Wednesday. The world moved slower.
Or maybe he moved faster. He didn't know anymore.
In the hallway, someone dropped their phone. It hadn't hit the floor before Yuuya caught it.
> "Thanks, whoa—how'd you…?"
He didn't respond. He just returned it and walked away.
> [Response Prediction Module: +12% Efficiency]
That wasn't even a skill. It was instinct now. Prediction, reflex, detachment—all woven into his awareness like breathing.
In class, the teacher announced a pop quiz. Yuuya had finished before anyone else finished reading the instructions.
The bell rang. Everyone flinched. Yuuya didn't. He'd heard the wire buzz two seconds before the bell even went off.
He walked home that day, ignoring the shortcut alley, and took a longer route.
Not because he wanted to. Because something told him not to go that way.
> [Environmental Anomaly Detected – Route Rerouted]
He passed a cat. It wasn't there. Then it was. Then it blinked and turned to static for 0.3 seconds.
He didn't stop walking.
---
On his way home, the air felt... compressed.
Sound wasn't traveling right. Conversations behind him sounded muffled, like they were trying to catch up.
He looked at his hand and snapped his fingers. The sound arrived with a half-second delay.
> [Local Time Drift Detected – Sync Correction Pending]
He clenched his fist. He was no longer just moving through the world. He was moving ahead of it.
When he reached home, he went to the sink, turned the faucet, and watched the water fall in staggered frames.
It wasn't fear. It was fascination.
He blinked once. And the water unfroze.
> [User Control Threshold Breach – Reality Stabilized Manually]
His parents weren't home. They wouldn't notice anyway. They never did.
Dinner passed like static. He ate. He processed. He read three books while chewing. Not skimming—reading.
By 11:00 PM, he stared at the moon and it blinked.
---
The next day, the System gave him something new.
> [Node Permissions Updated – Class: Observer Tier 0. Initiating Passive Echo Field.]
He didn't know what that meant. Until he walked through the school gates and realized the pigeons were gone.
All of them.
Replaced by… something else.
A white silhouette with no face stood on the roof.
He stared. It stared back.
> [WARNING: External Node Registered – Not Aligned With Current System. Observe Protocols Engaged.]
His skin didn't crawl. His heartbeat didn't spike. But he felt like a broadcast tower.
He looked around. Nobody saw it but him.
Just before it faded, it raised a hand—two fingers together. A gesture. Not human. But maybe close.
Then it was gone.
> [Echo Retained – Signal Stored in Memory Node: 001]
Yuuya didn't tell anyone.
He didn't need to.
Because the world had just blinked first.
---
Thursday. Something changed in the air.
The lights in the hallway began to buzz at a pitch only he could hear. Each classroom door vibrated slightly when someone walked past. Chairs squeaked one half-beat later than they should have.
And Yuuya... ...began dreaming while awake.
> [Background Processing – Overlap Simulation Active]
He sat in class, but another version of him stood outside the window. He blinked, and that version vanished. He wrote notes while also listening to conversations two floors above.
> "He's spacing out again." "Yeah, but he always gets perfect scores." "I think he's just creepy."
> [Social Hostility Index: 31%]
Yuuya didn't care. He wasn't even in the same classroom anymore. Not entirely.
He began to see afterimages of people walking. Sometimes they moved a second before their bodies did. Sometimes their mouths said one thing, but the echo said something else.
> "I'm fine." (Help me.)
He could read the difference now. Not in voice, but in intent.
> [Intent Discrepancy Detected – Accuracy 87%]
In the mirror, his reflection was... lagging. Smiling when he wasn't. Blinking out of sync. And once—just once—it looked at him directly, even though he wasn't moving.
> [Reflection Desync – Observational Barrier Breached]
Yuuya shattered the mirror. He didn't even remember picking up the stone.
He walked into the school nurse's office with a bleeding hand. She asked what happened. He said, "I broke a lie."
She stared at him for too long.
---
That night, he stopped using lights. He sat in the dark. The dark had more rules. It didn't lie like reflections.
He could see the data strings in the corners now. Tiny fragments of code trailing from people's bodies. The world wasn't just syncing with him anymore.
It was testing him.
He opened his notebook and drew the silhouette. No face. No color. Just the gesture. Two fingers. Like a salute. Or maybe a warning.
He flipped to the next page.
And the page filled itself. Not with handwriting. Not with words.
With code.
> [Node 000 – Expansion Threshold Approaching. Observer Tier: Pending Upgrade.] [Cognitive Map Density: 61%]
He closed the book.
He didn't feel panic. He felt like something behind the system was watching to see what he would do next.
Not giving him commands. Not even offering choices.
Just... watching.
Waiting.
And then, without sound, without words, the window glitched. One second: moonlight. The next: a void of binary black.
He smiled.
> "You see me now."