The rain had returned by the time Kai reached home. The streets shone slick beneath the streetlights, reflecting pale halos of yellow. He hunched his shoulders against the drizzle, one hand in his pocket, fingers brushing the coin as though to reassure himself it hadn't vanished.
The house welcomed him with its usual gloom. He dropped his coat over the chair, set water to boil, and prepared another small meal of rice and leftover sardines. The routine steadied him, a fragile anchor against the storm in his head.
But the coin was still there. Heavy in his pocket. Warm, almost.
When the rice was done, he ate in silence. The walls creaked around him, and the steady drip in the corner kept rhythm like a metronome. Each bite of food tasted faintly metallic, as though the coin's presence had seeped into everything.
After dinner, he sat at the table, pulling the coin into the light. Its surface gleamed despite its tarnish, the markings winding across it like veins under skin. The longer he stared, the less they looked like mere symbols. They seemed to shift, to rearrange themselves into shapes that almost resembled letters.
A whisper stirred the air.
"Kai."
His pulse jumped. He set the coin down quickly, but the sound continued. Not with his ears, but inside his head.
"…you asked…"
He gritted his teeth. "Who are you?"
Silence stretched. Then—
"…not who… when."
Kai froze. "What?"
"…time."
The coin pulsed faintly in his palm. His vision wavered. The walls around him seemed to ripple, their cracks widening like veins across a beating heart. He blinked hard, but the distortion only deepened.
And then he was no longer in the kitchen.
The air smelled of ash and iron. He stood on a vast plain of black stone, stretching endlessly in every direction. Above, the sky churned with gray clouds, torn open by flashes of lightning that made no sound.
In the distance, he saw them—figures moving across the plain. Some walked upright, cloaked and hooded. Others crawled, twisted, their limbs bent wrong, their shadows stretching too far behind them.
Closer, a tall figure emerged. Cloaked in black, its face hidden, but Kai recognized the coat. The man from the store.
"You've been chosen," the figure said. Its voice echoed in Kai's skull, not in the air.
"Chosen for what?" Kai demanded, his voice trembling.
"To see," the man replied. "To ask. To kill."
The words hit Kai like a blow. His stomach turned. "No—I'm not—"
The figure raised its hand. The coin gleamed there, brighter now, its markings alive with silver light.
"Life, death, God. You asked. The answers come with a price."
The ground beneath Kai cracked open, black stone splitting to reveal a vast chasm. From its depths rose shapes—monstrous, writhing, with eyes that burned and mouths that dripped shadow. Their claws scraped the stone, and their howls tore through the silent sky.
Kai stumbled back, heart hammering.
"Fight," the man said simply.
Kai's vision blurred. He tried to scream, but the sound was swallowed.
Then—
He was back in the kitchen.
The rice bowl lay shattered on the floor. Water dripped steadily in the corner. His hands trembled violently, clutching the coin so tightly its edges cut into his skin.
For a long time, he sat there, breathing hard, staring at nothing.
When he finally moved, he dragged himself to the window. The street outside was nearly empty, washed clean by rain. Only one figure walked there—tall, cloaked, moving with deliberate steps.
Kai's blood turned cold.
The man in black.
He didn't look up at the window. Didn't slow his pace. He simply passed beneath the streetlight, leaving only shadows behind him.
Kai shut the curtains, heart thundering.
But when he opened his hand, the coin was still glowing faintly. Its whispers had not stopped.
"…closer…"
"…the hunt begins…"
Kai dropped it onto the table and backed away. But even from across the room, he felt it watching him. Waiting.
The house groaned around him, the cracks in the walls seeming wider than ever.
For the first time since his parents' death, Kai whispered a prayer—not to a God he trusted, but to anything that might be listening.
"Please. Don't let me lose my mind."
Only the coin answered, with its steady pulse of light.
Kai woke before dawn.
The clock read 4:12 a.m., the digits glowing faintly green. He hadn't really slept—more a series of shallow blackouts between the coin's whispers. Each time his eyes closed, he felt the plain of stone beneath his feet, saw the monsters writhing at the chasm's edge. Each time he opened them, the coin was still there, waiting.
He showered in cold water, the pipes rattling. The cracked tiles of the bathroom wall seemed to bulge in his peripheral vision, as though something pressed against them from the other side. He forced himself not to look too long.
