Chapter 1
Chapter 1: The Idiot Among Everyone Else
Y'know what's worse than being alone and miserable?
Being surrounded by people and still feeling like it.
That pretty much summed up Carter's life.
The classroom buzzed with its usual brand of exhaustion. The fan above him groaned like it wanted out. Chalk screeched across the board. Even the sunlight looked tired — draping half-heartedly across desks, as if it had given up halfway through shining.
Carter sat halfway down the row, chin on his hand, eyes glazed over. The teacher's voice had dissolved into static — vowels and consonants blurring into a background hum that pretended to be education.
He wasn't lazy. He'd tried before. It just never stuck.
Like trying to write on water — effort without evidence.
"Dude," a voice beside him said. "You look like you lost a fight with a coma."
Carter didn't bother turning. "I'm winning, actually."
Adam leaned back, grin sharp. "Sure doesn't look like it. You've been staring at that same page for ten minutes."
"Yeah, it's a psychological tactic," Carter said. "If I look pathetic enough, maybe she'll stop calling on me."
"Or she'll call on you out of pity. 'Let's see if the dying kid in the corner knows the answer.'"
"Then we both die," Carter muttered. "Because I'll drag you down with me."
"Big talk for someone who failed last week's quiz."
"And big mouth for someone who didn't even show up."
"Attendance is for the weak."
"Idiocy is hereditary, I see."
The teacher's voice sliced through. "Adam. Carter. Something to share with the class?"
Adam didn't miss a beat. "Just our suffering, ma'am."
Laughter rippled through the room. Carter sighed into his hands.
---
When the bell rang, Carter was already halfway out the door. Adam caught up, walking backward like a street performer with too much energy.
"Hey, corpse boy. You coming to the court later? Chris said he's bringing snacks."
"I don't play basketball."
"You don't play anything."
"Consistency's a virtue."
"If life was a game, you'd still be on the tutorial."
"And you'd be the NPC that never shuts up."
"Rude," Adam said, grinning. "Accurate, but rude."
---
Classes had ended early that week.
Another student had gone missing — the fourth in a month.
Police cars lingered near the gate, lights off, presence loud. Missing posters clung to walls and electric poles like wallpaper — faces fading under rain, paper curling at the edges. He didn't look at them anymore. Nobody did.
It was strange, how fast people got used to fear.
Like background noise — annoying, but ignorable.
Carter kept walking.
---
He'd always been a loner, even back in middle school.
Not the cool, mysterious kind — just the quiet kid everyone forgot existed.
He used to think solitude made him strong. That being alone meant being untouchable.
But it wasn't strength — just numbness.
There's nothing noble about being a lone wolf.
You just end up bleeding under a sky full of vultures, surrounded by beasts that hunt in packs.
The world doesn't respect silence. It devours it.
You want to be somebody? You have to be seen.
And to be seen, you have to stand among others — even if it means pretending you belong.
That's why Carter kept Adam and Chris around. Not because they were great friends — Adam was a migraine with legs — but because total isolation was worse.
Still, he hated how people worked.
The fake laughs. The shallow gossip.
Every conversation felt like theater — everyone auditioning for roles in a play they didn't believe in.
He hated it.
And hated himself for caring enough to notice.
---
When he got home, the quiet hit like a wall.
Shoes off. Bag down. Controller on.
Same routine. Same day. Slightly different wallpaper.
Games were the only place that made sense.
There were rules. Systems. Progress bars.
Things real life refused to have.
Hours slipped by. Enemies fell.
Victory flashed on the screen, and for a second, it almost felt like it meant something.
Then the music looped back, and the illusion cracked.
"Yeah," he muttered, tossing the controller aside. "Definitely winning at life."
---
"Dinner's ready!" his mom called.
He trudged downstairs. The kitchen smelled faintly of reheated leftovers.
His mom sat scrolling through her phone, blue light softening the lines of her face.
"You eat already?" she asked.
"Guess I am now."
He poked at his food. "Dad still at work?"
"Mhm. Overtime again. Your father's been pulling long hours lately."
"Right," Carter said. His dad hadn't joined them for dinner in days.
The silence that followed wasn't awkward — just empty.
---
Later that night, he lay staring at the ceiling.
He thought about Adam's jokes. The missing posters. The noise that passed for conversation.
The faces pretending to care.
The world spinning on autopilot.
"Same thing, different day," he whispered.
The ceiling didn't argue.
Sleep came slow.
And when it did, something else came with it.
---
He wasn't sure when it happened. One blink, the ceiling. The next — gone.
Weightless. Thought drifting from body.
Then came the smell.
Ash. Iron. Blood.
Lucid dream? he thought.
He stood on a hill overlooking an endless battlefield.
Smoke rolled like a living tide, glowing faintly with embers below.
The sky above was the color of a wound — red bleeding into black.
"Maybe I've been playing too many video games," he muttered, but even his voice sounded wrong.
Below, a town flickered — torchlight, chaos, silhouettes running.
Men in battered armor clashed in the mud. Their swords met with dull, resigned clangs.
They were losing.
But to what?
The other side wasn't an army. It was mist.
Pulsing, shimmering — alive. Shapes moved inside it, half-human, half-nightmare.
Where they stepped, the earth blackened and hissed.
The mist devoured everything it touched.
Men fell, and it swallowed them whole.
Carter's pulse thrashed in his throat.
He looked down at his hands.
Not his hands.
Skin rippled like dark glass, smoke curling from his knuckles.
Each movement slow. Detached. Alien.
Then one of the creatures turned.
It had no face. No eyes.
But Carter knew it was looking at him.
Not through him.
At him.
The air thickened. Gravity twisted sideways.
He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
The thing tilted its head — almost curious — and stepped forward.
The world shattered.
Sound exploded. Red. White. Black.
---
Carter jolted awake, gasping.
Sheets clung to his skin, cold with sweat.
His room reassembled piece by piece — the desk, the monitor glow, the hum of silence.
Everything looked normal.
But something was wrong.
He looked at his hands.
Human. Solid. Ordinary.
And yet, he could still feel the other ones beneath them —
like a memory that didn't belong to him.
---