There is a rhythm to death. A pattern hidden beneath the screaming chaos of the world, a sequence invisible to those too blind, too shallow, too content to notice. Most people walk through life like children stumbling across a chessboard without seeing the pieces move, never realizing that someone — or something — is always calculating the next move.
Elias Crowe had seen it.
Not with his eyes. Not with his heart. He saw it with his mind. The shapes and equations were everywhere: in the drip of water down a cracked wall, in the trembling of a dog as it cowered from the air, in the precise way a man would die if he stepped three paces too far from the curb at exactly 2:13 a.m.
And the worst part? They were looking back.
It wasn't that the world was alive. The world was a *puzzle*. And someone — something — had designed it to notice only the cleverest, the insane, or the unlucky. Elias was all three.
He smiled, though no one could see it, because understanding is a cruel joke. If you can see the pattern, you can't ignore it. And if you can't ignore it… well, the world doesn't forgive ignorance.
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