The Overseer did not hurry.
That was the first thing Kael noticed.
People who hurried believed something could still be prevented. The Overseer walked with the untroubled certainty of someone arriving exactly when intended, neither early nor late. His steps were unforced, measured, as though the corridors themselves adjusted to his pace.
Kael remained seated on the edge of the bed, hands resting loosely on his knees.
"You're calm," the Overseer observed.
Kael looked up at him. "You keep saying that like it's a flaw."
The Overseer smiled faintly. "It is. Calm implies acceptance. Acceptance implies understanding."
"And?" Kael asked.
"And understanding implies consent."
Kael said nothing.
The Overseer's gaze drifted around the cell. He frowned slightly at the dimmed light, then at the sigils carved into the walls.
"They're weakening faster than projected," he said to no one in particular.
"You put me in here," Kael replied. "What did you expect?"
The Overseer looked at him more sharply this time.
"Careful," he said. "You're beginning to sound like something that believes it has leverage."
Kael met his eyes. "Do I?"
A pause stretched between them.
Then the Overseer laughed softly.
"No," he said. "But it's interesting that you asked."
He stepped closer. Kael felt it immediately—not pressure, not domination, but density. The Overseer's presence thickened the air, compressing space in subtle ways. Kael's skin prickled, his instincts flaring.
And yet—
There it was again.
That gap.
The Overseer stopped abruptly, brows knitting together.
"…That's unpleasant," he murmured.
Kael tilted his head. "What is?"
"For the first time," the Overseer said slowly, "I am standing next to something the world is not fully informing me about."
He straightened, expression sharpening into something colder.
"You are interfering," he said.
"I'm sitting on a bed," Kael replied.
"Yes," the Overseer said. "And yet—"
He gestured vaguely, as if grasping for the right word.
"—the world hesitates around you."
That wasn't fear in his voice.
It was irritation.
They didn't leave Kael alone after that.
Observers rotated through the cell—analysts, Wardens, one minor official whose hands shook so badly he dropped his slate twice. Each tried something different. Questions. Probes. Silent observation.
None of it worked the way it should have.
Instruments failed to stabilize. Sigils lost coherence. Presence-based suppression drifted out of alignment the longer Kael remained conscious.
Eventually, they stopped coming inside.
That was when the screams started.
Not loud. Not constant.
Distant.
Someone else was being tested.
Kael lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, listening as sound carried imperfectly through stone and sigil. Each cry arrived muffled, distorted—but unmistakably human.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
Not my problem, he told himself.
That thought slid off him without sticking.
Minutes passed. Or hours.
The screaming stopped abruptly.
A door slammed somewhere far away.
Then footsteps—running this time.
Urgent.
Kael sat up.
The light in his cell flickered violently, dimming and brightening in erratic pulses. The absence around him stirred, stretching, responding to something he couldn't see.
"Hey," he whispered. "No. Stop."
It didn't.
He felt it then—direction.
The gap wasn't centered on him anymore.
It was leaning.
Toward the corridor.
The door slid open with a harsh scrape.
The Examiner stood there, face pale, breath unsteady.
"You did that," she said.
Kael stared at her. "Did what?"
She stepped inside despite herself, then flinched, as if passing through an invisible curtain.
"You destabilized the trial chamber," she said. "The subject—"
Her voice faltered.
"—lost cohesion."
Kael's chest tightened. "Lost… what?"
"She didn't die," the Examiner said quickly. "Not exactly."
"Then what happened?"
She looked away.
"She no longer registers properly," she said. "Presence fluctuations. Identity drift. She's… incomplete."
Kael felt cold spread through his limbs.
"I didn't touch her," he said. "I don't even know her."
"That doesn't matter," the Examiner snapped. "You were awake. And close enough."
The words settled heavily between them.
"You mean—" Kael swallowed. "—just by existing?"
"Yes."
Silence stretched.
Kael looked down at his hands again.
They still looked the same.
"I didn't choose this," he said quietly.
"No," the Examiner replied. "But you're responsible for it."
The sentence landed like a verdict.
They moved him again.
This time, it wasn't deeper.
It was higher.
The elevator platform carried him upward through layers of stone and infrastructure he had never seen, past reinforced sectors and sealed halls. With each level, the air grew thinner, cleaner, heavier with authority.
They stopped at a medical wing.
The girl lay on the bed, eyes open but unfocused. She couldn't have been more than fifteen.
Kael froze in the doorway.
Her chest rose and fell. She was breathing.
But something was wrong.
"She doesn't see me," Kael said.
The Examiner nodded grimly. "She doesn't see anything properly anymore."
Kael stepped closer. The absence shifted instinctively, pulling back from her like a tide retreating from a fragile shore.
The machines around her steadied slightly.
The Examiner noticed.
"Step back," she said sharply.
Kael obeyed.
The machines faltered again.
Her fingers twitched weakly.
Guilt twisted in Kael's gut.
"I didn't mean to hurt her," he said.
"I know," the Examiner replied. "That's what makes you dangerous."
Kael looked at the girl's face—blank, peaceful in a way that wasn't peace at all.
"What happens to her?" he asked.
"She'll be reassigned," the Examiner said. "Support role. Minimal interaction. No further trials."
"Because she's broken."
"Yes."
Kael's jaw tightened. "Because of me."
The Examiner did not contradict him.
Later—much later—Kael sat alone in a new cell, larger than the last, reinforced with layers of compensatory sigils that pulsed constantly to maintain stability.
He could feel them working.
Straining.
He lay back and stared at the ceiling, mind replaying the image of the girl's empty gaze, Rian's faint smile, the way the Overseer had looked at him—not with hatred, but with professional concern.
You don't even have to try, a voice inside him whispered. You just have to be here.
Kael clenched his fists.
"That's not power," he muttered. "That's contamination."
And yet—
The world kept him alive.
Kept studying him.
Kept adjusting around him instead of discarding him.
Which meant one thing.
He wasn't waste.
He was useful.
That realization scared him more than death ever had.
Far above, beyond sealed chambers and controlled trials, reports compiled and recalculated.
1.98% still awakened.
But now there was a subcategory.
An annotation in the margins.
Not power.
Not failure.
Anomaly: Environmental Interference Class.
The world did not like things it could not categorize.
But it hated losing resources even more.
And Kael Morren was becoming very expensive.
A/N: thanks for reading and if you like it then add it to your collection and tell your thoughts in the comment section.....