The diner had emptied.
The clink of plates, the half-whispered pleasantries, and the soft hum of the neon sign outside were all that lingered after the stranger left. Kenton sat in the corner, fingers drumming against the vinyl of the booth, trying to untangle the trace of warmth that clung to him like a hand too soft for his type of touch. A human moment, fleeting and impossible. The kind of contact he usually avoided.
He stared at the table, at the fading smudge of coffee heat, at the sugar packets arrayed in neat rows. He replayed the conversation in fragments, each segment prying at his equilibrium.
The kindness. The patience. The way the stranger had let him talk without pressing for explanations. Without fear, without judgment. A momentary crack in the self-contained control he relied upon so desperately.
His jaw tightened. Control. Control had always been his tether, the only thing keeping him from slipping into that quiet chaos that hummed just beyond his perception. But now, after a single interaction, it felt tenuous, frayed at the edges.
He rose, sliding from the booth with the precision of someone accustomed to moving through space as if the world were pliant. Outside, the alley beckoned. A narrow corridor between two buildings, shadows pooling along the walls.
No one was watching. Not tonight. Not this street. The night air was damp, faintly smelling of wet asphalt and exhaust.
Kenton's eyes flicked to the puddles pooling in the cracks of the alley. Their surfaces reflected neon glows, fragmented and broken. He exhaled slowly. Perfect. A concrete canvas. Something he could touch. Something he could shape.
He extended his hand. Fingers spread. At first, the crystallization was subtle: faint, glimmering tendrils of translucent latticework threading through the damp air. They sparkled under the flicker of the streetlights, catching reflections like splinters of light.
The lattice extended outward, delicate and intricate, forming elegant, glass-like shapes that grew in small, predictable arcs. Kenton watched with careful fascination. Even in this fragile beauty, he felt a surge of pride. He was still in control. He could still command reality in ways that others couldn't.
And yet… the memory of the diner lingered. Warmth, patience, trust. The vulnerability that had disarmed him. His fingers twitched, imperceptibly at first, as he tried to push back against the residue of human softness. He had to prove himself. Prove that his control wasn't just some illusion. That his anomaly—his recursive perception, his crystallization, all of it—was still absolute.
He extended another tendril. The lattice responded instantly, branching farther than intended, snapping into geometric complexity. It clinked against a nearby wall, refracting the dim light into impossible angles. Kenton's pulse quickened. Good. He felt alive in the meticulous construction of impossible geometry.
But the reflections started shifting.
At first, it was minor: a window pane that held a faint extra shard of himself. Then the puddle beneath his boots began to ripple unnaturally, distorting his reflection. A hundred little Kenton's stared back, each warped in subtle, uncanny ways—elongated faces, twisted limbs, mouths that moved without sound. The recursive perception fed the crystallization, fracturing it further, embedding phantom layers into every reflective surface.
He froze.
The lattice pulsed like it had its own heartbeat. Shards pushed outward from glass surfaces, seeking angles, sliding along the curvature of the neon, crawling across reflections. It was alive, but not in a way he intended. Not like his control—it was wrong. It knew no boundaries.
A flicker at the edge of his vision: a pedestrian staggered on the street beyond the alley. Hands clutched his head. He looked around wildly, muttering incoherent fragments. Kenton's stomach twisted. That's not supposed to happen.
Another step. Another reflection. The lattice wrapped around a streetlamp, seeding tiny crystals that fractured the light. When it shattered, the shards floated for a moment, suspended unnaturally, refracting reality into impossible angles. A neon sign's letters split and duplicated in midair, each shard reflecting a version of him that shouldn't exist.
Panic—an unfamiliar tremor—skittered through him. He had bent perception many times. He had warped conversations, rewritten memories. But this… this was raw, untempered anomaly energy.
Kenton's jaw clenched. He willed it back, fingers straining, energy spilling in uncontrolled arcs. The reflections screamed in silent echoes of geometry and light. Mirrors, puddles, windows, every smooth surface became a conduit for the lattice, twisting it beyond anything he had designed.
Blood ran unbidden from his nose, a sharp, metallic taste in his mouth. His ears rang. Each pulse of crystallization reverberated through his skull, hammering against the fragile certainty he clung to.
He dropped to one knee, forcing the lattice to retract. The shards groaned, pulling back into themselves like smoke sucked from a fire. Reflections returned to normal—or almost normal. Pedestrians steadied themselves, blinking as if waking from a dream. The streetlight flickered once, twice, then held.
Kenton swallowed. Air burned in his lungs. Hands slick with sweat and blood, he pressed against the wet wall of the alley, knees shaking. The world felt heavier. Denser. Yet, somehow, he had managed containment.
His ego—the sense of being "better than his predecessor"—was fragile now. He had bent only a small fraction of reality, only a handful of minds, and nearly lost control entirely. The human kindness he had encountered earlier now made sense in a way that enraged him. If someone could disarm him with a glance, what did that say about his understanding of the world?
He forced himself upright, brushing wet strands of hair from his forehead. The puddle reflected him again, now a single, clear figure. No distortions. No extra shards. But the residue lingered in his mind: a taste of fragility, the awareness that even absolute control could be corrupted by subtle variables.
The alley was silent except for distant city sounds. Neon signs buzzed, the odd car wheeled past. He inhaled and exhaled slowly. The crystallization had taught him something he hadn't anticipated: his power was not infallible. His control was not a constant. And even the smallest human element—a kind word, a soft smile—could undermine him in ways the anomaly itself couldn't.
He touched the puddle lightly. The water rippled, reflecting the faint outline of the lattice, a ghost of what could have been. He flexed his fingers, forcing the thought back. This was a lesson. Not a defeat. Not yet. He would learn. He would test limits more carefully.
And yet… a part of him wanted to scream at the world, to break something, to assert dominance against the terrifying vulnerability he felt. But he didn't. He didn't because even in that craving for control, the shard of something human—the thread that the stranger had tugged—still held him.
The neon flickered once more. Kenton left the alley, walking slowly into the night, mind whirling. He hadn't just tested crystallization. He had glimpsed the cost of human influence on his ego, the delicate tension between control and chaos. Each step echoed in the silence of the street, measured and deliberate.
By the time he reached a quieter intersection, the sky had deepened to bruised purple. He stopped, glancing back at the alley. Reflection surfaces glimmered faintly, as if remembering the lattice that had almost unraveled them. His signature, his anomaly's presence, hummed low beneath his skin—contained, but pulsing.
Kenton exhaled slowly.
For the first time in weeks, maybe months, he felt… unsettled.
Not broken. Not defeated. But human, in a way that both terrified and fascinated him.
And that, he decided, was worth exploring.