You don't need to scream to shatter a world."
---
The city had restarted.
Artificial wind, digital birds, glowing sky projections — all of it hummed back to life like nothing ever happened.
The people inside it… didn't know what they had forgotten.
Didn't remember the void.
Didn't remember the silence.
Didn't remember him.
---
Jake Lagon walked across the rooftop ledge like a ghost.
Below, the school bell rang.
Students poured out.
Laughing.
Talking.
Arguing about stat points and exam buffs.
Jake didn't hear them.
Because they didn't exist to him.
They were side effects of the simulation.
Scripts.
Autoplayed loops with skins and smiles.
---
He sat back down.
The same spot.
The same edge.
But something was different now.
> The silence… wasn't his anymore.
---
A soft hum vibrated through the sky.
Not mechanical.
Not divine.
Just… aware.
The type of presence that didn't walk, didn't speak, didn't breathe.
It observed.
Jake tilted his head slightly.
> "You again."
He didn't know what it was.
Or maybe he did.
But names meant power. And Jake didn't hand out power.
---
Suddenly —
A voice echoed inside his head.
Not from outside.
Not a mental transmission.
Not telepathy.
But from the code beneath the world.
> "SILENCE IS A WEAPON YOU DO NOT CONTROL."
Jake smiled. Not amused — just tired of warnings.
He stood again.
Hands in pockets.
Eyes empty, but sharp.
---
"You mistake me," he whispered.
"I don't control silence."
He stepped off the edge of the rooftop — mid-air — but didn't fall.
Reality paused, trying to decide if gravity still applied to him.
> "I am the silence," Jake continued, floating calmly over the city.
"And I've been patient."
---
[SYSTEM ALERT: ILLEGAL MOVEMENT DETECTED]
[ERROR: GRAVITY FIELD NULLIFIED BY SUBJECT]
[AUTO-CORRECTION: FAILED]
---
Far below, a church bell rang in reverse.
Time stuttered.
People glitched in place — some frozen, others looping the same breath over and over.
The simulation began twitching.
---
Jake raised a hand — not to attack.
Just to hush.
A single finger to the void.
A signal.
> "Stop watching. Or I'll remind you what silence really does."
And suddenly — the hum stopped.
The sky reloaded.
The digital birds flew the opposite direction.
Every drone shut off for 3.2 seconds.
And in that moment…
Nothing dared to breathe.
---
> Jake didn't fire a weapon.
He didn't scream, cast, or transform.
He simply threatened the concept of observation — and won.
---
He landed.
One foot on air.
One foot on a glass billboard projecting an ad for a new [System Awakening App].
He crouched down, looked into the ad… and saw himself reflected.
But he wasn't in the ad.
Just in the mirror.
That was enough.
He whispered to it.
> "You will all forget me again."
> "And I will still be here."
---
To be continued…