Morning blurred into noon, and noon blurred into a day the city wasn't built to understand. Official reports hit the news with the smooth, clinical tone of bureaucrats trying to stabilize panic:"Localized infrastructure distortion. Visual illusion caused by heat variations. Electrical grid fluctuations. Nothing to be alarmed about."
Phineas scoffed at every line he read.Alex just stared at the screen, pale.Kayden didn't speak at all.
Because they had been there.And because they knew illusions didn't bow.Illusions didn't observe.Illusions didn't test humans like puzzle pieces.
By mid-afternoon, the municipal authority blocked off the street entirely. Yellow tape fluttered in the wind, and a perimeter of metal barricades lined the area like an improvised cage. Kayden watched workers drag out portable scanning towers—tripod devices topped with dish-shaped heads and humming electromagnetic coils. Tech teams in heavy jackets moved around the distorted area, their boots leaving normal footprints on a ground that wasn't entirely normal anymore.
Kayden, Alex, and Phineas stood behind the tape until someone noticed Phineas's badge from the university research board. That was all it took.Suddenly the three of them were being waved in.Suddenly they mattered.
A man in a dark jacket shook Phineas's hand with too-tight fingers.
"We're detecting an unstable EM field. Nothing we've seen before," he said, voice clipped. "We were told you three witnessed the initial event."
Phineas straightened. "Witnessed it and recorded it."
Alex elbowed Kayden gently. "Don't say anything weird."
Kayden wasn't planning to.He wasn't planning to say anything at all.
The closer they got to the distorted zone, the more Kayden felt it.The air trembled—not visibly, not audibly, but spiritually. Like a pressure across the mind. A vibration that had nothing to do with the devices humming around them.
APEX hovered faintly in his vision."Commander. The anomaly residue remains active. However, no active signal extension detected."
Kayden exhaled slowly.Not active.But not gone.
A tech worker knelt by a device shaped like a sound cannon and called out:
"Ready for acoustic discharge test."
Kayden's blood ran cold.
Noise.
They were about to recreate the same improvised tactic he, Alex, and Phineas had used yesterday. Except now it wasn't instinct. It was procedure.
Phineas stepped closer to the control table. "What frequency are you using?"
"Starting at 30 hertz," the operator replied. "Then we sweep upward. Goal is to disrupt the distortion pattern. If it's audiovisual or spatial layering, it should collapse."
Kayden forced his voice out. "It won't collapse."
The operator looked at him. "How do you know?"
Kayden's jaw tightened.He couldn't say: Because it thinks.He couldn't say: Because it recognizes me.
So he simply said, "Because it didn't collapse yesterday."
The tech frowned, confused—but pressed the button anyway.
The air popped.
A low thunderous hum vibrated through the barricades, shuddering along the pavement. The sound was deep enough to feel in the ribs, like a heartbeat forced out of the earth itself. People grit their teeth. Someone swore. Alex clutched his ears.
Phineas recorded data frantically.Kayden watched the center of the distortion with his breath locked in his chest.
And then—it rippled.
The street didn't bend this time. It… shifted.Like someone grabbed reality and twisted it a centimeter clockwise.
The tech team gasped.
"That's a reaction—visual spike at point B!"
"No collapse though!"
"Field stability fluctuating—!"
Kayden stared harder.
A shadow flickered there. Not tall this time. Not humanoid. Just a flutter of absence, like a corner of the world forgot to load for a frame.
APEX sharpened its tone."Commander. New data. The signal is not resisting. It is listening."
Listening.
Kayden's heart stabbed his ribs.
The distortion shimmered once more—and then something unexpected happened.
It pulsed back.
Like an answer.Like a call acknowledging the noise.
A tech screamed, falling backward as their device jerked violently, metal groaning under invisible pressure. Sparks flew from the circuit box. The operator slammed the shutoff button.
The hum died.But the pulse did not.
The distortion bloomed outward a meter in diameter, then retracted instantly like a breath forced back into a lung that wasn't supposed to breathe.
Alex stumbled, grabbing Kayden's sleeve. "Bro—what did we just do?"
"We gave it something to respond to," Kayden whispered.
Phineas's eyes widened as the truth clicked. "We didn't disrupt it. We stimulated it."
The operator muttered into his radio, panicked:"This is not EM distortion. This is not thermal. This is—this is responding to us. It's interacting."
Kayden closed his eyes.
The signal wasn't trying to invade this time.It wasn't trying to rewrite.It was studying noise, human sound, human frequency.
Testing reactions.Testing boundaries.
Testing them.
"Prepare EM countermeasure!" another tech yelled. "Charge coils!"
A tower nearby began to glow faint blue. Electricity danced between the ringed coils, crackling, building—
APEX shrieked inside Kayden's mind.
"STOP THEM. NOW."
Kayden jerked as if electrocuted. "Shut it down! Shut it down!"
The tech team ignored him.
"What's wrong?!" Alex yelled, panicking.
APEX's voice fractured with urgency Kayden had only heard once before—during the unauthorized signal attack.
"Electromagnetic discharge will not repel anomaly.It will attract it."
Kayden lunged forward, grabbing the nearest tech's jacket. "Shut it off! NOW! Turn it off!"
The man shoved him back. "Kid, step away—"
The coil discharged.
A flash of white cracked like lightning in a closed dome.
The world froze.
Just for a heartbeat.Just long enough.
Kayden saw it in perfect clarity:
The distortion split like the shell of an egg.A seam of silver tore through the air, thin but impossibly sharp.Something inside leaned forward—a ripple, a hint of structure, a sense of shape learning to exist here—
And then it stopped.Collapsed.Retreated with a violent implosion of air that sent dust spiraling around their feet.
Silence punched the world.
Techs stared at the empty space where the anomaly had almost fully manifested.
Phineas sank to his knees, breath collapsing.Alex grabbed Kayden's arm with fingers trembling so hard it hurt.
The operator whispered, voice shaking like someone trying not to vomit:
"What… was trying to come through?"
Kayden didn't answer.
Because he knew.
Not the form.Not the name.
But the truth:
"It's not just watching anymore," he said softly. "It's learning how to enter."
APEX flickered weakly.
"Commander… this is only the beginning."
Kayden looked toward the empty street, toward the space where the world had nearly folded open like a wound.
He whispered, not to APEX, not to Alex or Phineas, but to whatever was listening on the other side:
"Stay out."
The distortion didn't reappear.But the air felt thinner, like the world had heard him…and was considering its answer.