present in a crumpled brown bag—no wrapping, just a crude drawing of a goat on the side and the message “for Emrys” in block letters. I almost choke at the sight of the name, but she grins, like always, daring me to say something clever.

 

“Open it,” she stage-whispers. “It’s not cursed. Probably.”

​

Inside: a battered, first-edition paperback of The Egyptian Book of the Dead. The back is signed: “Happy Birthday, Necromancer. Don’t forget the little people.”

​

“I see you went for subtle,” I say, dry as drought.

​

“Would you even recognize subtle if it knocked up your breakfast cereal?”

​

I’m about to answer when Valerie—Mom—calls everyone in for cake. She’s at the patio door, hips cocked in her business-casual stance, coffee mug in one hand, and her phone in the other, already counting down the seconds until she can escape back to emails and depositions.

​

It’s just the three of us and a handful of school acquaintances who came for the free food: Ben from soccer, who’ll eat anything and everything; Cara, who doesn’t talk to me except for desperate chemistry homework questions; and Tyler, who I’m convinced is only here because he lost a bet.

​​

The cake is homemade, which means it’s three layers, slightly slumped, and covered in icing so bright it might violate the Geneva Conventions. Sixteen candles, already softening at the tips in the sun. Mom is doing that thing where she wants to be present and meaningful, but her smile is tight as an overtuned guitar string, and her eyes keep darting to her phone like she’s bracing for news she won’t like.

​​

She says, “Make a wish, Jack,” and I almost laugh, because if there’s one thing my family has taught me, it’s that wishes are a liability.

​​

I shut my eyes, breathe in sugar and ozone and the sour metallic tang of summer sweat. I wish—nothing. I blow out all sixteen candles anyway.

​​

There’s applause. A single golf clap from Miri. The cake is served. Conversation limps along in bursts—something about college applications, summer jobs, the tragic existence of cats in Tyler’s neighborhood. No one mentions my meltdown at the end of sophomore year. Maybe that’s progress.

​​

After the cake, I slip away under the pretense of putting dishes in the kitchen. I can see Mom through the sliding glass, out on the patio with her back to me, shoulders hunched like she’s bracing against an invisible wind.

 

My phone vibrates: “U ok?” Miri, of course.

​​

I reply with a gif of a cartoon raccoon in a trash can, on fire.

​​

Her response: “That’s my cryptid king. Don’t disappear on me.”

​

I look down at the cake knife, the sticky plastic fork, the bluebird napkin dotted with icing. The urge to run is sudden and electric, a muscle memory. But there’s nowhere to go, not really. I stare at my own reflection in the fridge for a beat: pale, angular, acne blooming along my jaw, eyes a blue so sharp they sometimes look fake. I’m not what anyone expects. Maybe not even what I expect.

​

Mom finds me, inevitably, when I’m hiding in the garage, examining the fossil record of our failed household projects: dead Christmas lights, a broken toaster, some kind of animal skeleton in a paint can.

 

She leans in the doorway, mug finally empty. “You want to talk?”

​

I shake my head.

​​

“Not even about the thing last week?”

​​

I don’t answer. She lets it hang.

​​

“I had dreams about you, you know. Before you were born.” She says this like she’s confessing a murder, not for the first time. “You came to me as three different kids. Each a little more… you than the last.”

​​

“Okay,” I say, slow and careful, “that’s not even the weirdest thing you’ve told me.”

​​

She almost smiles. “You were born at three thresholds. Solstice, astrological cusp, and a planetary alignment that only happens every seventeen thousand years. I wrote it all down. It’s probably in a box somewhere.”

​​

I want to ask why this matters, why she’s bringing it up now, but I already know. Because after the thing in the locker, nothing is normal anymore. Because I started saying words I don’t remember learning, and she started seeing me as a stranger in her own kitchen.

​​

I just say, “I’m not special, Mom. I’m just me.”

​​

She hugs me, stiff and brief, then lets me go. “Go enjoy your party. Try not to break the world for one afternoon.”

 

The world’s already broken, I think. But sure, I’ll try.

 

#

 

It started with Locker 319.

​

The school year was two weeks from death, everyone in a state of advanced senioritis even if they weren’t seniors. I was opening my locker, thinking only about how much the rust on the door looked like blood spatters, when I saw it: a symbol drawn on the inside, fresh and angry, pulsing with a light not entirely explainable by science or psychosis.

