For a moment — just one, impossibly thin moment — everything in me disappeared.
Not fear.
Not pain.
Not even thought.
Just… silence.
The kind of silence that exists right before a storm breaks open.
The man stepped over the broken door as if it were nothing more than a fallen leaf. Dust curled around his shoes, swirling gently in the air, bending in ways dust wasn't supposed to bend… almost like it was reacting to him.
His gaze never left me.
Not even to blink.
"You feel it," he said again, voice low, steady, certain. "Don't pretend you don't."
I didn't answer.
Because my body wasn't listening to me anymore.
My spine felt electric — not sharp, not painful, but alive. Like a current was running up it. Like something had been sleeping there for years, buried under normal life and routine and the stupid weight of everyday survival…
…and now it stretched for the first time.
The pressure behind my ribs tightened.
The air thickened again.
And then—
Something happened.
Not outside me.
Inside.
A click.
An alignment.
As if something that had always been there finally found the right angle.
The stranger must've felt it too, because he stopped mid-step.
His eyes widened — just a fraction, but enough.
"There it is," he whispered.
"Your first shift."
I didn't know what a shift was.
But I knew something was wrong with my body.
Or right.
Or both.
My breath came slow, too slow.
My heartbeat barely registered.
My fingers tingled.
My vision blurred at the edges while sharpening at the center.
And then —
he moved.
A blur.
Fast.
Too fast.
A hand shot toward my throat, precise and confident, like he'd done this a hundred times, like this was already his victory.
I didn't think.
I didn't decide.
I didn't plan.
My body moved first.
Not from skill.
Not from strength.
From instinct.
Pure, primal instinct.
My foot slid back.
My torso twisted.
My hand lifted to intercept his wrist before it touched me—
And it wasn't smooth.
It wasn't pretty.
It was messy, shaky, almost clumsy—
—but it was correct.
Perfectly correct.
His fingers closed on empty air.
His eyebrows lifted in genuine surprise.
"You shouldn't be able to do that," he murmured.
I didn't answer.
I couldn't.
My throat was too tight, not from fear but from the weight of what I felt happening inside my own skin.
A heat curling in my chest.
A pressure in my arms.
A awareness around me — like the room wasn't space anymore, but shape, and I could feel the entire shape of it.
He lunged again.
A fist toward my jaw.
My body leaned just enough.
His knuckles grazed a strand of my hair — nothing more.
My pulse didn't spike.
In fact… I barely noticed it.
Everything inside me was too focused, too aware, too still.
He stepped back slightly, studying me, head tilted.
"Instinctive evasion," he muttered.
"And you haven't even awakened consciously yet."
I swallowed, skin buzzing, lungs tight.
"What do you want?" I forced out.
He smiled — small, controlled, knowing.
"To see," he said, "whether it wakes fully… before it kills you."
I didn't get time to respond.
Because the next instant —
He attacked properly.
Fast.
Dangerous.
Real.
A punch to the ribs.
A palm strike to the sternum.
A sweeping kick to the ankle.
Precise. Efficient. Deadly.
Any normal person would've been broken within two seconds.
But my body —
My terrible, terrified, newly-awakened body —
Moved around him like it already knew the choreography.
Duck.
Shift.
Lean.
Step.
Twist.
No thoughts.
No training.
Just instinct.
Raw.
Clean.
Unmistakable.
After a dozen attacks, he stepped back.
Breathing slightly heavier.
Eyes sharp.
Expression electrified with fascination.
"Impossible," he whispered.
"You're aligning on your first day."
My hands trembled.
My chest ached.
And suddenly — horribly —
I felt it again.
That second heartbeat.
Deep.
Slow.
Older than anything I understood.
Thump.
My vision wavered.
Thump.
The heat in my spine spread upward.
Thump.
The awareness in the room expanded outward until I could feel the distance between molecules.
The man's expression changed.
The fascination faded.
Replaced by something colder.
Awe.
And a trace of fear.
"Oh," he breathed.
"It's not waking."
His pupils constricted.
"It's remembering."
The pressure in my chest snapped open like a cracked dam—
—and the instinct wasn't instinct anymore.
It was something else.
Something bigger.
Something that belonged to me…
…but also didn't.
My voice trembled when I spoke.
"What… what's happening to me?"
He took a slow step back.
"For now?" he said quietly.
"For now…
you're becoming the reason they were looking for you."