The candle flickered.
One tiny flame, barely alive, planted in the center of a limp piece of toast. Wax bled onto the cracked plate beneath it.
Lucan sat at the kitchen table, legs swinging just above the floor.He was five. Or maybe not. His limbs felt light, his thoughts muffled, like he was underwater.
Across from him sat two people—his parents, maybe. Their faces were... wrong.Too smooth. Too still. Like painted masks left out in the rain.
"Happy birthday, Lucan." they said in perfect unison, voices flat, distant.The words echoed—but the room didn't.
He looked down. The candle's flame had begun to spin.
It twisted unnaturally, curling in on itself—no longer fire, but a coil of shadow and light.
The toast crumbled into dust.
Lucan blinked. His parents were gone. The walls of the kitchen stretched outward, bending like soft rubber. The tick of the kitchen clock accelerated—
Tickticktickticktick—
The spiral appeared.
Not in the room. As the room.
Everything—the table, the walls, the floor—peeled away into it, like pages tearing free from a book.From within the spiral, a figure stepped forward. A man cloaked in darkness, face like Lucan's but older, colder, eyes glowing dimly with starlight.
"You weren't meant to exist." the figure whispered.
Lucan opened his mouth to scream—
But woke instead.
Lucan Vale jolted upright, lungs dragging in air like he'd been drowning. His shirt clung to his back with sweat, though the room was cold.
Nightmares again.
Always the same spiral. Always that same voice.
He ran a hand through his unkempt hair and stared at the cracked ceiling.He didn't believe in dreams. Not really.But lately, they were starting to feel more like warnings than memories.
He will be twenty-five tomorrow.No party. No cake. He just wants another quiet morning in a house too big for two people who barely speak anymore.
Lucan Vale: just another forgotten face in a rusted city.He went to college when he could, worked odd jobs when they'd take him, and spent the rest of his life trying to hold together what was left of his family.
That was it.That was him.
The morning air clung to the walls like breath held too long. Dust floated through stillness, suspended in shafts of amber light that pierced the cracked blinds. Outside, crows cawed from rusted rooftops, and somewhere down the street, a dog barked once—then silence.
Lucan lay there for a moment, catching his breath.
Why does it always end that way?
The nightmares never changed—only deepened. And they always came closer.
He sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and stood.
At the center of this silence was a boy.
Lucan moved carefully, deliberately. His hands worked from memory—wringing a cloth, setting a kettle to boil, arranging a tray with plain bread and thin broth.
In the battered living room, a frail man coughed, hunched in an armchair swallowed by blankets.
Lucan approached, balancing the tray with quiet steps.
"Grandpa." he said, voice rough from disuse. "You need to eat something."
The old man barely stirred. His eyes, sunken and dim, flicked toward the tray, then to Lucan's face. There was a flicker of recognition, a rasp of breath that might have been thanks—or apology.
It didn't matter.
Lucan sat beside him, setting the tray down on a small table, adjusting the blanket.
He said nothing more.
Words cost energy neither of them could spare.
In the kitchen, a cracked clock ticked. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Each second stretched endlessly, a quiet battle against the slow march of time.
Later, after cleaning and laying out the medication carefully lined up by the sink, he sat alone at the small kitchen table.
He stared at the opposite chair.It sat empty, as it had for years.He didn't remember when he stopped waiting for someone to sit there.Maybe after his parents' disappearance.Maybe before.
Today was just another day.
He scraped his breakfast together—a bruised apple and leftover rice—and was about to head out when—
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The sound startled him more than he cared to admit.Visitors were rare here. Unwanted ones, even more so.
He approached the door cautiously, peering through the scratched peephole.
And froze.
She was standing there.
Lyra McCall.
Hair a mess of soft, dark waves, jacket too large for her slender frame, a nervous half-smile on her lips.
She shifted from foot to foot, holding a paper bag that looked dangerously close to tearing.
Lyra.
His childhood friend.
His secret tether to the world outside these crumbling walls—the only person who still showed up for him, no matter how many times he tried to push her away. Although he secretly loved her, he can't deny being embarrassed to show his shabby house.
He opened the door before he thought better of it.
"Hey." Lyra said, voice light, breezy.
