June 10
Location: Veritus – Sector 7
Status: Unsteady, fading edges
Feeling: Hollow, distant, drifting
I don't remember when the city stopped noticing me. It wasn't sudden— no, it was a slow fade, like the last light slipping from a dying star. Some days, I'm there, solid enough to touch. Other days, I'm a whisper, barely a shadow in the corner of someone's eye.
Today is one of those days.
I walk through Sector 7 like a ghost on a loop. The streets are crowded, but no one sees me. Not really. Faces blur past, wrapped up in their own worlds. Their laughter, their anger, their silence— it's all noise I can't catch anymore.
I try to reach out once, a word on my tongue, but it catches in my throat and dissolves. I'm becoming a fading line in a story nobody reads anymore.
At the café, the same one with starless foam, the barista doesn't register me. Her eyes slide over like I'm part of the furniture— part of the dust and cracked tiles. I don't want to go in; I don't want the sting of invisible rejection again.
Instead, I turn away, heading toward the alley where I found that boy's laughter last week. The place still hums with his absence, the weight of what used to be there. I press my palm to the cold brick and close my eyes, trying to hold onto the feeling before it slips through my fingers.
I'm tired.
Not just the physical kind, but the kind that burrows deep— makes the air thick and hard to breathe. The part of me that aches to be remembered, to be real, is thinning.
Back in my flat, the journal waits. Pages half-filled, memories scribbled in fading ink. I stare at it, wondering if these words are my tether or my undoing. Writing feels like shouting into a void. Will anyone ever hear?
I reach out to the pendant resting on the windowsill. It's cool to the touch, but it still hums faintly— like a heartbeat struggling to keep pace with a fading world.
And then there's her— the one thread still holding me together.
The girl who looks at me like I'm not entirely gone. The one who remembers when the city forgets.
But even she feels distant lately, like a dream slipping just beyond reach.
I don't know how much longer I can hold on.
Or if I even want to.
The silence isn't just outside. It's creeping in, taking up space inside me too.
Tonight, I write this:
"I am here. Or at least, I try to be. But every day, I lose a little more of myself in the quiet. If I disappear, will anyone notice? Will anyone care? Or am I already forgotten?"
The city exhales around me.
And I wait.
For something. Anything. To break the stillness.
But the silence only deepens, swallowing the spaces between the distant sirens and muffled footsteps. I sit by the cracked window, watching the fog curl around the streetlights, thick and slow like a living thing. It feels like the fog knows me — as if it's quietly folding me into itself, making sure no one else can find me here.
My fingers brush over the pendant again, tracing the faint pulse beneath the surface. It's the only thing that feels alive.
I wonder if it remembers me better than I remember myself.
The room around me grows colder as the night stretches on. The radiator coughs again — a ragged, tired sound that matches the ache settling deep in my chest. I pull the scarf tighter, but the warmth barely reaches past my skin.
I'm not sure what I'm waiting for anymore.
A sign? A voice? A flicker of the past that might light the way forward?
I flip open the journal, eyes scanning the familiar scrawl, but the words blur, refusing to stay focused. The lines on the page look like cracks in a mirror — fractured pieces of something once whole.
I want to believe I'm more than just fragments.
I want to believe I still have a place here.
But the truth presses in, heavy and unyielding: the more I reach out, the more I feel myself slipping.
The light in the pendant flickers faintly — a whisper against the dark.
I close my eyes and try to remember the girl's face. Not just the vague shape, but the way her eyes held a storm, the quiet strength behind her silence.
She's the only one who sees the threads still holding me together.
And maybe, just maybe, she's the reason I'm still here.
A soft knock pulls me from the spiral of thought.
Not loud. Not urgent. Just three slow taps at the door.
My heart stutters.
I don't know if I want to open it.
But I do.
The hallway is empty.
Just a small envelope slipped beneath the door — no name, no stamp, just a thin ribbon of paper folded tight.
I pick it up, breath catching as I unfold the note inside.
"Don't disappear completely."
No signature. No explanation. Just those words.
I press the paper to my chest. Like it's a lifeline.
The city outside keeps breathing, indifferent and vast. But inside, for a moment, I'm not quite alone. Maybe that's enough to keep me going.
Or maybe it's just another thread waiting to unravel.
I don't know which yet.
The city exhales around me, but the sound is hollow — like a breath drawn through cracked glass.
I sit by the cracked window of my flat, watching the fog crawl through the streets, curling like smoke around flickering streetlamps. The mist moves slow, deliberate — swallowing everything it touches. It's the kind of silence that presses against your skin and seeps into your bones.
I pull the scarf tighter, but it's not warmth I'm chasing. It's proof. Proof that I'm still here. That something, somewhere, still remembers me.
The pendant pulses faintly against my palm, a heartbeat trapped beneath glass and metal. It's the only thing I hold that feels alive.
Outside, distant footsteps echo — too steady, too close to be random. I freeze. And in the background, the radiator coughs behind me, a ragged sound that matches the tightness in my chest.
The night feels heavier now, thicker — as if the city itself is holding its breath.
I glance at the window again.
A shadow moves across the street, quick and sharp. Not a trace. Something real.
My breath catches.
I'm not alone.
I grab the coat, the chalk, the pendant. No time to think.
The cold hits as I step into the fog-thickened street — wet, biting, alive.
I pull my scarf up, covering my mouth, eyes scanning.
The shadow flickers again near the corner, just out of clear sight.
I follow. Every step echoes in the empty street, every breath sharp against the cold air.
The figure pauses beneath a flickering streetlamp — tall, cloaked, unmoving.
I approach slowly, heart hammering — part fear, part hope.
"Who's there?" I ask, voice rough and low.
No answer.
Then, a glint — a knife blade catching the pale light.
I duck instinctively.
A rush of movement — sharp, close.
My hand shoots out, chalk dust spilling from my fingers like smoke.
The air shivers.
The figure recoils, then darts back into the mist.
I chase, breath ragged, feet splashing through puddles.
But they vanish — swallowed whole by Veritus's endless gray.
I stop, chest burning, alone again.
The city feels darker now — the kind of dark that doesn't just hide things, but devours them.
I press my hand to my chest, feeling the pendant's faint warmth.
The note's words burn in my mind.
Don't disappear completely.
I won't.
Not yet.