2025-11-04 00:47:51
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197. Where the world starts to scream
Inside Adam’s eyes burned the reflection of the fracture—the impossible, the infinite spiral of power that stretched into a realm where nothing obeyed the rules of reality. Shadows moved like serpents through shards of light, and every heartbeat of the city pulsed in rhythm with the invisible lattice that the entity had begun knitting.Lilith’s breath hitched. “Adam…” she whispered, voice trembling with fear and awe. She couldn’t look away. Every fiber of her being screamed to step forward, to reach him, to pull him back before he became unrecognizable—not to them, but to himself.Kaleb’s hands glowed faintly with energy he didn’t fully understand, a protective instinct manifesting in raw, uncontrolled power. “He’s… he’s being rewritten,” Kaleb muttered, eyes wide. “I can feel it… the Vessel… the fracture… it’s all merging.”Adam’s body convulsed as if some invisible tide pushed against him from all directions. Malrick’s presence inside him surged, partially solid now, taking shape al
196. The city that breathed in shadows
The streets were no longer safe. Not in the way they once had been, not in the ordinary sense of danger that involved petty crime or accidents. The city had begun to breathe differently, a slow, suffocating rhythm that was almost imperceptible but impossible to ignore. Windows reflected a faint shimmer of movement, as if the air itself had mass, and shadows stretched unnaturally, clinging to walls and corners as though alive.Adam moved with Lilith and Kaleb through an alley that smelled faintly of mildew and oil. He didn’t speak. Words were pointless here. His senses were stretched thin, picking up every shift in pressure, every subtle distortion, every trace of the lattice threading through the city’s bones. Malrick whispered from within, a presence that now flickered between the edges of Adam’s consciousness and partial physical manifestation, like a second shadow walking beside him.They are forming nodes, Malrick said. Attention, fear, trust—all of it collected. They will become
195. The pressure beneath silence
The city exhaled, but it did not relax.Dawn crept in reluctantly, a thin gray light seeping between buildings as though the sun itself was uncertain whether it was welcome. The rain had stopped sometime before morning, leaving the streets slick and reflective, mirrors that showed too much if one stared for too long.Adam stood at the edge of a rooftop several floors above the street, watching the city wake with a stillness that felt practiced. Below him, cars moved, people emerged from apartment buildings, vendors set up carts. Life resumed its shape—but the rhythm was off. Every movement carried a hesitation, a half-beat delay, as if the world were waiting for a cue it had not yet received.Lilith joined him, wrapping her coat tighter around herself. “People don’t know why they’re scared,” she said quietly. “That’s the worst kind.”“Yes,” Adam replied. “Fear without context seeks meaning.”Malrick stirred within him, not sharply this time, but with a low, constant awareness. They wi
194. The sound of a world holding its breath
The city did not sleep.Even as the night deepened, windows remained lit far longer than they should have been. Televisions murmured in living rooms where no one was watching. Phones buzzed with half-formed alerts that vanished the moment they appeared. Somewhere beneath the noise of ordinary life, a quieter rhythm pulsed—slow, deliberate, patient.Adam felt it with every step.They moved through back streets and alleys, avoiding open spaces instinctively now. The world had begun to behave like a nervous animal—unpredictable, easily startled, prone to sudden violence when pressed too far. Every passing stranger carried a faint echo, a whisper of something listening through them, measuring, cataloging.Lilith walked beside Adam, her shoulders tight, her eyes constantly scanning reflections—storefront glass, puddles on the pavement, the dark sheen of parked cars. She had learned the hard way that the first sign of intrusion was often not sight, but symmetry. Things lining up too neatly.
193. When the walls begin to listen
The church doors closed again behind Father Grant, the wood settling into place with a muted thud that sounded far too final for something so ordinary.Rain kept falling.Adam remained where he was, hand still pressed against the stone wall, as though removing it might cause the structure—or himself—to come apart. The fracture inside him had not quieted after Father Grant’s words. If anything, it had grown more alert, like a predator lifting its head after catching a scent it recognized.“They’re closer than you think,” Lilith repeated under her breath. “I hate sentences like that.”Kaleb glanced from the church to Adam. “Please tell me he was being metaphorical.”Adam shook his head slowly. “No. He was being honest.”That unsettled Kaleb more than if Adam had said dangerous. Honest meant choice. It meant awareness. It meant people stepping into this willingly.Malrick’s presence deepened, thickening like fog pooling in a low place. The institution learned how to listen, he said. It d
192. Fault lines beneath the skin
The rain did not stop when morning came.It softened, thinned into a gray curtain that blurred the city into something unfinished, as if the world itself had not fully decided what shape it wanted to keep. Adam woke to that sound—the persistent whisper of water against glass—and for a few seconds, he did not remember where he was or why his bones felt as if they had been hollowed out and refilled with lead.Then the fracture stirred.It no longer screamed when he surfaced from sleep. That alone unsettled him.The apartment was quiet. Too quiet. No hum from the refrigerator, no distant sirens, no muffled voices from neighboring units. The silence pressed in, dense and watchful, like the pause before something moved.Adam pushed himself upright on the couch. Every muscle protested, but he ignored it. Pain was familiar. Silence was not.Lilith sat on the floor a few feet away, back against the wall, knees drawn to her chest. She hadn’t slept. He could tell by the tension in her shoulders
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