Tyler woke before the alarm again.
This time, the sensation behind his eyes was already there.
It had not sharpened overnight, nor had it faded. It existed at a steady depth, neither painful nor ignorable. Tyler lay still, staring at the ceiling, measuring it the way he measured everything else now. The pressure did not respond to fear or curiosity. It simply acknowledged awareness.
He sat up slowly.
The house sounded the same as it always did in the mornings. Melissa in the kitchen. Vanessa moving through the hallway with measured steps. No raised voices. No sudden movement. Steven's door remained closed. Stability held.
Tyler dressed without haste, adjusting his uniform carefully. When he looked in the mirror, his expression was unchanged. Calm. Observant. If something was shifting inside him, it did not show.
Breakfast passed without incident.
Melissa asked if he slept well. Tyler said yes. Vanessa reminded him about an errand later in the week. He nodded. The conversation flowed around him without resistance.
Yet Tyler noticed something subtle.
His attention felt… stretched.
Not scattered. Not unfocused. More like his awareness extended slightly beyond where it normally rested. He could still hear surface thoughts if he chose to listen, but they felt farther away, like echoes down a longer corridor.
He did not reach for them.
The walk to school felt longer than usual, though the distance had not changed. Tyler paid attention to his steps, to the pressure of the ground beneath his shoes. The sensation behind his eyes remained constant, neither worsening nor easing.
At the school gate, the familiar noise rose to meet him.
Chris was already talking, voice carrying across the entrance. Noah was running late, jogging through the gate with his bag half open. Kai stood nearby, arms crossed, pretending not to care. Katherine and Daniel were engaged in a quiet argument about homework. Eris leaned against the railing, eyes sharp as always.
Everything was the same.
That unsettled Tyler more than it should have.
He joined the group without comment. Conversations flowed naturally. Jokes were made. Complaints voiced. No one noticed anything different about him, and that was a relief.
Classes began.
Tyler took his seat near the window, posture relaxed. The first lesson started normally. The teacher spoke. Chalk scraped across the board. Students listened or pretended to.
Tyler listened.
The pressure behind his eyes pulsed faintly when his gaze lingered too long on any one person. Not painfully. More like a reminder. He adjusted, focusing on the board instead.
Second period arrived.
Something shifted.
It was not sudden. There was no sharp break. Tyler became aware that his vision felt layered, as though depth had increased without his consent. When he looked at the classroom, he did not just see desks and students. He sensed points of attention, faint outlines of where focus rested.
He stiffened slightly, then forced himself to relax.
Do nothing.
That rule had served him well before.
He kept his eyes open, his breathing steady. The sensation did not fade, but it did not escalate either. It waited.
By the third period, the pressure behind his eyes had tightened.
The teacher was explaining a problem Tyler had already solved mentally. His gaze drifted briefly, resting on the back of a classmate seated two rows ahead. The student leaned forward, pencil tapping lightly against the desk, eyes fixed on the board.
Tyler blinked.
Then, without intending to, he closed his eyes.
The world fell away.
For a fraction of a second, there was nothing. No sound. No sensation. No sense of body or space. Then perception returned violently, sharp and immediate, but wrong.
He was looking at the board.
Not from his seat.
From closer. Slightly to the left. The chalk lines were thicker, clearer. The teacher's voice sounded louder, closer, resonating differently. The hum of the ceiling fan was distinct, vibrating faintly in his ears.
Tyler froze.
This was not imagination.
This was not memory.
This was live.
Panic flared, sudden and sharp. He tried to move, to open his eyes, to pull back, and nothing happened. His awareness remained anchored somewhere else, tied to a perspective that was not his own.
At the same time, he felt his body.
Or rather, he felt the absence of it.
His limbs were distant. Heavy. He could not feel the chair beneath him properly. The classroom sounds around his own body were muffled, distorted, as if separated by water.
Someone nudged his desk.
"Tyler?" a whisper reached him faintly.
He could not respond.
Fear sharpened his focus, and instinct finally broke through the haze. Tyler forced his eyes open.
The classroom snapped back into place with brutal suddenness.
Sound rushed in all at once. Vision blurred briefly, then stabilized. His heart was pounding. Breath shallow. He gripped the edge of his desk hard enough to ground himself through pressure.
No one was staring at him.
Most students were still focused on the board. The teacher continued speaking, unaware that anything had happened. A few nearby students glanced his way briefly, then looked away.
Eris was watching him.
Her eyes were narrowed, not in panic, but in concern.
"You okay?" she murmured.
"Yes," Tyler said too quickly.
He lowered his gaze immediately, fixing it on his notebook. His hands were steady now, but the realization settled heavily in his chest.
That had been real.
And worse, it had left him defenseless.
For the rest of the period, Tyler did not look up again.
Tyler did not lift his head again for the remainder of the period.
He kept his eyes fixed on the page in front of him, not reading, not writing, simply anchoring himself to the physical reality of the desk, the paper, the weight of his hands. His breathing slowed gradually, each inhale deliberate, each exhale controlled. Panic had no place here. Panic drew attention, and attention invited questions.
Questions he could not afford.
