The days that followed did not announce themselves as different.
School continued the way it always had, unfolding in predictable rhythms that required no effort to follow. Bells rang. Teachers lectured. Students complained, laughed, and forgot things almost as soon as they happened. Tyler moved through it all with the same quiet composure he had cultivated over years, yet his awareness had shifted in a way that did not require power to feel.
He did not activate Perception Overlay.
Not once.
The decision was deliberate. He needed distance from it, not because he feared it, but because he wanted to understand what remained when it was absent. Borrowed sight had shown him something dangerous. It could replace judgment if allowed. Tyler was not willing to let that happen.
So he watched.
He sat in his usual seat near the window, posture relaxed, eyes forward. From there, he observed the classroom without filtering thoughts, without closing his eyes, without reaching outward. What surprised him was how much he still noticed.
In the first period, the teacher moved through a lesson on timelines and causation, voice steady and practiced. She called on the same three students repeatedly, not because they were the only ones who knew the answers, but because they made eye contact easily. Others avoided her gaze instinctively, not out of defiance, but out of uncertainty.
Tyler noted it.
A student in the second row raised their hand halfway, then lowered it when the teacher's attention passed them by. The moment lasted seconds. The opportunity vanished. No one acknowledged it afterward. The student returned to their notes, expression neutral, already adjusting expectations.
It was not cruelty.
It was omission.
Between classes, Tyler walked the hallway with Eris again. She moved at a steady pace beside him, eyes scanning the crowd.
"You've been quiet all week," she said.
"I've been listening."
She considered that. "To what."
"Everything."
She smiled faintly. "That sounds exhausting."
"It's not," Tyler replied. "It's efficient."
She laughed softly and shook her head. "You're strange."
He accepted that without comment.
Lunch offered another set of patterns. The group sat together as always, conversation flowing naturally. Chris dominated the table with exaggerated stories. Noah interrupted frequently. Katherine corrected Daniel reflexively. Tyler listened, contributing sparingly.
He noticed how attention flowed toward familiarity. How jokes landed more easily when told by certain people. How disagreement softened or sharpened based on tone rather than content. No one consciously manipulated the conversation. It shaped itself.
Tyler understood now that most misunderstandings were not intentional. People reacted to what they noticed, not to what was true.
In the afternoon, during a group assignment, Tyler watched as a quiet student struggled to insert an idea into the discussion. Their timing was slightly off. Their voice too soft. Each attempt dissolved under louder opinions. Eventually, they stopped trying.
The group finished the task without their input.
The idea might have helped.
No one would ever know.
Tyler felt no urge to intervene. Not because he did not care, but because he understood the limits of intervention. Correcting every oversight would not fix the system that produced them.
After school, Tyler lingered at the gate briefly, watching students disperse. Groups formed and dissolved. Conversations continued for a few steps, then ended. Some people left laughing. Others walked alone.
No one looked unhappy.
That was what struck him.
Misunderstanding did not always produce pain. Often, it simply reshaped expectation quietly. People adapted without realizing they had adapted.
The thought stayed with him as he walked home.
Back in the classroom the next day, a similar pattern repeated. A teacher misinterpreted a student's silence as lack of preparation. Another student answered confidently and was praised, despite being partially incorrect. The class moved on.
Tyler noted the error, but also noted the lack of consequence. No one suffered significantly. No one felt wronged enough to protest.
Truth, he realized, did not assert itself.
It required attention.
And attention was scarce.
By the end of the week, Tyler felt calmer than he had since the awakening. The pressure behind his eyes did not return. The ability remained dormant, responsive but restrained.
He had learned something important without using it.
Most people did not lie.
They missed things.
They filled gaps with assumptions, not malice. They believed their own interpretations because they had no reason to doubt them. That made error persistent, not because it was defended, but because it was invisible.
This realization settled into Tyler's understanding with quiet certainty.
Perception Overlay could show him what others saw.
But even without it, he could now see what they missed.
The following week unfolded without markers.
No notable events. No arguments. No moments that would be remembered later as turning points. Tyler noticed this absence with the same attentiveness he gave everything else. Change, he was learning, rarely announced itself. It accumulated quietly, one overlooked moment at a time.