 

I stared at it. The lines writhed, geometry folding and unfolding on itself like it was being animated by some hidden hand. Then a voice—not audible, not imagined, but intimate as a secret—said: “Emrys.” Not a sound, but a signature, written directly onto the surface of my thoughts.

​

I yanked the door closed. I think I stood there for a minute, maybe three. When I opened it again, the symbol was still there, but it was just black Sharpie now, nothing more.

​

I told Miri, because she was the only one who wouldn’t call the guidance office. She stared at the symbol like it was a long-lost relative, then took a photo, emailed it to herself, and spent the next three days texting me at all hours about “cymatics,” “sacred geometry,” and why the ancients were definitely more fun at parties.

​​

But the dreams started after. The first was a blur: I was falling through a tower of glass and stone, stars crashing past me in reverse, and a name burning my tongue until I woke up biting the inside of my cheek. Every night, some variation, but always the tower, always the voice.

​​

Then, that day in History, the substitute.

​

He walked in with a gait too smooth, hair like spun mercury, and eyes that changed color when the fluorescent lights flickered. He looked over the room and paused on me. Not on the way teachers do, but like he was verifying a long-standing hypothesis.

​

He started class with a story about the Tower of Babel, but he got it wrong, on purpose, and no one cared except me and maybe Miri, who spent the whole period looking at the sigil photo on her phone instead of listening. But halfway through the lecture, he drew something on the board—a variation of the symbol in my locker, only this one bent at the corners, reversed and amplified.

​​

When he turned around, his eyes were silver. He said my name, but not “Jack.” He said “Emrys.” I blacked out for two seconds, maybe less, but when I came to, I was lying on the floor, everyone gathered around me, staring. Miri helped me up and got me the nurses office. The substitute just nodded, smiled like a job well done.

​​

That evening as I was sitting waiting for a ride home from Mom, he found me, and we… talked. Then he threatened me, and I responded. Not by running, or even attacking him, I just said some syllables I didn’t know I know. After that, a bright light and he was gone.

​​

The next day, he wasn’t back. When I asked the office, they said there was never a sub assigned to our class.

 

That night, I dreamed of the tower again, only this time I wasn’t falling—I was climbing, dragging myself hand over hand up a staircase made of glass, each step cutting my palms. At the top was a mirror, and in the mirror was me, only older, eyes like embers, mouth stained black from whatever I’d been eating.

​​

I woke up with a name in my mouth: Emrys. I spat it into the sink and watched it swirl down the drain.

​​

#

 

After the party winds down, Ben and Tyler gone, Cara texting from the curb, Miri helps me carry folding chairs back to the garage.

​​

“So. Sixteen. Do you feel different?” she asks, tossing a chair onto the heap.

​​

I consider lying, but my brain is too tired for it. “I keep waiting for it to matter. Maybe it’s defective.”

​​

“Or maybe it’s the world that’s defective.”

​​

I can’t argue. I’m still thinking about the symbol, the way it burns behind my eyelids when I blink too long.

 

“You know,” she says, “I had a dream about that symbol. Before you showed it to me.”

​​

I look at her, waiting for the punchline.

​​

“I was in this place, all stone and water, and you were there, but older, and you were writing on the air with light. It was the same symbol. You told me to remember it. But I forgot, until I saw your locker.”

​​

I try to laugh, but it comes out thin.

​

She puts a hand on my shoulder, steady. “You’re not crazy, Jack. You’re just—remembering.”

​​

The word sticks. Remembering. As if my life is a rerun I’m only now watching for the second time.

​​

I tell her, “Sometimes I feel like I’m not real. Like I’m just a placeholder, until the real thing shows up.”

​​

She squeezes my shoulder, then lets go. “You’re real enough for me. And if you ever want to talk about weird dreams, you know where to find me.”

​

We stand in the garage, surrounded by the fossil evidence of past mistakes. I want to tell her about how I am feeling, about the way the world feels like it’s rotating on a different axis now, but I don’t have the words. Instead, I fish the house key from my pocket and let it click against my palm, a private semaphore.

​​

She leaves. The house is quiet, except for the low hum of the fridge and the clock in the hallway that’s always five minutes fast. I stand at the window, staring into the backyard, where the candles are melted stubs and the bluebird napkins are scattered like feathers.

