The gods went silent three hundred years ago, and the world learned how to pretend it didn't matter. Temples still stood tall in every city, their bells ringing on schedule, their priests reciting prayers with practiced devotion. Festivals were still celebrated, offerings still burned, and children were still taught the names of gods they had never heard answer a single prayer. People said the silence was a test, that faith meant believing even when nothing responded. It was easier to accept that than to admit the truth—that the gods had abandoned the world, or worse, that something had gone wrong with them. I never believed any of it. Silence wasn't holy. Silence was empty.
That morning began like every other, which should have been my first warning. Sunlight slipped through the cracked window of my apartment and landed on my face, dragging me out of sleep far too late. The city outside hummed with its usual noise—vendors shouting, vehicles passing, distant arguments echoing between concrete walls. Nothing felt unusual. Nothing ever did, right before everything changed. I lay there for a few extra seconds, staring at the ceiling, letting the weight of another pointless day settle in my chest. If I had known what kind of day it was going to be, I might have stayed in bed. Or maybe I wouldn't have. Some habits are hard to break, even when reality itself is about to snap.
The screaming started five minutes later. It wasn't the sharp, panicked screaming that followed explosions or disasters. It was slower, confused, layered with disbelief. The kind of sound people made when they were looking at something their minds refused to process. I sat up immediately, irritation replacing sleepiness, and listened. The sound grew louder, spreading through the streets like a ripple. My first thought was that some idiot had staged a prank again. My second thought was that it felt wrong. I swung my legs off the bed and walked to the window.
The sky was wrong. Not dark. Not shattered. Just unfinished. Thin, flickering lines of static crawled through the clouds, like cracks that hadn't decided whether they wanted to exist yet. It looked less like a natural phenomenon and more like reality itself was buffering. I stared at it for several seconds, waiting for my vision to clear, waiting for the illusion to break. It didn't. The static remained, pulsing slowly, as if the sky itself was breathing.
"That's new," I muttered, rubbing my eyes.
Then the alarm rang. Not a siren. Not a bell. A deep, vibrating hum that resonated through concrete, metal, and bone alike. It sank into my chest and stayed there, making my heart beat out of rhythm. The Anomaly Alarm. Every citizen knew that sound. It meant reality had made a mistake, and the mistake was big enough that hiding it was no longer an option. It meant soldiers would arrive, streets would be sealed, and someone—or something—would be erased before the day ended. I exhaled slowly, already tired, and grabbed my coat.
By the time I reached the street, the city had shifted into controlled chaos. People flooded the roads, shouting questions no one could answer. Soldiers poured in from every direction, their expressions tight, weapons raised not at a visible enemy but at the air itself. Above the city square, glowing letters assembled themselves in midair, sharp and merciless, forming a message everyone could see. [CONTRADICTION DETECTED][THREAT LEVEL: UNKNOWN]. A murmur spread through the crowd at that last word. Unknown was never good. Unknown meant the people in charge didn't understand what they were dealing with, and when that happened, they tended to overcorrect.
At the center of the square stood a man. At first glance, he looked painfully ordinary. Average height. Plain clothes. No weapons, no markings, no visible power. He could have been anyone. That illusion shattered the longer I looked at him. His shadow lagged half a second behind his movements, like it was reluctant to follow. His reflection in a cracked window across the street smiled faintly, even though his actual face remained blank. The air around him felt itchy, uncomfortable, like a word on the tip of your tongue that refused to come out. People stopped moving without realizing they had. Soldiers shouted orders, but their voices sounded distant, distorted, as if the world itself was struggling to keep up.
The man lifted his head and spoke, his voice calm and broken at the same time. "Why does no one remember me?" No one answered. Not because they didn't want to, but because something deep inside them rejected the question. Then every history book within the square ignited at once. Pages burned without smoke, words dissolving into ash mid-sentence, dates collapsing into nothing. Libraries screamed louder than people did. That was the moment everyone understood. This wasn't a monster. This wasn't a summoned creature or a mutated anomaly. This was a person who had been erased, trying to exist again. Forgotten people were the most dangerous kind.
