Ramses was lying on the rooftop when he heard it.
At first, he thought it was the wind. A soft, almost musical hum threading through the silence. But the world had been mute for so long that even the faintest sound stabbed through the air like thunder. He bolted upright, scanning the city below.
Nothing. The streets were still frozen, people locked mid-stride, cars paused in motion. The silence stretched again, heavy and eternal.
But then it returned—clearer this time.
A voice.
"...Ramses..."
The sound was so faint he almost doubted it. His name, drifting through the stillness like a memory. It wasn't echoing from the city. It was deeper, closer, like it was vibrating through his bones.
He whispered into the night, "Who's there?"
The silence swallowed him.
The next flicker came later, while Ramses sat in his apartment writing. His pen scratched across the page, and suddenly—he wasn't alone.
He heard footsteps. Not his own. Heavy, purposeful, like boots against a tile floor. Then voices overlapping, quick and urgent.
"Vitals are stable."
"Hold on—he's responding."
"Give me—"
The words clipped, cut off as the freeze slammed back into place.
Ramses dropped the pen, his heartbeat rattling against his ribs. He backed into the wall, hands shaking.
Those voices hadn't belonged to anyone he knew. They didn't come from the street. They didn't belong to this world.
It was something else. Something outside.
That night, he couldn't sleep. His mind chased itself in circles.
Am I losing it? Am I finally breaking? Or… was that real?
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the shadow of the frozen world shattering, giving way to another place entirely. Bright lights. White walls. The faint sting of antiseptic in the air.
And voices calling his name.
The following day, the sounds grew stronger.
He was crossing an intersection when, for a full minute, the world unfroze. Cars honked, engines roared, people argued over traffic. Ramses staggered back, overwhelmed by the sudden storm of life. His ears rang with the noise, too much, too fast after so much silence.
But within the chaos, another layer broke through.
A woman's voice, soft, trembling.
"Please… wake up."
His chest tightened. That voice hadn't come from the street. It had come from everywhere at once, echoing through his mind.
He knew it.
His mother.
Ramses fell to his knees, hands gripping his head. Tears welled in his eyes.
Wake up?
The words echoed, louder and louder.
Wake up.
Wake up.
Wake up.
He pressed his palms against the pavement. Was that what this was? Not a miracle. Not a gift. Not even a curse.
A coma.
The realization clawed at him. His frozen world, his endless solitude, his battles, his growth—was it all just his mind's prison while his body lay elsewhere?
The silence returned, and Ramses collapsed onto the ground, trembling.
"No," he whispered. "No, this can't be fake. It can't."
He stumbled back to his apartment, heart racing. He stared at the journal on his desk, the countless entries he had written. He flipped through the pages, skimming his own handwriting.
Every page was proof of his struggle, his growth, his change. It had to be real.
But the voices haunted him. The sounds of machines. The whispers of his mother.
It made sense in a way nothing else had.
This was why time had stopped. This was why the world was breaking. His mind had built this frozen world to protect him while his body lay dying—or healing.
He pressed his forehead against the journal, sobbing.
"Then what happens when it ends? Do I lose all of this? Do I lose me?"
The signs grew relentless.
He began to hear beeping—steady, rhythmic. A machine's heartbeat, alien to the city around him.
Sometimes he felt pressure on his hand, like fingers squeezing his. He'd glance down and see nothing, but the warmth lingered.
And the voices—always the voices. His name repeated like a prayer. Pleading. Commanding. Begging.
"Come back to us."
"You can do it."
"Don't let go."
Each time, the frozen world dimmed, the silence felt thinner, weaker.
And Ramses knew: the edge was near.
He returned once more to the rooftop. The city spread beneath him, fractured between stillness and motion, silence and sound. He stared at it as though memorizing every detail—the way the lights reflected off frozen windows, the way the shadows painted the streets, the way the air shimmered whenever time threatened to move again.
This world had been his prison, his battlefield, his sanctuary. He had hated it. He had loved it.
And now, it was ending.
"Was it all just a dream?" he whispered to the skyline. "Or was it the most real thing I've ever lived?"
The silence gave no answer. But the faint beep-beep-beep in his ears did.
That night, Ramses meditated one last time. He closed his eyes and let himself sink inward, into the quiet space where he had once confronted his fears. But now, the shadows were gone. Only light remained, flickering faintly, pulling him forward.
He breathed deeply.
"If this is the end… if I really am waking up…" He opened his eyes, staring into the horizon. "Then I'll carry this with me. Every push-up. Every page. Every tear. Every fight. It's all mine. Real or not—it's me."
The air shimmered around him. The city groaned as if preparing to breathe.
And Ramses, sitting steady in the center of it all, felt it.
The edge.
The world was about to awaken.
And so was he.