​

I wonder what would happen if I drew the symbol again, on purpose. If I called the name out loud, instead of swallowing it.

​​

I don’t, of course. Not yet.

​

I watch the darkness settle over the yard, the world holding its breath for whatever comes next.

​

The first week of July, the air sticks to itself like an old grudge. Mornings begin with the low, conspiratorial whine of cicadas and end with everything—skin, hair, thoughts—stained by humidity. I count the days by the wilted parade of Amazon boxes on our stoop. Mom’s retail therapy; my only evidence of a world outside this weather.

​

Today’s package isn’t from Amazon, at least not officially. No smile logo, no tracking sticker, no sign of its origin. Just an anonymous rectangle, brown and utterly unremarkable, except for the absence of fingerprints or dust, as if it was materialized there by some cosmic delivery drone. I poke it with the toe of my Converse, half-expecting it to detonate in a cloud of sentient wasps.

​

It doesn’t. So I pick it up, its weight more psychological than physical, and carry it inside.

​

Mom is at work already. She left a sticky note: “Please for the love of god take the chicken out of the freezer. Also don’t burn the house down.” The pen is running out of ink. The subtext is running out of patience.

​​

I put the box on the kitchen table. Look at it. Walk around it. It’s sealed with old-fashioned brown tape, the kind you’d find in a detective’s office or a Cold War dead drop. There’s no return address, no “To Jack” or “Occupant” or even a bad joke in sharpie. Just my name, written in letters that are careful and slightly too perfect.

​

I consider not opening it, but that feels like a defeat. So I grab a butter knife and slit the tape down the middle. Inside: a book, swaddled in tissue paper and more secrecy.

​

The cover is glossy and sky blue, titled in raised silver: “Uplifting Humanity: The Path Toward Conscious Evolution.” Author: Ethan Cross, PhD. The blurb on the back promises secrets of consciousness, self-mastery, and the hidden engine of history itself. It’s every cult-adjacent self-help book ever, but with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

​​

I check the rest of the box—no note, no threatening letter, not even a bookmark. I flip through the pages. Half of it is diagrams: fractal shapes, energy fields, strange mathematics that makes my skin crawl just to look at. Every so often, a symbol flickers on the page, gone when I blink. I swear I see the sigil from my locker, twice.

​​

I close the book, fast, and run my thumb along the edge of the cover. “Ethan Cross” sounds like a name made up for TV, the kind that’s always one step away from “John Doe.” But the dust jacket has a photo: mid-fifties, hair trimmed like an astronaut, a suit that looks like it was tailored by someone who used to work for the CIA.

​

I put the book back in the box. My chest is tight, like the air pressure dropped without warning.

​

I text Miri: “You free? There’s something you need to see.”

​​

#

 

We meet at the playground behind the abandoned Rite Aid, because she likes the view and the swings have the least graffiti. She’s wearing black cutoffs and a tank top that says “Existential Dread is My Cardio.” She clocks the package the moment I sit down.

​

“Don’t tell me,” she says, “the Illuminati finally sent your membership card.”

​​

I hand her the box. She pulls the book out, holds it up to the light, and gives a low whistle.

​

“Fancy. This has major cult energy. Did you order it?”

​

“I don’t even have a debit card.”

​

“Who’s Ethan Cross?”

​

I shrug. “Your guess is better than mine.”

​​

She opens to a random page and reads aloud: “‘All consciousness is a resonance field. Once you attune to the right frequency, you can manipulate the fabric of reality itself.’” She grins. “Bet this guy microdosed on the regular.”

 

I watch the way her hands hover over the diagrams. She’s drawn to the weird the way flies are drawn to lightbulbs. I want to tell her to just take the book, keep it, but I’m not sure that’s allowed.

​​

She looks up, suddenly serious. “Is this about your locker? The symbol?”

​

I hesitate. “I think it’s all the same thing. Or, I don’t know. It feels like it is.”

​

She closes the book, cradling it like something alive. “You’re scared.”

​​

“No shit.”

​

She tilts her head. “You want me to read it for you?”

​​

A part of me does, badly. Another part wants to dig a hole and bury the book and everything else under a metric ton of denial.

​

I shake my head. “I just want one normal summer. One. No symbols, no weird dreams, no secret societies trying to hack my consciousness.”

​

She traces her finger along the edge of the cover, then hands it back. “You know it doesn’t work that way.”

