I didn't sleep. I watched the walls instead.
They looked the same as they always did— chipped paint, water stains shaped like broken constellations— but something had shifted. The spiral symbol from Sector 9 still burned behind my eyes, etched into my memory with unnatural clarity. Every time I blinked, I saw it scrawled across the ceiling, the corners of my journal, even in the moonlight leaking through the cracked window.
It wasn't just a mark. It felt like a warning.
Or a countdown.
I sat on the edge of the bed until morning, fingers clenched, breathing too shallow to be called rest. The city outside exhaled in exhaust fumes and neon — Veritus was never quiet, only muffled. Like it was holding back something worse.
When light finally spilled into the room, I opened the journal.
June 4
Still here. Still me. I think.
Wraithmark: unstable flickering overnight.
Symbol persists in dreams.
Location: Sector 7.
Symptoms: Disorientation. Memory glitch — forgot my favorite tea again.
Observation: The mark might not just hold remnants. It might be leaking them.
I closed the book and stared at the corner of the room where the shadows always gathered. There was a girl who used to live here, or someone shaped like her sadness. Her remnant curled up beside the bookshelf every other night, face blurry, presence cold.
I never spoke to her. But sometimes, I whispered a "goodnight" out of habit.
Today, she wasn't there.
I left the flat late, coat thrown over a threadbare hoodie, scarf knotted too tightly around my throat. The air outside was a bit sharper than usual — not cold, just… defensive.
The city felt like it was watching me now. Not it's people — the city itself.
It's signs blinked slower. Traffic stopped at green. I passed a child kicking at a puddle that didn't ripple.
Everything was slightly off. Just enough to make the hairs on my arms rise.
I didn't have a destination in mind. I was just randomly walking. Streets in Sector 7 loop if you're not paying attention. You'll get lost if you're not looking. A trick of architecture. Or something older.
Eventually, I reached a district I didn't remember passing through before — storefronts sealed shut, apartments with curtains drawn, not abandoned but… paused.
Frozen in time.
And that's when I felt it — a pressure behind my ribs, like a held breath, pulling me forward.
Not towards a person. Not a remnant either.
Something in-between.
The street narrowed. Walls leaned closer. The noise of the city thinned until even my own footsteps sounded like they belonged to someone else.
I turned a corner and stopped.
The air ahead shimmered — not visibly, not in color or shape — but with a vibration. A wrongness. Like when a radio is tuned just off-station, catching something between static and voice.
I stepped forward, slowly.
The world… buckled.
For a split second, I wasn't in Veritus anymore.
I was inside someone else's grief.
A hospital room. A metal-framed bed. White sheets stained with time.
A boy — no older than ten — holding the hand of a woman whose chest no longer rose.
The beeping flatlined. Everything went silent.
The boy didn't cry. He didn't move. He just whispered a name — and it shattered in the air before reaching the walls.
Then darkness.
Collapse.
Noise like bones grinding glass.
And all of a sudden, I was out, stumbling back, hand pressed against my chest.
My throat burning from a raw scream I didn't even remember making.
I collapsed against a wall, my breath short and jagged.
That wasn't a remnant.
That was something else. A rift, maybe — a tear between memories too big to hold and too violent to forget.
I looked down at my hands. No burns. No marks.
But my right palm pulsed with heat that felt like sorrow. Kind of felt like it's burning.
I took out my journal and scribbled the first thing I could hold onto.
"Rift sighting. Not a remnant. Not bound to a location.
The Memory wasn't mine, but it tried to become mine.
Emotional bleed is stronger than usual. Possible threat."
I almost wrote "I felt like I knew the boy." But I didn't.
Not really.
I think It just felt that way because I'm losing pieces of myself to the lives I steal. Or save.
Or whatever this is you can call it.
The rest of the day was blurred. I wandered around. Got lost on purpose. Ended up in a bookstore I didn't remember entering, smelling like dust and ink and mothballs. The old man behind the counter didn't look up when I entered. Didn't move at all. He looked like he was reading something.
But after watching him for a long time, I noticed.
He wasn't breathing.
But he wasn't dead.
I left without touching anything.
By nightfall, I was back in the flat, lights off, scarf still wrapped around my neck like a lifeline. The city beyond the window flickered in and out of focus — like it was dreaming of itself.
I sat on the floor and opened the journal one last time.
"Someone is leaving remnants unbound.
Someone wants me to see them.
I'm being led."
I paused. Then added:
"But by who?"
Then I stared at the spiral symbol again, and for the first time, noticed something I hadn't before:
There was another mark next to it.
A faint line. A tail. A second spiral, smaller, and it's coiled inward.
It hadn't been there last night.
I hadn't drawn it.
I closed the journal. Got up. Turned on every light.
Even the one in the bathroom mirror — the one I always avoided.
My reflection stared back like a stranger.
Eyes dull. Shoulders slumped. Skin too pale.
I said my name out loud.
Nothing echoed.
No voice answered back.
Just silence.
And somewhere in that silence…
Something smiled.