Ten seconds passed.
The man outside didn't move—just stood there with his eyes fixed on the window, as if he could see through the blinds, through the walls.
Then he turned.
The movement was smooth, mechanical, like a puppet on strings guided by a careful hand. He pivoted on his heel and began walking toward the empty street, his silhouette growing smaller against the moonlit pavement until the darkness swallowed him whole.
Momo released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
The girl remained frozen beside him, her fingers white-knuckled on the window frame. Neither of them spoke for several heartbeats. The house settled around them—creaking floorboards, the distant hum of something electrical that should've died years ago.
"Who was that?" she finally asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Momo stepped back from the window, letting the blinds fall closed. The room felt darker now, as if the man's presence had drained some essential light from the air.
"I don't know," he said quietly. "But no reasonable person would stand still for five minutes without a reason. Either he's crazy, or..."
He trailed off. The alternative sat heavy between them, unspoken but understood.
The girl turned away from the window, wrapping her arms around herself. The moonlight through the gaps in the blinds carved her face into sharp angles—shadows pooling beneath her eyes, highlighting the exhaustion she wore like a second skin.
Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the loose windowpane.
---
The girl's stomach growled.
The sound cut through the silence, loud and embarrassingly human. She pressed a hand against her abdomen, but Momo was already moving toward where he was for the past hours, his mind elsewhere—pulled back into the photographs, the symbols, the mystery waiting to be decoded.
She hesitated only a moment before following.
Whatever fragile thread connected them—necessity, shared curiosity, the faint echo of something that might've been friendship in another life—it didn't extend to comfort or small talk. She wasn't here for food or sympathy. She was here for answers. The symbols in that underground chamber, the methodical research scrawled across those walls—if Momo could decode any of it, that information was worth more than a meal.
He was already seated on the floor, surrounded by papers, phone in hand, comparing images with the focused intensity of someone who'd forgotten the rest of the world existed.
"Did you find anything?" she asked, leaning against the doorframe.
Momo didn't look up. His thumb scrolled through photographs, pausing on one, then another. "I'm not sure yet."
The answer hung in the air between them. Not a dismissal, but not an invitation either.
She crossed her arms and waited.
---
The divine mark. That's what everyone called it. A pattern of light and geometry that appeared on skin like a brand from something beyond human comprehension. When it manifested, the marked person would vanish hours, days or weeks later—pulled into columns of radiance, migrating to wherever no one knows about, but everyone believes it was salvation because those beings said so years ago.
No one could prove what powered it. Divine energy, people said. The will of celestial beings. Faith made visible.
What Momo knew for certain was that the mark was complex. Impossibly so.
Years ago, when the first clear photographs had circulated, people had tried to replicate the patterns. Scientists, artists, desperate parents hoping to mark their children by hand. They'd tattooed approximations onto skin, carved them with blessed blades, painted them in mixtures of ash and blood and crushed minerals thought to hold spiritual significance.
None of it worked.
The symbols were too intricate—geometric designs that seemed to shift depending on the angle of observation, lines that appeared to curve in impossible directions. Even if someone managed to reproduce the pattern perfectly, it wouldn't matter. The mark needed something more. Divine intent. Celestial power. Whatever force animated the genuine marks and allowed them to function as keys to migration.
Without that power, the symbols were just ink and scar tissue.
The failed attempts had driven people mad. When replication proved impossible, desperation turned to ritual. If they couldn't create marks, maybe they could transfer them. Cut them from the marked and graft them onto the unmarked. Perform ceremonies that might draw celestial attention. Offer sacrifices—animal at first, then humans when the animals didn't work.
The world had fractured under that desperation.
Momo stared at the photographs from the subway chamber. The group who'd created that space—they were different. Systematic. Their research suggested they'd moved beyond crude replication attempts into something more sophisticated.
They were closer to understanding than he was. Maybe closer than anyone.
"It'll take me a couple of days," Momo said finally, his voice quiet. "To put everything together. Cross-reference what they had with what I know."
The girl nodded slowly. A strange expression crossed her face—something that might've been hope, or satisfaction, or the ghost of vindication.
For the first time in more than a year, she smiled.
It was small. Brief. Just the faintest curve at the corner of her mouth.
Momo frowned.
The expression came automatically, sharp and immediate. His eyes met hers for just a moment, and the message in them was clear: Leave my room.
The smile died. Her face went carefully neutral again, that mask she wore when navigating rejection.
She straightened up from the doorframe. "I should go."
Momo said nothing. He looked back down at his phone, at the photographs that demanded his attention more than she did.
But as she turned toward the door, something tightened in his chest. It was already dark outside. The streets weren't safe—hadn't been safe for years. And that man with the glowing eyes could still be out there. Watching. Waiting.
He should tell her to stay.
The words formed in his mind, ready to be spoken. Simple. Direct.
Stay until morning.
But the words stuck in his throat, tangled up with old anger and older hurt. The incidents between them—sat like stones in his chest. He didn't hate her. Not really. Hate required more energy than he had to spare. But seeing that smile, that brief flash of happiness, had stirred something dark and petty in him. Reminded him that some wounds hadn't healed just yet.
So he said nothing.
He heard it open. Heard it close.
And she was gone.
---
Momo sat motionless for several seconds, staring at the photograph on his phone without really seeing it.
Then he stood and walked to the window.
He stayed in the shadows, tilting the blinds just enough to see outside. The girl moved, keeping close to the walls of broken houses, avoiding the open spaces where moonlight pooled. Smart. She'd learned how to navigate the city's dangers, how to read the terrain for cover and threat.
He watched until she disappeared around a corner, swallowed by the dark between buildings.
Momo let the blinds fall closed and stood there, hand still on the frame, staring at nothing.
He didn't care about her. That's what he told himself.
But deep down—in the part of himself he tried to ignore—he knew that wasn't entirely true.
He returned to his room and sat back down among the scattered papers. The photographs waited, demanding his attention. The symbols needed decoding. The patterns needed mapping.
But part of his mind stayed at the window.
Wondering who the man was. Wondering if the girl would make it home. Wondering if caring about that made him weak or just human.
"Whatever, I don't care," he muttered to himself.
He bent over his research and tried to believe it.
End of Chapter 4