When the bell rang, the sound cut sharply through the air. Chairs scraped back as students stood. The room filled with movement and noise. Tyler rose with them, movements measured, posture steady. The faint dizziness lingered, but it did not threaten to overwhelm him.
He adjusted the strap of his bag and followed the flow of students into the hallway.
The corridor was crowded and loud. Voices overlapped. Lockers slammed. Shoes scuffed against the floor. Normally, Tyler filtered all of it without effort. Now, he forced himself to stay anchored, counting steps internally, grounding himself through physical sensation.
Eris walked beside him for a few seconds, her pace matched to his.
"You didn't answer the teacher," she said quietly.
"I didn't need to."
"That's not what I meant."
He glanced at her briefly. "I'm fine."
She held his gaze for a moment longer, clearly unconvinced, then let it go. That was her way. She noticed, but she respected boundaries.
The next class began without delay.
Tyler took a seat closer to the aisle this time, intentionally positioning himself where accidental contact would be more likely to snap him back if something went wrong. He did not close his eyes. He did not let his gaze linger on any one person. He focused on the teacher's voice, on the board, on the structure of the lesson.
The pressure behind his eyes remained, steady and patient.
It did not demand action. It waited.
That frightened him more than urgency would have.
By mid-morning, Tyler felt stable enough to think clearly again. He replayed the earlier incident in his mind, isolating each element with the same precision he applied to every other problem.
Eye contact had preceded it.Closing his eyes had triggered it.The transfer had been immediate and total.
There had been no overlap. No partial awareness. His consciousness had not split. It had moved.
That meant risk.
During a short break, Tyler made a decision.
He would test it again.
Not impulsively. Not recklessly. Carefully.
The classroom was mostly empty. A handful of students remained, scattered across desks, either reading or staring out windows. The teacher had stepped out briefly. The environment was controlled enough.
Tyler chose a student seated across the room, someone with their back turned, attention fixed on a notebook. He positioned himself so that no one was directly in front of him. He placed both feet flat on the floor and rested his hands on his knees.
He took a slow breath.
Then he looked.
Just long enough to register the target.
Tyler closed his eyes.
The transfer was instantaneous.
The world reassembled itself from a new angle. The page in front of him filled his vision, text slightly blurred at the edges. He could feel the tension in the student's shoulders, the slight stiffness in their neck. He could hear the faint scratch of pencil against paper, the distant sounds of the hallway filtered differently through unfamiliar ears.
There was no trace of his own body.
No sense of weight. No awareness of posture. Nothing.
Tyler counted internally.
One.
Two.
Three.
He forced his eyes open.
Reality snapped back with a violent jolt. His vision blurred, doubling briefly before settling. His fingers dug into the fabric of his pants instinctively, grounding him. His breathing was shallow but controlled.
No one had noticed.
Confirmation achieved.
The ability behaved consistently.
It required eye contact, followed by deliberate eye closure. It transferred perception completely. And it left his physical body behind, inert and unresponsive.
Tyler did not test it again immediately.
The rest of the day passed under heightened restraint. He avoided eye contact more than usual. He kept his gaze unfocused when possible, directed at objects rather than people. The pressure behind his eyes pulsed faintly whenever he came close to triggering the ability, responding not to curiosity, but to proximity.
At lunch, Tyler chose a seat at the edge of the table, back partially turned to the group. Chris talked loudly about something unimportant. Noah complained about a teacher. Katherine and Daniel argued over snacks. The conversation flowed as it always did.
Tyler listened without engaging deeply.
He noticed how different the experience felt now.
Before, thought reading had allowed him to understand what people were thinking without removing himself from the moment. Perception Overlay was different. It demanded total commitment. It did not allow partial engagement.
It was invasive.
And worse, it was tempting.
Understanding what someone saw, what they focused on, how their attention shaped their reality was powerful. Tyler could already see how easily it would integrate with manipulation later. How precise it could make influence.
That realization chilled him.
After lunch, during the final classes, Tyler did not activate the ability again. He observed instead, using ordinary senses, anchoring himself firmly in his body. The pressure behind his eyes remained, but it did not escalate. It respected restraint.
By the final bell, Tyler felt exhausted in a way he rarely did.
Not physically.
Mentally.
The walk out of the school felt longer than usual. The noise of students faded gradually as they dispersed. Tyler walked alone, replaying the day's conclusions carefully.
Perception Overlay was not an upgrade.
It was a trade.
It offered clarity at the cost of safety. Precision at the cost of presence.
Anyone could have pushed him while he was using it. Spoken to him. Moved him. He would not have known. He would not have responded.
That vulnerability was unacceptable.
When Tyler reached home, he paused briefly at the door, grounding himself again before entering. The house greeted him with familiar quiet. Melissa's voice drifted from the kitchen. Vanessa moved somewhere upstairs.
Everything was normal.
That mattered.
Tyler went to his room and sat at his desk, staring at the wall for a long moment. He did not write anything down. He did not experiment further.
The decision formed quietly, without drama.
He would not use this ability casually.
Not until he understood it fully.Not until he could protect his body while his mind wandered.Not until vulnerability was no longer the price.
Perception Overlay was powerful.
And for now, that made it dangerous.