The house was too quiet. It wasn't the peaceful kind of quiet — not the warmth of safety or calm. It was the hollow, watchful kind. Like the silence that follows lightning, when the air's still holding its breath, waiting for the thunder that never comes.
I sat in bed, staring at the ceiling. My journal lay open beside me, half a page filled with half-thoughts. The clock on my nightstand ticked, loud enough to feel like it was mocking me.
Peace feels wrong when you're used to bleeding for it. That's what I wrote an hour ago. I couldn't bring myself to add more.
The others were asleep. Booker's light snoring rumbled through the thin wall to my right. Aaliah's headphones leaked faint traces of soft instrumental music from her room across the hall. And Mom — her door had stayed shut since dinner. I didn't blame her. Joe Wann's visit earlier had left everyone uneasy.
He'd left with that same polite smile he always wore — the one that never reached his eyes. But it wasn't a goodbye smile. It was a we're not done here smile.
I rolled onto my side, pulling the covers tighter. For a few seconds, I thought I might actually fall asleep.
Then I felt it.
A faint vibration — not sound, not sight. Just a pressure against my mind, like the air itself had leaned closer. My heart skipped once, and the Nexus inside me stirred in response.
The hum came again. Soft. Repeating. Someone was touching the barrier.
I sat up fast, letting my senses stretch outward like invisible threads. The barrier that wrapped our home shimmered faintly in my awareness — a thin field of distorted energy woven through the air, undetectable to anyone but me. It was supposed to be airtight, impossible to penetrate.
But something was testing it.
I moved to the window. The street outside was still and dim under the yellow glow of the streetlights. The neighborhood slept — quiet lawns, quiet houses, quiet lies.
Then I saw it.
A faint shimmer rippling across the air above the sidewalk, almost invisible. If you didn't know what to look for, you'd mistake it for heat distortion. But I knew better.
Quantum resonance. Sentinel tech.
They were scanning the barrier.
I clenched my jaw, feeling the energy crawl up my spine. I could sense their frequency — methodical, precise, invasive. It wasn't a random sweep. It was targeted. Focused.
They were looking for me.
I closed my eyes, forcing my breath to steady. The Nexus responded instinctively — energy flaring, ready to defend.
"No," I whispered. "Stay down."
This wasn't the time to fight. A single spark could blow the cover I'd spent months building.
I let my awareness flow through the barrier's surface, tracing the pulse of foreign energy scraping against it. It wasn't trying to break through — it was learning. Scanning its structure, memorizing the pattern.
A whisper brushed the edge of my perception — not physical, not telepathic. Just raw frequency converted into sound.
"...signal interference detected... adjusting range by 0.04... begin cross-spectrum sweep…"
Voices. Real ones. On the other side of the scan.
I stepped back from the window, every nerve lit with adrenaline. My hands twitched at my sides, wanting to react, to strike first, to prove they couldn't touch us. But I forced myself still.
They were baiting me.
Sentinel wanted a reaction — a flare, a spike, any confirmation that something unnatural was hiding inside this house.
I wouldn't give them that.
I needed backup. Or at least a voice that knew how Sentinel operated.
"Rem," I whispered.
Her name pulsed through my mind like a ripple in still water. For a moment, nothing answered — then static. A faint hum.
"Kaleb?" Her voice was half-asleep, half-digital — the way it always sounded when she connected through Nexus channels. "They're here," I said softly. "Outside. Scanning the barrier. "Already?"
They must've tagged my house after the last visit. Probably that black SUV from this afternoon."Don't engage. If you reinforce the barrier, it'll trigger an energy feedback. They'll know you're hiding something."Then what do I do?
"Misdirect," she said. "Mirror their readings. Give them what they want — nothing."And if they see through it?" Then they'll find me instead," she replied, her voice fading to static. "Don't let them trace you."
The connection snapped off.
I stood alone again in the dark. My pulse was loud in my ears.
Alright. Let's see how good they really are.
I knelt on the floor, placing both hands on the hardwood. The Nexus energy bled from my palms, a soft violet shimmer only I could see. The whole house lit up in my mind — every wall, every nail, every inch of the barrier's invisible skin.
Then I found the weak point. The spot their scanners were pressing against — the front gate.
"Got you," I whispered.
I began to tune my energy to their frequency, matching it heartbeat for heartbeat. At first, it was chaos — a collision of signals and static. But the more I aligned with it, the more the noise cleared, until I could hear the rhythm of their scan perfectly.
It was like syncing two heartbeats — mine and theirs.
Once the resonance was locked, I inverted it.
Every pulse they sent into the house bounced back, copied, then looped infinitely — their readings trapped in a false feedback loop. To Sentinel's instruments, the house would appear empty. Dead. No energy. No anomalies. Just silence.
The vibration faded.
Outside, the shimmer disappeared. The probe retreated.
Through the blinds, I watched the black SUV idle for a minute longer, its headlights faint against the mist. Then it rolled away down the street.
Gone.
The quiet that followed wasn't the same. It wasn't peace. It was a victory — the kind that came without applause or witnesses.
I exhaled and leaned back against the wall. My heartbeat slowed.
For a moment, I thought it was over. Then something strange happened.
The air shimmered faintly — not outside, but above me.
I looked up through the window. The night sky was veined with faint, luminescent streaks — thin blue lines weaving between clouds like lightning trapped in glass.
The Nexus's fingerprints.
Residual energy. The kind that shouldn't have existed in this version of reality.
I stepped closer to the window, resting a hand on the cold glass. The veins pulsed softly, like they were alive — and for the first time in a long while, I felt the Nexus listening.
"They still don't get it," I said quietly. "I didn't rewrite time to hide. I did it to start over."
The veins shimmered brighter for a heartbeat, as if acknowledging the truth in that.
A warmth spread through my chest, deep and steady. It wasn't the burning rush I used to feel when using my powers — it was something gentler. Quieter. Like the world whispering back, I remember.
But then I noticed it.
A small fracture running through the energy of the barrier. Not a tear. Not a breach.
A pulse.Coming from the inside.
The house itself vibrated faintly, just enough for the light fixture to sway.
My breath caught. The barrier wasn't reacting to an external threat anymore. It was resonating with something within.
Something is trying to get out.
I pressed my hand harder against the glass. The warmth flickered. My reflection stared back — eyes faintly glowing, energy pulsing behind them.
The Nexus stirred again, just enough for me to feel its intent.
It wasn't angry. It wasn't feeding. It was growing.
Adapting to this world — the one I'd rewritten.
"Not yet," I whispered. "Not again."
The pulse subsided. The light in the sky faded. The air stilled.
I backed away from the window, sitting on the edge of my bed. My chest still glowed faintly beneath my shirt, a reminder that no matter how much I changed things, some parts of me couldn't be undone.
I lay down, eyes open toward the ceiling again. The silence returned, softer this time, but it still carried weight.
The kind that meant the next chapter of my life wasn't going to stay quiet for long.
Because peace — real peace — doesn't last for people like me.
It just gives you time to notice the cracks before the world starts breaking again.