I stepped forward before anyone could stop me. My hands stayed in my pockets, my pace unhurried, like I was walking through a familiar neighborhood instead of toward a living contradiction. Someone shouted at me to stop. Another soldier raised his weapon. Neither mattered. The closer I got, the heavier the air became, pressing against my chest, against my thoughts. "Hey," I said, my voice carrying farther than it should have. "Quick question." The man turned toward me, and reality stuttered. For a fraction of a second, the square duplicated itself, then snapped back into place. "Yes?" he asked.
I smiled, slow and tired. "If history erased you once," I said, "what makes you think it won't do it again?" The air cracked. Time thickened, stretching like tar. Several soldiers collapsed without a sound, their bodies unable to withstand the pressure bleeding out of the world. Above my head, glowing text appeared, sharp and cold, visible only to those who didn't quite belong. [ERROR IDENTIFIED] [CONTRADICTION LEVEL: ABSURD]. The forgotten man screamed, rage and terror twisting his face. "You shouldn't exist either!" he shouted. I shrugged. "Yeah," I replied. "That's what they keep telling me."
The aura I'd been suppressing finally slipped. The sky shattered like glass, fragments of light cascading downward before dissolving into nothing. People screamed again, this time in pure fear. And somewhere far beyond human reach, in a place that had not answered prayers for centuries, something ancient opened its eyes.
When I woke up, the city was still standing, which surprised a lot of people. The square was sealed, the man was gone, and the air smelled faintly of burned paper and ozone. Official reports called it a successful containment. Unofficially, everyone knew it was only the beginning. I knew it because the static in the sky hadn't fully disappeared. I knew it because my head wouldn't stop hurting. Most of all, I knew it because when I checked my reflection in a shattered storefront window, my shadow moved a fraction of a second too late.
That was when the men in black coats arrived.
They didn't announce themselves. They never did. One moment the street was empty, the next they were there, standing too still, their presence pressing against the world like a bad idea. The one in front adjusted invisible glasses and spoke calmly. "Subject Error-Seventeen," he said. "You are required for debriefing." I stared at him for a moment, then sighed. "Do I at least get breakfast?" He didn't smile.
They took me underground, past places that officially didn't exist. Past sealed bunkers, abandoned stations, and doors labeled with warnings no one remembered writing. At the deepest level, a single sign waited for me, its letters etched into reinforced steel: DEPARTMENT OF CAUSAL INCONSISTENCIES. Inside, chaos ruled. Screens flashed impossible dates, agents argued with empty air, and one man flickered in and out of existence while filling out paperwork. A woman with silver hair slammed a file onto the table in front of me. It opened itself. Every page was blank except the last. [NAME: REDACTED] [STATUS: STILL WALKING]. She looked up slowly. "That file is supposed to kill you," she said. I shrugged. "It tried yesterday too."
They told me what they were afraid to say out loud. The man in the square wasn't random. He was a test. Someone was restoring erased beings to see what would break first—reality, history, or me. I asked the obvious question. Why me? The woman hesitated, then turned a screen toward me. A timeline appeared, incidents marked in red. Through all of it ran a single black line. Me. "You don't cause contradictions," she said quietly. "You attract them." Before I could respond, alarms screamed again. This one was different. Worse. [MULTIPLE CONTRADICTIONS DETECTED] [ORIGIN: UNKNOWN ERA]. The lights died. And something whispered directly into my head, cold and familiar. You were not supposed to wake up yet.
For half a second, I saw a throne. Broken gods beneath it. And myself—older, colder—sitting where no human should. Then it vanished. I stood up, aura leaking uncontrolled, walls cracking under the pressure. Somewhere deep within the facility, something ancient laughed.
And for the first time since the gods went silent, the world felt afraid of me.