The darkness in the train car was thick, pressing down like a living weight. The hum of machinery had vanished, leaving only the groan of metal, the scrape of shoes across the floor, and the muffled cries of panicking passengers. Adam's eyes darted across the space, trying to anticipate what would happen next—but this time, the patterns were wrong.
A man stumbled over a fallen backpack. Papers flew into the air, a chaotic cascade that should have been predictable. Adam's mind tried to simulate the outcome, but it twisted in ways he hadn't accounted for. The child behind the man jerked in the wrong direction, and the woman clutching her purse collided with the aisle railing in an unexpected arc.
He moved instinctively, nudging the man's shoulder slightly and shifting his weight—but the chaos didn't fully resolve. Some collisions were unavoidable. A soft cry came from the corner of the car; a young girl had tripped and fallen. Adam froze, frustration tightening his chest. This isn't normal…
The usual calm precision of Phantom Archive faltered. Normally, his mind could predict dozens of outcomes and select the safest sequence, almost like playing a perfect game of chess with reality itself. Tonight, something… else was interfering. Something he couldn't see. Something outside the patterns he knew.
A shadow flickered in the corner of his vision—a curling, writhing shape along the ceiling. At first, he thought it was just a trick of the emergency lights, a hallucination caused by panic. But no. The shadow moved in a way that defied physics. It stretched, twisted, and vanished in a blink, leaving only an unsettling impression in his mind.
What is that?
He squinted in the darkness, trying to focus. His ears picked up vibrations—subtle shifts in the air, too precise, too deliberate to be random. Something else is here. A flicker of wings, a low scrape like claws on metal, whispers that he couldn't place.
Passengers screamed, tripped, and collided. Adam intervened where he could, leaning, nudging, and tapping—small adjustments invisible to the world. But he couldn't prevent everything. A briefcase toppled onto a girl's foot, eliciting a sharp cry. He reacted too slowly to stop it completely, catching only the fall of the bag before it struck her again.
Frustration pricked at him. This isn't supposed to happen…
He took a slow breath. He wasn't panicking yet, but the certainty he usually relied on had cracked. He realized something crucial: this wasn't just a blackout. It wasn't just human chaos. The world was… behaving differently.
Something else was intruding. Something foreign. Something old.
A metallic screech echoed down the train. It wasn't from the wheels. Not exactly. It resonated differently, vibrating along the rails and shaking the metal frame of the car. Passengers froze. Adam tensed, straining his senses, but the usual data—heartbeat, posture, balance—didn't match what he was feeling.
He could still perceive patterns, but they were incomplete, fragmented, chaotic in ways he had never seen. The shadows moved again—more distinct, this time like limbs brushing along the walls. Shapes that should not exist flickered at the edge of his vision: the serpentine coils of a dragon, the skeletal wings of something that resembled a harpy, glimpses of runes and glyphs from cultures long past.
Adam swallowed. Impossible…
He tried to simulate the outcomes, but the usual Phantom Archive sequences faltered. He had to improvise, responding in real time, reacting to things he could barely comprehend. A man fell toward a young woman, and Adam caught him with a quick step, pulling him just enough to prevent a direct collision. He exhaled sharply. Not perfect. Not clean. But it worked.
The system notices… but even it can't explain this.
The shadows flickered again. This time, he saw them clearly enough to make out shapes: twisted silhouettes of beasts crouched against the walls, winged figures that hovered just out of reach, and symbols burned faintly into the metal and glass. Hieroglyphs, Kanji, runes he couldn't recognize. Even the vibration of the air carried meaning he couldn't fully decipher.
Adam's head swam. Are they… watching? Or testing me?
He tried to remain calm, cataloging everything, simulating potential moves. He could prevent some collisions, but the unpredictable events were multiplying faster than his calculations could manage. He had always relied on his mind to see and predict all possibilities—but now, something was outside his control.
A scream from the end of the car drew his attention. A small boy had stumbled into a pile of luggage. Adam dashed, adjusting his steps as precisely as he could, but a suitcase shifted unexpectedly, knocking the boy slightly anyway. Not fatal. Not catastrophic. But he had failed at perfect control, and it left a bitter taste in his mouth.
I don't like this…
The lights flickered weakly. Emergency panels cast jagged shadows that stretched across the car like claws. Adam's mind raced: the usual patterns, the usual calculations, all of them failing to resolve the chaos completely. Something external was shaping events in ways he couldn't anticipate.
And then he felt it—a faint recognition in the back of his mind, like a ping, or a whisper. Phantom Archive's instinctual awareness had been acknowledged by something he couldn't see, couldn't name. It was subtle, but undeniable. His latent ability was beginning to solidify, not just in his own mind, but in the very system of the world itself.
Official…?
He blinked, trying to refocus. The shadows didn't stop. The strange glyphs flickered and vanished. Figures crouched just out of reach. He could sense their movement, but he couldn't predict their intent.
This world… is changing.
Adam's calm mask threatened to slip. He adjusted his stance, shifting weight and timing small nudges to minimize chaos. Passengers continued to scream, stumble, and collide in minor ways. He couldn't save everyone—but he could save enough. Enough to survive, enough to understand.
A sudden lurch sent several passengers sprawling. Adam reacted instinctively, catching a woman from behind as she fell, but another collision happened just beyond his reach. He gritted his teeth. Even I can't control it all.
The realization sank in: the world was merging with something else. Myths, legends, beings from stories long forgotten—or never fully believed—were bleeding into reality. And he, Adam, was caught in the middle.
He exhaled, steadying himself. He didn't panic. He couldn't. But for the first time in his life, he admitted uncertainty.
I don't fully understand what's happening… and that scares me.
Yet even in fear, his mind cataloged, calculated, and simulated. He wasn't powerless. He could still influence events, still intervene where possible. It was imperfect, dangerous, and exhausting—but he was alive, and he was aware.
For now, that is enough.