Days passed, and the symbols wouldn't leave me in peace. Each time they appeared, it felt like they were getting closer to the last.
Even so, my routine remained the same—or almost.
Having breakfast with my mom, going to the park, pretending to be an innocent child while observing the world around me with eyes that saw far more than they should. But something inside me was changing. Not quickly. Not abruptly. Just continuously.
The symbols were returning.
They always came when I least expected them, like an old memory knocking on the door. Sometimes in the silence of a bath, sometimes when I lay down to sleep.
And every time they appeared, it was as if a new line was being written in a book only I could read.
They didn't bring fear, nor urgency. Just a calling.
Something like: pay attention. You need to understand.
I started drawing more frequently. My small fingers held the pencil with a precision you wouldn't expect from a three-year-old. Nothing too technical, nothing exaggerated—just enough to record what I saw, like someone trying to capture a strange dream before it fades.
I found an old notebook tucked away at the back of my bookshelf. The cover was torn, with faded dinosaur stickers and crayon marks on the inside. I told my mom I would use it to "invent monsters," and she thought it was a great idea.
Monsters were normal. Floating symbols of unknown origin? Not so much.
At first, I drew only the simplest strokes. Curved lines, spirals intertwining, small fragments of the shapes I saw. But soon the strokes began to repeat, forming patterns. It was like learning a language—first sounds, then scattered words, and finally phrases that started to make sense.
My mom would sometimes glance over from the corner of her eye. She had a way of not asking too many questions, of respecting my space even without fully understanding what I was doing.
— Drawing again?
— Uh-huh.
— What's that? A magical creature?
— Kind of. From a dream.
She smiled.
— You have some complicated dreams, huh?
I let her see only a part—generic spirals, nothing that revealed too much.
Not because I needed to hide it from her, but because it just didn't make sense to reveal anything yet.
---
Months went by, and the sense of change never left. It was like a soft breeze—you couldn't see it, but you could feel it brushing against your skin.
Mornings followed the same rhythm: breakfast with my mom, playtime at the park, and days dragging on slowly, as if nothing extraordinary was on the horizon.
That afternoon, sitting on my bedroom floor with my notebook in my lap, the pain returned.
It started with a dull throb, and then the symbols appeared.
Lines danced behind my eyelids as if they had a life of their own. Spirals spun and unraveled, curves forming patterns increasingly complex. My fingers moved almost by instinct, drawing the same shapes on paper—but this time with difficulty.
The pain was like pressure building behind my eye—deep, hot—like something trying to force its way from the inside out.
I shut my eyes tightly, breathing slowly, trying to mask the tension in my face. I was alone in my room, but even then, I didn't like showing pain. I didn't want to worry my family.
The pain grew stronger. A pulse etched into me, like the symbols were trying to anchor themselves.
Then—everything stopped.
The air felt heavier, like time had taken a deep breath and held it.
The silence in the room became absolute, muting even the distant sounds of traffic and birds outside. My eyes were still closed, but I saw.
Saw something ignite in the darkness—something I didn't fully understand.
A white light split the void behind my eyelids, like a streak of glowing charcoal.
And then, a voice.
No sound. No mouth. No language.
[System recognized.]
[Synchronization initiated.]
Then came the real pain.
I couldn't breathe, speak, or even scream. The pain was so intense, my mind couldn't grasp what was happening.
It felt like my soul was being torn apart—
And then stitched back together with something… extra.
And then, suddenly, it was gone. As if it had never existed.
I opened my eyes slowly. The world resumed.
Sounds returned.
The birds.
The rustling of trees.
A car driving in the distance.
My body was drenched in sweat, like I had just run a marathon at full speed under the scorching midday sun.
[Superstar System: 100% synchronized.]
Before I could even begin to investigate what had happened—
Everything went black.