 

“Humor me,” I say. “Just this once.”

​​

She rolls her eyes, but she relents. “Fine. But if you turn into a brainwashed zombie, I get dibs on your vinyl collection.”

​​

“It’s all digital. And you hate my taste in music.”

​​

“All the more reason to torch it.”

​

The banter feels good, like a muscle I forgot I had. We sit in silence for a while, just swinging, watching the clouds stall out against the sky. The package is tucked under my arm, the book pressing against my ribs like a secret I’m supposed to keep.

​

Eventually she stands, wipes her hands on her shorts. “You know where to find me. When you’re ready to stop pretending.”

​

I watch her walk away, hair catching the sun for a split second, then gone.

​

Back home, I shelve the book between a used copy of Slaughterhouse-Five and the collected works of H.P. Lovecraft, as if putting it next to other kinds of madness will somehow dilute its effect. I stare at the spine until my eyes go watery.

​​

For the rest of the summer, I don’t touch it.

​​

But I know it’s there, humming with a frequency only I can hear.

​

#

​​

August dies slow. Daylight leaks away in increments, replaced by the flat, indifferent heat of streetlamps and the tick of cicadas that seem to grow more desperate as the nights get longer. Even time feels tired. Most people are winding down: back-to-school ads everywhere, neighborhood kids trading their bikes for calculators, Mom trying to convince herself that this year will be different, that maybe I’ll join Debate or Key Club and become a functional member of society.

​​

I haven’t touched the book. But I can’t stop thinking about it.

​​

It’s on my shelf, right where I left it, but it’s like my peripheral vision keeps catching it in the act of moving. Sometimes I hear pages turning in the middle of the night. Sometimes I swear I smell ozone, the same metallic tang as the air right before a thunderstorm. Miri keeps texting me memes about secret societies and brainwashing, but every so often she slips in a real question: “Have you read it yet?” I ignore those.

​​

It’s three a.m., the last Sunday of August. I’m awake, because my dreams are getting more vivid. They always start the same: the tower, the stone steps, the feeling of climbing toward something old and sharp and absolute. Lately, there’s been a new detail: a man at the top, dressed in a suit that glitters like a beetle’s carapace, eyes silver as the moon. Sometimes he’s reading from a book. Sometimes he’s writing symbols in the air with a finger made of light.

 

I’m sweating, even though the window’s open. I can hear Mom’s snoring from her room down the hall, each inhale and exhale a metronome keeping me company. I roll out of bed, knock over a stack of printouts—my own pathetic attempt at mapping the sigil from every angle, hoping to catch it in the act of making sense.

​

My desk is a disaster: notebook full of scrawled questions, a half-dozen sketches of the symbol, coffee mug that now serves as pen graveyard. I thumb through the pile, half-expecting something to have changed while I slept, but it’s the same mess as always.

​​

The book is still on the shelf. I stare at it for a long time, convincing myself that ignoring it is the right call. But the part of my brain that’s always hungry, always unsatisfied, is louder tonight. It says: What’s the worst that can happen?

​​

I pull it down. The cover is cold, almost wet to the touch. The title shimmers, letters rippling as if printed on water.

 

I open to the first page. The dedication is blank, except for a tiny, hand-drawn version of the sigil in the corner.

 

The introduction is written in the kind of prose that makes you want to argue with it, even if you don’t know why. It’s equal parts manifesto and science fiction, claiming the next step in human evolution isn’t physical, but “noetic”—some kind of quantum leap in consciousness. There’s a lot about fields and frequencies, about “tuning the mind to universal harmonics.” It’s both dense and intoxicating, like chugging an energy drink made of pure conspiracy.

​​

I keep reading. Hours slip by. The diagrams start to make sense—not sense in the normal way, but in the way that certain music makes your skin go electric. At one point, I realize I’m tracing the lines with my finger, matching the pattern without meaning to. It feels like a nervous habit, but also like a rehearsal.

​​

A sentence jumps out at me, as if it’s been waiting: “The Operator must know the Key, but only the Key can reveal the Operator.”

​​

I read it again, slower. My hand starts moving on its own, drawing the sigil on the back of my notebook, same as always, but this time I finish it. There’s a strange relief, a sense of closure. I say the word that’s been in my head since the locker: “Emrys.”

