Rain pattered softly against the window, the city lights reflected in wet streets far below. Kael, 23, sat hunched at his desk, staring at his laptop screen that displayed nothing but a blank document. His thoughts were equally blank. Life had been predictable, ordinary, and frustratingly uneventful. Until the letter arrived.
It wasn't slipped under the door. No footsteps, no sound. He had been alone. And yet, there it was, lying neatly on the corner of his desk—a plain, sealed envelope. Edges crisp, handwriting unplaceable, familiar yet foreign all at once.
Kael hesitated. The room felt suddenly colder, heavier, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath.
With trembling fingers, he opened the envelope. Inside was a single sheet of paper:
"Start here. Watch closely."
He blinked. The words seemed to pulse subtly, almost like they were alive. A shiver ran down his spine, a fleeting sensation of déjà vu that left him gripping the desk. For a heartbeat, the reflection in the window flickered—but it was just his own face staring back. Or so he told himself.
Kael wasn't sure what "start here" meant. He scanned the apartment, touched objects around him, tried to remember if the paper had been there before. Nothing made sense. He felt a dull ache behind his eyes, as though his mind were straining to remember something it could not reach.
He followed an instinct. Step outside. Breathe. Observe.
The city at night was eerily quiet. Streetlights flickered. Shadows shifted strangely along the walls of buildings. A faint melody drifted from somewhere, fragmented and incomplete, like a memory half-forgotten. Kael's chest tightened. It wasn't a sound he could place, but it pulled at something deep inside, a tug he didn't understand.
Hours later, he returned home, soaking from a light drizzle, heart racing. The letter still lay on the desk as if waiting for him to act again.
Whatever this was, Kael realized one thing: it had chosen him. And that choice had begun changing everything.
Chapter-End Poem
"A letter found, though none did send,
A path begins with no known end.
Shadows stir where silence sleeps,
Memory whispers what the night keeps.
The first step taken, yet unseen,
A journey starts where mind has been."