But her eyes scanned his face, worried.
"Hey." he echoed, stepping aside to let her in.
Inside, she placed the bag down with exaggerated care, the bottom already damp with grease stains.
It smelled of something fried and vaguely sweet.
"I thought maybe you could have your breakfast." she said. "And company."
He hesitated, but nodded.
They ate in silence at first.
She made small talk—college gossip, professors being idiots, the usual complaints.
He listened, offering a small smile where appropriate, a nod where expected.
But then she grew quiet, twirling a piece of bread between her fingers.
"You know..." she said, glancing up, "your birthday's tomorrow."
Lucan nearly choked on his tea.
Lyra laughed—not meanly, but softly, genuinely.
"Did you think I wouldn't remember?"
He looked away, feeling heat creep up his neck.
Birthdays were... complicated.
His last birthday with family had been when he was five.
After that, just his grandfather, a candle stuck into a piece of toast.
Sometimes not even that.
"You're turning twenty-five." Lyra said, pushing a crumb around her plate. "It's a big deal."
He shrugged, uncomfortable under her gaze.
She leaned back, studying him.
"Maybe it's time you do something for yourself. Just for one day."
He opened his mouth to argue, but she cut him off, standing up and grabbing her jacket.
"Come on. Let's ride out. Just for a little while. College can wait."
Outside, they retrieved a battered bicycle from the shed.
He insisted she take the seat while he pedaled.
She rolled her eyes but climbed on anyway.
The road stretched ahead—long and cracked, leading into sleepy suburbs and rusty fences.
For a while, they rode in easy silence.
The sun was soft today, warm but not punishing.
Leaves tumbled from skeletal trees.
Somewhere, a dog barked.
For a moment, it almost felt normal.
He almost forgot the weight he always carried, the fear of leaving his grandfather too long alone, the unspoken feeling that the universe was watching and waiting for him to fail.
At a traffic light, Lyra leaned back slightly against him and said, almost in a whisper:
"I have something to show you later. Something... interesting. I think you'd like it."
He didn't know what to say.
So he simply pedaled harder, hoping the rush of air would hide the sudden chaos in his chest.
They reached the college.
The familiar buildings rose around them, battered by time and rain.
Students loitered, laughed, fought over coffee.
It should have been a normal day.
But standing at the gates was a figure Lucan wished he didn't recognize.
A tall boy with a cruel smile and a group of hangers-on laughing too loudly at nothing.
Lucan saw them before they saw him.
Too late.
"Hey!" the bully called out, swaggering over.
"You still playing house with your grandpa, loser?"
Laughter.
Lyra stiffened beside him.
Lucan said nothing, trying to walk past.
The bully blocked his path, sneering.
"What, too good to talk now?"
His hand darted out—quick, vicious—and slapped Lyra's shoulder, knocking her bag to the ground.
And then—
It happened.
Something inside him, something deep, vicious and silent—snapped.
Before he even realized it, his fist was moving.
The blow landed with a sickening crunch.
The bully crumpled to the ground, gasping, clutching his ribs.
The laughter stopped.
The world held its breath.
Lucan stared at his own hand, trembling.
He hadn't meant to hit that hard.
Hadn't thought it possible.
Around him, the air shimmered faintly, almost invisible.
Like a mirage.
He grabbed Lyra's hand and ran.
They didn't speak until they reached the edge of the college grounds, breathless, hidden in the shadow of a crumbling wall.
"You..." she panted, eyes wide. "You broke his ribs???"
He stared at his hands, kind of flexing them.
They didn't feel any different.
"Come to my place," Lyra said suddenly. "Tonight. Please. I... I need to show you something."
He hesitated, thinking of his grandfather.
She saw it in his eyes.
"I'll be quick. I promise."
Still, he shook his head.
"I have to check on him first."
She bit her lip, then nodded.
"Tomorrow," she said. "Promise me you'll come tomorrow."
He swallowed thickly.
"Promise."
The sun dipped low.
Long shadows stretched over the roads as he biked home.
He never saw the faint shimmer of weird energy that clung to his fingertips like threads of starlight.
He never noticed the way the world around him seemed to hold its breath.
Waiting.
[End of Chapter 1]