​​

The lamp on my desk flickers, then turns a shade of blue so intense it blots out everything else. I drop the book, recoil, but the glow keeps growing, spilling across the desk, up the walls, until it’s the only thing left.

​

In the light, I see something—a face, or the idea of a face, watching from the space between seconds. Its eyes are silver, and I know it’s the man from my dreams. He mouths a word I can’t hear, and the blue deepens, becomes a tunnel, becomes a memory.

​​

I’m not in my room anymore. I’m somewhere old, a library maybe, walls lined with books that breathe and hum. The air is thick with the smell of old paper and static. A hand reaches for me—my hand, but not. It’s older, scarred, strong in a way I’m not.

​​

I feel the urge to say something, a phrase that’s been written into my bones since birth. It pushes up, unstoppable.

​​

“Ruun’esh mir’alya,” I whisper.

​​

I should not know what that means, but I do. Memory awakens through the path of alchemical change. How do I know this?! Why do I know this?!

​​

The world snaps back. I’m at my desk, book on the floor, lamp dead. My hand is shaking so badly I can barely write, but I jot down the phrase before it vanishes from my mind.

​​

It’s already dawn. Orange light creeps in through the blinds, and the house feels eerily quiet.

 

I check the time: 5:17 a.m. The first day of school is in three hours.

​​

I close the book, shelve it, and tell myself I’ll never touch it again. But I know that’s a lie.

​​

I don’t remember falling asleep, but I wake up face-down on my notes, the sigil imprinting itself on my cheek.

​​

Outside, the world is already moving on. But in here, I know nothing will ever be the same.

​

#

​​

September comes in with a wet thud. School is three weeks old and already a slow-motion collapse, all the bright promises of new beginnings crumpled under routine and rain and the inexorable pull of entropy. I’ve managed to keep my head down—no supernatural flare-ups, no unexplained blue lights, just the slow grind of junior year and the mind-numbing comfort of being mostly invisible.​

 

Then, one Thursday night, I find an envelope under my bedroom door. No name, no logo, just a plain white rectangle, perfectly centered like someone measured the distance from the frame to the tile with a ruler.​

 

I pick it up, expecting a “Get a Life” note from Mom or a bad joke from Miri. But the handwriting is unfamiliar: “Jack Maddox. Saturday, 8 a.m. Sam’s Diner. I will be in the corner both”​

 

I turn it over. No return address, no threat. Just the weight of something inevitable.

​​

I stare at the envelope until the words swim, trying to decide if it’s a prank or a trap or something worse. Miri swears she didn’t send it, which makes me even more suspicious. She’s the only person who knows about the book, the sigil, the night of the blue light. She’d never let a good prank go to waste.​

 

I tell Mom I’m meeting a friend after school. She grunts approval, eyes glued to her laptop, already calculating how many billable hours she can squeeze into a single lifetime.​

 

Saturday is biblical: cold and drenched, rain slashing sideways across the city, wind whipping the gutters into froth. I catch the 7:12 into Boston and ride in a state of escalating panic, each stop another chance to get off and walk away. But curiosity is a parasite, and by the time we hit South Station I’m already rehearsing what I’ll say if it’s a scam or a kidnapping.

​​

The diner is wedged between a dry cleaner and a pawn shop, the kind of place that still sells pie by the slice and brews coffee in cracked glass pots. The windows are fogged, inside lit by neon and cheap fluorescents. It’s busy—truckers at the counter, two guys in tailored suits pretending not to know each other, and an elderly couple whispering over scrambled eggs and toast. And in the corner booth, Ethan Cross is waiting for me.

​​

I slide into the booth across from him and immediately regret every life choice that led to this moment. My hands are gripping the book like it might float if the ground drops out from under me—which, honestly, feels possible right now. Ethan Cross is real. Not a YouTube thumbnail, not a dog-eared author photo, but an actual person sitting three feet away from me in a diner that smells like burnt coffee and syrup.

​​

“Wow,” I say, because my brain has apparently clocked out. My voice comes out deeper than I expect, like it borrowed confidence from a future version of me that hasn’t shown up yet. “It’s really you.”​

 

He doesn’t smile. That should bother me, but somehow it doesn’t. It feels… appropriate.​

 

“It’s really me,” he says. “You must be Jack.”​

 

That throws me. I laugh too fast, too loud, the way you do when you want to pretend you’re not off-balance. “I guess you’re as smart as they say.”​

 

“Depends who they are,” he says, then signals the waitress like this is just another Tuesday for him. A second mug appears in front of me. Coffee. Real coffee. Adult coffee.​

 

“You drink coffee?”

