Eighteen candles.
One breath.
And a wish Jerry Foster didn't even know how to make.
The flame disappeared with a quiet puff, a curl of smoke rising into the dim kitchen light. His mom clapped softly beside him, the glow of the single "18" candle still warm on the icing of a modest vanilla cake—slightly uneven, homemade, and endearing.
"Make it count," she smiled, brushing a loose strand of dark hair behind her ear.
Jerry gave her a crooked smile. "Trying."
His dad leaned against the fridge, cradling a chipped mug of coffee. "College starts next week. Ready to meet people who aren't from this street?"
Jerry shrugged. "Can't be worse than high school."
They both chuckled at that. Jerry didn't.
The truth? He never really fit anywhere. Not because he was a loner or weird. He just felt… offbeat. Like he was listening to a song everyone else could dance to, but he couldn't hear the melody.
He noticed things—too much. The flicker in people's eyes before they spoke, the tightness in a friend's voice before they lied, the way tension clung to the air like humidity. Sometimes it felt like he could hear people's moods.
Doctors called it anxiety. Overthinking. Sensory sensitivity.
His dad, a retired AI researcher, called it "debugging human emotion in real time."
His mom just pulled him into hugs and said, "Your heart's just wired differently, baby."
But sitting there under the flicker of a dying candle, Jerry felt something creeping back—that familiar itch in the base of his skull. Like the world was waiting to shift.
And later that night… it did.
He lay in bed, eyes open to the dark ceiling, half-waiting for sleep to catch up. But then—
Something pulsed.
His brain snapped alert. Not pain. Just... pressure.
A flicker—like reality blinked.
Then text started drifting into view.
<
Jerry bolted upright. "What the hell—?"
Nothing around him had changed. The room was quiet. His PC off. His phone dead. The fan turning lazily. But across his vision, more lines appeared, glowing softly like a heads-up display in a video game.
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Jerry stared, jaw slightly open. "What… is this?"
Then another pop-up hit him like a punch to the brain:
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He felt the words as much as read them—etched into his mind like a brand. There was a presence now. A hum under his thoughts.
Then came voices.
Clear. Confident. Uninvited.
Ragnar: "He's got spirit. Good. You'll need fire to lead a harem."
Alric: "Brain chemistry stable. Emotionally underdeveloped. High risk."
Zen: "Oooh. Tragic backstory detected. This'll be fun."
Jerry clutched his head, heart hammering. "No—stop. What is this?!"
The lights still flickered normally. His hands were cold. He wasn't dreaming. But something had been installed into him.
A system. A timer.
And three strange voices—like old echoes from other lives, whispering behind his eyes.
<
He staggered into the bathroom, flipping on the light. His pupils were... shimmering. Not bright, but definitely unnatural—like static on a screen. His reflection blinked at him, the same face as always, just… sharper. Charged.
Ragnar: "We must prepare. College is the battlefield."
Alric: "Begin scanning social environment. Observe behavior. Learn."
Zen: "Also, figure out who's single. Preferably cute."
Jerry let out a slow breath, gripping the counter. "This is insane…"
But somewhere, deep inside, he knew it wasn't. He felt it.
Something had awoken. Something watching. Testing him. And he wasn't alone anymore.
Tomorrow was the first day of college.
A new city. A new campus. Seven people, unknown to him now, who could change his fate—or erase it completely.
And above all that, one thing was clear.
The countdown had started.
And this year... was going to be anything but normal.