The rest of the day passed in a haze.
A weekend that I didn't talk much in. I didn't eat much either.
Everything felt too quiet—too fragile. Like the walls of this world were made of glass, and I was the only one who could hear the cracks spreading.
My mother smiled at me like she was trying to hold me together with her eyes. My brother laughed too loud, like he was covering something up. My father kept watching me out of the corner of his eye, like he was calculating something.
I didn't belong here, and deep down, I think we all knew it.
When night came, I laid in bed, staring at the ceiling, fists clenched under the blanket. My breath came in shallow waves.
The system hadn't spoken since morning. It hadn't needed to. Its silence buzzed louder than words.
I was tired of pretending.
I didn't know who I was supposed to be.
And worse. I didn't know who was watching from the inside.
Eventually, sleep dragged me under.
I opened my eyes to a world falling apart.
The sky hung low, a glass dome spiderwebbed with black fractures. Red light leaked from the seams, thick and slow like blood dripping through cracks in stone.
It felt wrong. Too vivid. Too still.
The stars above blinked in and out like they were gasping for air.
I stood in a city I didn't recognize, but my bones did. The buildings twisted upward like they were made of bones. Streets were empty. Shadows stretched long without anything to cast them.
Something was wrong with the light. It didn't reflect off anything. It just… clung.
And I couldn't move.
Not really.
My legs obeyed, but the motion felt distant. like I was piloting a body in someone else's dream.
A heartbeat pulsed in the air.
Boom.
A low pulse echoed through the air. The sky cracked wider.
Boom.
Another one. shaking the clouds. Then I saw it.
And with each pulse, the cracks in the sky widened until something on the other side looked back.
Not human. Not mortal.
It blinked slowly. watching everything and nothing all at once.
I felt it look through me.
And for the first time since waking in this world, I wanted to scream.
But I couldn't. Because then I saw him.
The boy.
The real Eli.
Standing in the middle of the bleeding street, barefoot, shoulders hunched. He didn't smile. He didn't blink.
He looked broken.
And he looked furious.
"You weren't supposed to open it," he said.
"Open what?" I snapped, the fear cracking into frustration. "I didn't open anything! I didn't even ask to be here!"
He didn't flinch.
"The wound," he whispered, glancing upward.
"I don't even know what that means!" I yelled.
"You think I want this? You think I wanted to wake up in your skin, in your life, with your. whatever this is?"
The sky split wider. The bleeding deepened.
And behind it, they came.
Shapes without form. Teeth without mouths. Shadows with spines. They slithered and shimmered through the rift like living nightmares, and the air turned wet with sound that made no sense.
Eli turned to me. Not the small boy. The soul behind his eyes.
His voice shook the ground.
"GET OUT."
The world shattered like glass.
I woke gasping. Not just scared, angry.
The room felt too small. My body too tight. I kicked off the sheets and stumbled to the mirror. My hands trembled. My jaw was clenched so tight it ached.
[ Residual Memory Surge Detected]
[Source: Eli Serin]
[Narrative Boundary: Breached]
[Suppression Rate: 64% (↓)]
[External Anomaly Presence: POSSIBLE]
My reflection flickered. Just once.
Like someone else was standing behind my eyes.
My breath caught.
There was a mark on my wrist now. Clearer. Deeper.
Not a scar. Not ink.
A crack, shaped like a bleeding eye. I clenched my fist.
"This isn't your life anymore," I whispered.
But I wasn't sure if I was talking to him.
....or myself.