​​

I hesitate. Everything in me is already buzzing. Still, I nod and take a sip. It tastes like regret and bravery. “My mom says it’ll stunt my growth.”​

 

“She’s probably right,” he says calmly. “But it’s the least of your problems, isn’t it?”

​​

Something tightens in my chest. I open my mouth, then close it. I hadn’t planned for him to go straight for the jugular.​

 

“I’m just here to—” I stop, searching for a version of the truth that won’t get me laughed out of the booth. “I wanted to meet you. I read your book.”

​​

I set it on the table carefully, like it might shatter. Uplifting Humanity. Bent corners. Notes everywhere. The book that crawled into my life and refused to leave.​

 

“A copy found its way to me,” I add, because that’s somehow the most honest way to say it.

​​

He flips through it, and I feel weirdly exposed, like he’s reading my brain instead of the pages. Sticky notes. All-caps questions. Accusations. Hope.

​

“You have questions,” he says.

​​

“So many,” I admit. My voice drops without me telling it to. “But mostly—how do you know any of this is real? Quantum memory. Resonance. The UPLifT Model. All of it.”

​​

He looks at me for a long moment. Not judging. Measuring.

​​

“How do you know you’re real?” he asks.

​

That actually gets a real laugh out of me. “My dad says I’m not. Sometimes.”

​​

“Smart man,” Ethan says, then leans forward. “You ever feel like you’re watching your own life from the outside? Like you’re just a copy, and the real you is somewhere else, calling the shots?”

​​

My stomach drops.

​​

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “Since I was like nine.”

​

He nods, like I just confirmed a hypothesis. “You’re not crazy. Or if you are, you’re in good company.”

​

The waitress interrupts with pancakes and a look that says please don’t let this kid cause a scene. When she leaves, Ethan cuts into the stack with unsettling precision, then points his fork at me.

​​

“There’s something you should know.”

​​

I lean in. I can feel my pulse in my throat now. Fear and hunger colliding.

​

“You’re not here by accident,” he says. “You’re not here because you read my book. You’re here because you’re supposed to be.”

​​

Every sarcastic defense I own goes quiet.

​​

“There’s something in you,” he continues, “that the world—and I—will need.”

​

Then he says my name. Gently. Like it matters.

​​

“I know who you are. And I know you’re only beginning to discover this for yourself.”

​

Something inside me freezes. Not fear exactly. Recognition. The dangerous kind.

​

He slides a folded piece of paper across the table. “When you feel it—when you know—call that number. Transportation will be arranged.”

​​

I stare at it. Then at him. “Look, I’m just a kid. I’m sixteen. I play guitar. I suck at algebra. Why would the world ever need me?”

​

His expression softens. He reaches out and grips my arm—steady, grounding.

​

Then he says something that shouldn’t exist. Words that feel older than language.

​​

“Ka-anu Esh Tar’al.”

​​

My brain doesn’t translate it.

​​

Something else answers.

​

“Sha’mu Tol Esh Kara’vael.”

​​

The words come out of my mouth like they’ve been waiting there. No effort. No thought.

​

The diner goes quiet. Or maybe that’s just my head.

​

Ethan smiles.

​​

“That’s why,” he says.

​​

I don’t remember standing up. I fold the paper and shove it into my pocket like it might explode if I don’t. I keep waiting for him to laugh, to say gotcha, to pull back the curtain.

​

He doesn’t.

​​

I walk toward the exit, my body buzzing like I’ve been plugged into something too big. At the door, I hesitate. Rain slicks the tile behind me. Neon light washes over everything, electric and unreal.

​

For a second, I feel like there’s someone else standing inside me. Watching. Remembering.

​

Then the door closes behind me, and I step back into my life—knowing it isn’t mine alone anymore.

​

On the bus home, I don’t look at the number. I watch the city blur past, headlights warping into streaks of white and gold, and wonder how long before the Watchers, or someone worse, come for me.

​​

At home, I go to my room, shut the door, and listen to the storm. The book is still on my shelf, humming a little louder than before.

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I want desperately to text Miri, but I don’t. I decide that I need to keep this to myself for now.

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For a second, I almost believe I have a choice.