The walk to work was quieter than usual. The city still slept, neon signs dimmed, only a few cars sliding through the wet streets. He kept his hands deep in his pockets, one clutching the coin like a talisman, though whether for protection or damnation he couldn't say.
By the time he reached the store, the world had begun to stir. He clocked in, nodded at his manager's grumble, and went about his tasks. Stocking shelves, carrying boxes, answering half-heard questions. But everything felt thin, like a paper backdrop about to tear.
At noon, during his break, he sat on the back steps with a cigarette he didn't remember buying. The smoke curled lazily, stinging his throat. He wasn't alone.
A man leaned against the wall a few feet away. Not the one in black, but someone new. His clothes were ordinary—worn jeans, a gray hoodie—but his eyes were sharp, too sharp, watching Kai like a hawk studies a mouse.
"You've seen it, haven't you?" the man asked.
Kai froze. "What?"
"The cracks," the man said. His voice was low, urgent. "In the walls. In the air. In the dreams. You've seen them."
Kai's throat went dry. "Who are you?"
"Doesn't matter. Not yet. What matters is that you stop carrying that thing."
The coin.
Kai's hand twitched toward his pocket, instinctive. "How do you—"
The man's expression tightened. "It's a mark. They'll find you faster with it. You're already glowing to them like a torch in the dark."
Kai's heart hammered. "Who's 'they'?"
The man hesitated. His gaze flicked past Kai, to the street beyond the alley. His shoulders stiffened.
"Too late," he muttered. He pushed off the wall, stepping closer. "Listen to me, Kai Voss. You're in it now. There's no going back. But if you want to survive, trust no one. Not me. Not the man in black. Not even the voice that answers your questions."
Kai swallowed hard. "How do you know my name?"
The man opened his mouth to answer.
Then, as if on cue, a car backfired on the street. Kai flinched, and when he looked back—the man was gone.
The alley stretched empty, the cigarette smoke drifting lazily into nothing.
Kai sat frozen, the coin burning in his pocket. His skin prickled with gooseflesh, and every shadow in the alley seemed deeper, thicker, like something crouched just beyond sight.
He whispered to himself, "I'm losing my mind."
But when he pulled the coin from his pocket, its glow had strengthened. And this time, the whispers weren't faint—they were urgent, insistent.
"…they come…"
"…the hunt begins…"
"…blood, blood…"
He shoved it back into his pocket, trembling.
The rest of his shift passed in a haze. Customers came and went. His coworker cracked jokes he barely heard. His manager barked orders he barely understood. And all the while, Kai felt eyes on him. From the street, from the corners, from the cracks in the ceiling.
By the time he reached home that night, he was shaking. He locked the door, checked the windows twice, then sat at the kitchen table with the coin before him.
The cracks on the wall seemed wider. Water dripped steadily into the bucket, but it no longer sounded like water. It sounded like footsteps. Slow, deliberate.
Kai pressed his palms over his ears. "Leave me alone."
The whispers only grew louder.
"…closer…"
"…kill or be killed…"
"…blood will answer blood…"
He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting for control. He wanted to throw the coin into the street, into the river, anywhere. But when he opened his hand, it was already warm against his skin again, as though it had never left him.
The clock ticked to 11:59 p.m.
The lightbulb overhead flickered.
The house groaned.
And somewhere outside, in the rain-slick street, he swore he heard footsteps. Not hurried. Not aimless. Footsteps that knew exactly where they were going.
Straight toward him.
The footsteps outside grew louder, deliberate, unhurried.
Kai pressed his back against the wall, his breath shallow, his ears straining. He wanted to believe it was nothing—a drunk, a passerby, the shifting groan of the old neighborhood.
But deep down, he knew.
This was no accident.
The doorknob rattled once, then stopped.
Kai's heart skipped a beat, his hand tightening on the knife until his palm ached. It wasn't a loud sound—just a metallic twitch in the silence of midnight—but in his chest it landed like a hammer blow. He stood frozen in the middle of the kitchen, bare feet on cracked tiles that leached cold into his skin, every nerve pulled taut.
The rain filled the house with noise, a steady hiss on the roof, gutters choking with water. Through the leaks, faint rivulets trickled down plaster walls, collecting in buckets that echoed with their slow, uneven rhythm.
Plink.
Plink.
