Kahn stumbled through the empty office, the soft hum of fluorescent lights like a heartbeat in his skull. Every step felt wrong. Every shadow seemed to stretch toward him, yet when he glanced, nothing was there—just empty desks, scattered papers, and the faint smell of something metallic in the air.
A low whisper wound around him, curling into his ears, slipping into his thoughts. He couldn't make out the words, no matter how hard he tried. They were meaningless, alien sounds—but their rhythm, their insistence, sent chills crawling down his spine.
He pressed his hands against the sides of his head, trying to block it, trying to force rational thought. Then, a memory surfaced—one the Federation drilled into every citizen during their early mental security training:
"When you enter a twisted space, the key is to observe, not interact. Learn the obsession, learn the fear. Do not touch the red lines… or you will awaken them."
Red lines. Boundaries. Invisible thresholds that marked the edges of a transformed person's attention. Cross them, and they would notice. Cross them, and mortals were nothing—they were prey.
Kahn forced himself to breathe steadily, walking slowly along the aisle of cubicles. He avoided looking directly at anything that felt… "alive." His instincts screamed that the twisting, stretching shadows were more than tricks of light—they were the extensions of someone's paranoia or obsession.
If they're still digesting memories, if they haven't realized what's happening… I have a chance. Just don't give myself away.
He remembered the Federation lessons in excruciating detail. Every twisted human had a kernel, an obsession or fear that governed them at first, shaping the space they influenced. A single misstep could awaken their awareness, and once that happened, a mortal had no hope.
The whispers seemed to swell as he moved past a row of desks, and Kahn froze. There was a rhythm now, a pattern. Something about the air felt… tighter. More insistent. He focused, forcing himself to separate his own thoughts from the sound. Don't react. Observe.
His mind wandered to examples the instructors had given in training:
A person obsessed with clocks might have hands erupting from walls, floors bending like melting time.A person fixated on eyes could see faces everywhere, all watching, all judging.A fear of decay might transform surroundings into rotting textures that claw at your senses.
Kahn clenched his fists, trying not to let panic bubble to the surface. I just need to figure out the obsession. I just need to respect the boundaries.
He passed a desk where a coffee mug had spilled, the stain dark against the white laminate. Something about it… felt wrong. The shadows coiled around the legs of the desk like living vines, yet he forced himself not to look directly at them. His mind traced the pattern of movement in the office, small flickers, the way the shadows reacted to sound, to breath, to motion.
Observe. Respect. Don't touch the red lines.
The whispers grew louder, swirling around his thoughts, pressing on him, yet meaningless. They were a tool, he realized, a subtle influence to make him err. Panic would give them power. Obedience gave him a chance.
He stepped carefully past a chair, trying to recall any hint of the person's obsession. He couldn't know yet—it was like feeling the pulse of a living trap. But subtle cues were everywhere. The slight curling of papers into sharp points. A row of pens aligned unnaturally. A photograph hanging crookedly on the wall. Something in the arrangement screamed obsession. Kahn felt the invisible boundary shift ever so slightly as he moved.
His pulse quickened. The office wasn't empty. Someone—or something—was here. But they weren't aware of him yet. That gave him time, but not much.
He forced himself to slow his breathing, letting the whispers wash over him without touching him. His training kicked in: notice patterns, recognize obsession, do not react emotionally. Every twitch of the shadows, every flicker in the lights, was a clue. Every distorted corner of the room was a signpost pointing to the fear or fixation that shaped this space.
He remembered one last thing from the Federation manuals:
"The transformed are mortal only in appearance at first. Their power comes from what they obsess over, what they fear. Do not anger it, do not challenge it, and do not cross its boundaries. If you survive the first moments, observe. If you survive the observation, escape is possible."
Kahn swallowed hard, feeling sweat bead along his hairline. He was just a mortal. Just a human. And if he made one mistake, if he triggered even a fragment of awareness in the transformed, he would not survive.
The whispers shifted suddenly, sharper, faster, as if aware he had noticed them. Kahn froze mid-step. Every instinct screamed move, hide, don't look. He focused on small details—the skew of a chair, the pattern of shadows along the wall—and tried to guess the obsession, the fear that defined the creature.
A trickle of understanding formed. This person… fixated on minutiae. Small, repeated actions, tiny physical objects… patterns. Fingers. Small units, repeated endlessly. He didn't know how yet, but the space whispered it. Kahn forced his mind to map it, like a detective tracing invisible threads.
Every shadow, every sound, every flicker was a test. A single wrong step could awaken the awareness he had to avoid. And he had no choice but to continue.
He took a careful step, feeling the invisible line brush against his subconscious. Not yet. He had not crossed it. And for now, the office, though distorted and alive, had not noticed him.
Kahn's thoughts looped through the rules over and over:
-Observe, don't react.
-Recognize obsession and fear.
-Avoid red lines.
-Move carefully, silently.
Every instinct screamed at him to panic, but panic would be fatal. He forced calm, letting his mind scan the room, catalog the irregularities, and note the subtle distortions in the walls, the chairs, the scattered office supplies.
Somewhere ahead, the twisted human lurked, digesting memories, shaping the world around them with obsessions and paranoia. Kahn had to find the kernel—the core of the fear, the obsession. Not to challenge it, not to fight it, but to survive, to navigate this living nightmare without triggering the awareness that would end him.
And as the meaningless whispers wrapped around him like smoke, he realized something chilling: survival wasn't just a matter of escaping the office. Survival was a test of his mind, his ability to see patterns, to respect boundaries, and to remain human in a place that wanted to consume him.