Hao stared at the screen.
A reply box blinked at the bottom. The motes under his skin drifted in restless patterns, surfacing along his shoulders, his spine, the back of his neck.
He saw "party" and thought about noise, drinks, maybe someone crying in a bathroom at 3 a.m.
His thumb hovered above the keyboard anyway.
You wanted normal, he told himself. Normal people go to parties. Normal people worry about grades and rent and awkward small talk, not monsters.
He typed:
Hao: Sure. I'll be there.
He hit send before he could take it back.
The message whooshed away. No immediate response. Just the interface settling into silence, like the app itself was relieved the conversation was over.
He locked his phone and slipped it into his pocket. The tendril that had been holding it withdrew neatly into his wrist, vanishing beneath skin like a line of ink erased.
Steam from the pot still fogged the window. The smell of food filled the cramped kitchen.
He turned the stove off fully, checked the burners twice out of habit, then grabbed his keys and slid his shoes on. Dinner could wait. He needed moving air and distance from the numbers in his bank app.
The hallway outside was cool and dim. The single fluorescent tube on the ceiling buzzed as he passed beneath it. Paint curled at the edges of the walls, flicked and flaked by years of people brushing past.
He walked down the stairs.
The anchor spoke.
You accepted, it said.
Its presence wasn't a voice in the usual sense. It was a thought that wasn't his, slipped into the middle of his own.
"Sure. I'll be there." It replayed his message with perfect recall.
Hao exhaled slowly.
"So you're reading my texts now?" he muttered under his breath.
A pause. Not real silence. More like a tilt in the air inside his skull.
I don't read, the anchor answered. I exist in the same place you do. When you anticipate. Your decisions ripple through me.
He reached the ground floor and pushed the door open, stepping out into the night.
The city greeted him with cool air that tasted faintly of exhaust, damp concrete, and something fried from a nearby street stall. Light from streetlamps painted everything in thin, tired amber.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and started walking.
"So," he said, inside his head where only one other thing could hear him, "what exactly are you?"
Your anchor.
"Yeah, I got that part." He sidestepped a crack in the sidewalk out of reflex. "And that means… ?"
A soft hum reverberated through his awareness, like someone dragging a fingertip around the rim of an invisible glass.
The system, it said. But also a piece of you.
"That clears absolutely nothing."
I organize what you earn. I interpret thinghs that would melt your mind. I persist where most things dissolve.
"Still not reassuring."
I've been inside your mind for a long time, it continued, ignoring him. Dormant. Unnoticed. You pulled in more than usual over the years. Fear. Exhaustion. Ambition. It accumulated.
Hao's steps slowed.
He stared at the sidewalk, the little chips in the concrete filled with shadow.
"You're telling me I've been walking around with… you in my head this whole time?"
A seed, the anchor replied. Potential. The trial created the link.
"So I'm basically carrying a video game inside my mind that may or may not kill me"
Crude, the anchor said. But not entirely inaccurate.
He scrubbed a hand over his face.
"So you're a mini-me living in my skull?" he pushed. "Like a backup copy?"
A beat.
…Basically, it admitted.
Hao snorted, a short, humorless sound.
"That's not weird at all."
Right? the anchor replied.
He couldn't tell if it was mocking him or genuinely agreeing. Somehow, both options were bad.
He crossed a small park, its grass patchy and trampled, the swing set creaking softly in the breeze. A stray dog lifted its head from where it was curled under a bench, watching him with suspicious eyes before deciding he wasn't worth the energy.
"Do you control the blessing?" Hao asked.
You do, it said. As much as you control your own hands.
"That doesn't sound like a yes."
Power follows intent.
He walked past a row of closed shops. Metal shutters pulled down over windows, graffiti layered like arguments across them.
"What happens if I ignore you?" he asked.
You get worse at not dying.
Hao kicked a loose rock off the sidewalk. It bounced into the street and disappeared under a parked car.
"You're terrible at comfort," he said.
I'm not comfort, it replied.
He lifted his gaze to the dim, cloud-smudged sky.
"Trials," he said. "You handle those too? The points, the rewards, the… punishment?"
I offer what the structure will allow, the anchor said. I do not choose the shape of the trial.
"So if I'm stuck in some nightmare again, I can't just yell 'skip level' at you and cash in my points?"
Correct.
"Of course."
He walked in silence for a while, shoes whispering against the pavement. The city noise thinned as he moved away from the main road, replaced by the occasional distant car and the flicker-buzz of an old streetlight trying its best.
"Then what can you do for me?" Hao asked eventually.
Another faint hum.
I can tell you what you're capable of before you need it, the anchor said. I can show you where your limits truly are instead of where you think they are. I can hold the door open when a trial calls you, and I can help you walk through it in a way that doesn't shatter what's left of you.
"Comforting," he said dryly.
You're still walking, it noted. You haven't turned back. That suggests some part of you finds this acceptable.
Hao sighed.
"It suggests some part of me knows I don't get to pretend none of this happened," he said. "The blessing. You. The monster. If trials are really going to keep showing up, I'd rather not go in blind."
The motes stirred under his skin, a slow rotation like a dark constellation shifting.
Then continue training, the anchor said. Strength, stamina, familiarity with your body. You will need all of it.
He thought of the ring. Of Doru's surprised curse. Of Mr. Jon's warning: be careful what you let into your head, son.
"Mr. Jon thinks I'm on something," Hao said quietly.
He's not entirely wrong, the anchor replied.
"..."
You do not move like that for free.
They turned the corner onto his street. His building rose ahead of him, tired and square.
"So what's the price?" he asked. "In the fine print. Don't tell me there isn't one."
There was a pause longer than the others.
The more you use it, the anchor said slowly, the more you anchor yourself to the system's logic. It will notice you more clearly. Offer more. Demand more. You will be… easier to find.
"By what?" Hao asked.
The anchor didn't answer.
He stopped on the cracked sidewalk and stared up at his window, third floor, lamplight faint behind the curtains. For a second, the apartment looked distant, like a snapshot of someone else's life.
"So my options are: stay normal and hope rent doesn't kill me before something else does," he said, "or get stronger and light a little beacon that says 'eat me' to whatever else is out there."
Inaccurate, the anchor said. But acceptably close for now.
He laughed once, low and tired.
"Fantastic."
He took the last few steps toward the building entrance.
"Anything else I should know?" he asked.
You are not alone, the anchor said.
He blinked.
"That's supposed to make me feel better?"
It is not meant to make you feel anything, it replied. It is meant to be true.
Hao snorted softly.
"Right."
He pulled the door open and stepped inside.
Behind his ribs, his heartbeat kept that same wrong steadiness, synced to something that walked with him now, unseen.
The anchor settled back into its quiet hum.