In class, the seating arrangement remained unchanged. Tyler sat near the window, posture relaxed, gaze attentive but unobtrusive. From there, he watched the same patterns repeat across different subjects, different teachers, different days.
A student who answered confidently was called on again.A student who hesitated was not.
The logic behind it was invisible, yet consistent.
Teachers did not consciously favor anyone. They responded to cues. Raised hands. Eye contact. Tone of voice. Confidence presented itself as competence often enough that the two blurred together.
Tyler wrote his notes neatly, but his attention was divided. Not outward, not inward, but reflective. He found himself tracking small things. How often a teacher scanned the left side of the room versus the right. How long they waited after asking a question before selecting someone. How body language influenced who was noticed.
These were not secrets.
They were habits.
During one lesson, a student near the back dropped a pencil. The sound drew a brief glance from the teacher, then nothing more. The student retrieved it quietly, cheeks faintly flushed, attention already withdrawn. No one commented. No one needed to.
That student spoke less afterward.
Not because they were corrected. Because they were seen.
At lunch, Tyler sat with his usual group, the conversation drifting between harmless topics. Chris talked animatedly about a show he'd watched. Noah interrupted frequently, energy uncontained. Katherine corrected Daniel out of habit, not cruelty. Eris listened more than she spoke, her eyes moving thoughtfully between speakers.
Tyler noticed how easily roles stabilized.
Chris was loud.Noah was chaotic.Katherine was sharp.Daniel was accommodating.
None of this had been assigned. No agreement had been made. And yet, deviation from these roles was subtly resisted. When Daniel spoke assertively, the group paused, momentarily uncertain. When Chris fell silent, the table felt off-balance.
Normalcy exerted pressure.
Tyler did not intervene. He observed how correction did not require hostility. It required expectation.
In physical education, the pattern repeated differently. Skill was visible there, undeniable. But attention still gravitated toward those who acted first. A student who hesitated once was passed over again. Teams formed around familiarity rather than ability.
No one protested.
They adjusted.
Later that day, during a group assignment, Tyler watched a quiet student offer an idea that was ignored. The idea resurfaced minutes later, rephrased by someone else, and was immediately accepted.
No one noticed the repetition.
Not even the original student.
The realization landed heavily.
Truth did not win because it was correct.It won because it was seen.
Tyler felt no anger toward the group. No disappointment. Just clarity. They were not behaving badly. They were behaving efficiently, conserving attention where it seemed most reliable.
That efficiency carried cost.
By the end of the day, Tyler felt a familiar mental fatigue, not from effort, but from awareness. He walked home slowly, replaying the moments that had stood out. The pattern was unmistakable.
Errors of perception did not correct themselves.They layered.
One missed contribution led to silence.Silence led to lowered expectation.Lowered expectation justified further silence.
A structure formed without intention.
At home, the evening passed quietly. Tyler did not retreat immediately to his room. He lingered briefly in the living room, listening to Vanessa discuss something logistical with Melissa. Steven passed through the hallway once, silent, eyes unfocused. The house functioned without friction.
Here too, Tyler saw the same principle at work.
No one spoke about what was absent.No one challenged what had settled.
The structure held because it was easier to maintain than to examine.
In his room later, Tyler sat at his desk without opening a book. He rested his hands flat against the surface, grounding himself physically. He did not close his eyes. He did not reach for Perception Overlay.
He did not need to.
The ability would have shown him what others focused on.
But it would not have shown him what systems encouraged them to focus that way.
That distinction mattered.
Power that revealed information was only useful if paired with understanding. Without judgment, perception became another lens for bias, not a correction for it.
Tyler leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.
He understood now why this ability had not arrived earlier. Why it had waited until he had lived long enough without it. Borrowed sight without context would have been dangerous. It would have encouraged certainty where doubt was necessary.
People were not wrong because they lied.
They were wrong because they did not look long enough.
And even when they did look, they rarely questioned what they expected to see.
This insight settled into Tyler's thinking with quiet finality.
If he ever chose to use Perception Overlay freely, it would not be to confirm his own conclusions. It would be to challenge them. Anything less would turn power into reinforcement rather than disruption.
That night, as the house grew quiet, Tyler lay awake longer than usual. Not restless. Not anxious. Just thinking.
He had learned something essential without activating a single ability.
Perception was not sight.
It was selection.
And selection shaped reality far more than truth ever could.