Episode 13:
The next morning, Alok Fanando sat at his desk in school, staring blankly at the blackboard. The teacher's voice was nothing but static in his ears. His notebook was open, but the pages were empty. He wasn't writing, he wasn't even hearing the lesson.
All he could hear were the whispers.
"Fanando… Alok Fanando…"
"You cannot escape…"
"You will carry the weight of darkness…"
He clenched his pen so tightly that it snapped in his hand. Black ink bled across his fingers, dripping onto the desk like blood. His classmates turned their heads, whispering, some giggling.
"Fanando's gone crazy again."
"Look at him, staring like a ghost."
But Alok didn't hear them. His eyes shifted toward the pendant under his uniform, hidden but pulsing faintly. A warmth spread through his chest not comfort, but a suffocating heat, as if something inside was trying to break out.
At lunch, he sat alone, as always. Even when he wanted to approach others, an invisible wall kept him back. Every time he tried to join, his mind replayed flashes:
blood on his hands,
the sound of screaming,
a broken sword glinting in a world that wasn't Earth.
He didn't know why these images haunted him they weren't from this life, and yet they felt more real than the cafeteria around him.
Suddenly, a voice whispered again. But this time, it wasn't in his head.
"You… don't belong here, do you?"
Alok froze. His fork clattered to the tray. He turned slowly, but no one was looking at him. Students laughed, ate, joked ordinary life. Yet the voice was too clear to be his imagination.
"…Soon, you'll see me."
The pendant burned against his chest. He clutched it tightly, heart pounding. His breath grew ragged.
That night, back home, he couldn't sleep. He lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, but the ceiling seemed to ripple like water. For the first time, the whisper wasn't just sound it was form.
A silhouette appeared above him faceless, shifting, like a shadow alive. Its hand reached down, not touching, but pressing on his chest. The pendant pulsed in rhythm with the shadow.
"The Holder chooses you… but will you choose it?"
Alok's eyes widened. He tried to shout, but no sound came out. Darkness filled the room, drowning him. He struggled for air, but it was like breathing through chains.
And then, in that drowning silence...
A single eye opened in the shadow. Red, blazing, ancient.
Alok gasped awake, drenched in sweat, the pendant hot against his skin. He stumbled to the window, breathing heavily, but outside the world looked the same. Cars passed. Dogs barked. Neighbors argued. Normal.
But he knew. He knew his world had started to crack.
And somewhere, in that crack between reality and dream, something was watching him.