Plink.
The sound scraped along his nerves. Each drop was a countdown, each one marking the passage of time in a language only fear understood.
The clock on the wall clicked to 12:01 a.m. The second hand dragged itself forward with lazy inevitability, each tick impossibly loud. Kai's breath matched its pace—shallow, staggered, trembling.
Then came the knock.
Not hurried. Not hesitant. A single strike, deliberate and hollow, reverberating through the wood like the gavel of a judge.
Kai's stomach turned to stone.
"Kai Voss."
The voice seeped through the door as though it had no need for hinges or cracks. Low, calm, heavy with certainty. It wasn't a call. It wasn't even a question. It was a naming, a declaration.
Kai felt the air thicken around him, pressing in on his ears, his skin. His lips parted but no words came. He swallowed, the sound loud in his own head, dry and scratchy, like sandpaper scraping against itself. Finally, the words forced themselves out.
"What do you want?"
The silence that followed was worse than the voice. Empty, patient, like something with endless time waiting to see if he would break.
His hand trembled on the knife. The blade reflected the faint light of the stove's broken clock, trembling as if it too feared what was outside. He shifted toward the window above the sink, his gaze drawn to the distorted streetlight haloed in rain beyond. The glass was fogged, streaked with water, and instead of the street he saw only his reflection—hollow-eyed, pale, the face of a man who no longer recognized himself.
"Go away," he tried again, louder, though his voice wavered. "You've got the wrong house."
No answer.
Only the drip, drip, drip of water in the bucket.
The coin pulsed.
He didn't know when it had returned to his palm. One moment his hand was empty, the next it was there—weightless yet undeniable. His fingers curled around it instinctively, and its warmth seeped into his skin. The glow bled out between his knuckles, faint, impossible to ignore.
"…open…"
The whisper wasn't sound. It slithered directly into his skull, curling around his thoughts like smoke.
"…first blood waits…"
Kai jerked his head, whispering aloud as though he could deny it. "No. No, not me. I'm not—I can't do this." His throat tightened, his voice a rasp. "I won't."
But the coin pulsed harder, each beat syncing with his heart. Faster. Stronger. His vision blurred for a moment, edges glowing faintly, until he feared he would collapse.
On the other side of the door, the voice came again—lower now, closer, as though the speaker's lips pressed against the wood.
"Then you will die instead."
The doorknob twisted.
Kai stumbled backward, his heel colliding with the leg of a chair. The scrape across the tiles echoed through the house. He tightened his grip on the knife, the sweat of his palm making the handle slick.
The instinct to run clawed at him, wild and frantic. The back door was swollen and stuck, the windows locked tight with rust. But even if he forced one open, would he make it? Would he even get past the threshold before whatever stood outside was on him?
He pressed his back against the peeling wallpaper, his chest rising and falling too fast, each inhale ragged and sharp.
"I don't want this," he whispered to the dark. "God, I don't want this."
The house groaned in response, beams shifting as though the walls themselves held breath.
The doorknob stilled. Silence pressed in. Seconds crawled, his ears straining for anything—footsteps retreating, the whisper of fabric, even breathing—but nothing came.
Maybe they were gone.
Maybe it had been a mistake. A dream carried into waking.
His hand slackened on the knife. He almost let himself believe—
The second knock exploded through the wood.
Harder this time. Heavy. The door shook in its frame, dust spilling from the edges where the hinges bit into rotten wood.
Kai flinched violently, his heart battering his chest like a trapped animal. His knees nearly buckled.
"Open."
The command hit him like a physical force. His breath tore out of him in shudders. He stumbled toward the kitchen window, fumbling for the latch. Maybe he could squeeze through. Maybe—
The coin flared in his palm.
"…stay…" it hissed.
"…blood answers blood…"
Kai's hand froze. His chest constricted as if invisible hands pressed down on him. His vision swam. His other hand gripped the knife until his fingers cut into his own skin. The sting of pain grounded him, barely, anchoring him in the storm of fear and whispers.
He forced his gaze downward, toward his hand, ready to throw the cursed object away.
But his palm was empty.
The coin was gone.
He stared at the skin, red from the burn of its heat, veins glowing faintly beneath the surface as if the coin had melted into him.
Another knock. Louder still.
"Kai Voss."
The voice was no longer outside.
It was inside the house.