.
---
Chapter Three: The Chosen Ones
The second anomaly lasted three seconds.
No cameras caught it.
No satellites recorded it.
But someone noticed.
In different parts of the world, people stopped mid-movement at the exact same moment.
A woman in Cairo froze while pouring coffee.
A man in Berlin dropped his phone.
A child in São Paulo looked up at the sky and smiled.
They all felt it.
A pulse.
Not of energy—but of attention.
And then it was gone.
---
Dr. Evelyn Carter stared at the data in disbelief.
"This shouldn't be possible," she whispered.
The signature was identical to the first event, yet there was no visible distortion. No sky fracture. No void.
Just the effect.
"Like a shadow without an object," Colonel Hale said.
Dr. Carter shook her head.
"No. Like an object learning not to cast one."
She pulled up a new file—classified, red-labeled.
A list.
Names. Ages. Locations.
All civilians.
All unrelated.
All present during the first event.
And every single one of them had reported something afterward.
Dreams.
Enhanced perception.
Moments of impossible clarity.
Or fear.
Pure, paralyzing fear.
---
Noah Reed sat alone in his room, staring at the wall.
He could still feel it.
Not watching him anymore.
Waiting.
Since that morning, his thoughts no longer felt entirely his own. Sometimes answers came before questions. Sometimes he knew things—things he had no way of learning.
He closed his eyes.
And the room changed.
Not physically.
But in his mind, the air rearranged itself into patterns—threads of meaning connecting objects, people, possibilities.
He gasped and opened his eyes.
The patterns vanished.
His heart raced.
"This isn't normal," he whispered.
From the corner of the room, his reflection in the mirror seemed… delayed.
For half a second too long.
---
In a hidden facility, far below ground, the first argument broke out.
"They're infected," a general said. "We should isolate them."
Dr. Carter slammed her hand on the table.
"They're not infected. They're responsive."
"Responsive to what?"
She hesitated.
"To observation."
The room went silent.
She continued, voice steady but strained.
"Something looked at humanity—and a small percentage of us looked back."
A scientist leaned forward. "You're saying this is about compatibility?"
"Yes," Carter said. "Not everyone can perceive it. And those who can…"
She looked at the list again.
"…are being prepared."
---
That night, the sky did not change.
No lights.
No holes.
No signs.
Yet millions of people across the world shared the same dream.
A vast darkness.
Endless.
And within it, shapes moving slowly, patiently.
Not monsters.
Not gods.
Observers.
One of them stepped forward.
And for the first time, it spoke.
Not in words—but in certainty.
> You have been seen.
Some of you answered.
That is enough.
Noah woke up shaking.
On his wall, carved into the paint as if by invisible claws, were three words he had never seen before—
Yet somehow understood perfectly.
Phase One Complete.