*After half an hour
*hissssss—
The sharp hiss of water finally came to an end.
The sound of droplets tapping against the tiles lingered for a moment before silence settled in.
*sssk!
Razan pushed the shower door open and stepped out, his shirt already clinging slightly with damp spots from not drying properly.
He rubbed the back of his neck as he walked into his room, his hair still dripping, leaving a faint trail of water on the floor behind him.
His eyes immediately shifted toward the object resting on the table.
The dark berry.
The same strange thing he had pulled from his pocket earlier.
Even now it sat there, motionless, but its presence felt heavy—
like it didn't belong in the room at all.
*sigh…
Razan exhaled sharply through his nose and approached it, reaching out and picking it up between his fingers.
He sat back on his bed, shoulders hunched forward slightly as he stared down at the strange item once more.
"The hell am I supposed to do with this?" he muttered, confusion lacing his voice as he slowly turned it from side to side.
The cracks along its blackened skin caught the dim light, faint wisps of gold still seeping from it in thin strands.
"Am I supposed to eat it or something?" he said after a pause, raising an eyebrow.
The thought alone was ridiculous, and he gave a short scoff before quickly shaking his head.
"No, no, no. An idiot would eat something handed to them by a stranger…"
His tone dropped into a grumble as he leaned back on his mattress, the berry still in hand.
"…especially if the one giving it looked like some ominous freak out of a nightmare."
Razan stared at the strange berry for a moment longer before finally shaking his head.
He rose and pulled open the drawer of his bedside table and placed it inside, shutting the wood with a soft
*thunk!
"I'll keep it for now…" he muttered, almost as if convincing himself.
With that settled, he let out a long sigh and let his body fall back onto the bed.
The mattress creaked faintly under his weight as he sprawled out, his arms resting at his sides.
His eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling above, expression blank, thoughts drifting.
"Damn… I just remembered there's a test tomorrow," he said with a half-scoff, the irritation in his voice mixed with indifference.
The idea of schoolwork after everything that had happened tonight felt more like a nuisance than anything worth worrying about.
He closed his eyes, exhaling slowly, his mind already giving in to the exhaustion creeping through his body.
"I'm sure everything will work out…" he muttered under his breath, the words barely audible,
half a reassurance and half a dismissal.
Within moments,
his breathing steadied,
and he drifted into sleep.
.
.
.
An hour passed.
Razan was deep in sleep now, his body sprawled across the bed, chest rising and falling in slow, steady rhythm.
The stillness of the room suggested rest, but beneath it, something began to stir.
From within the drawer where Razan had stored the dark berry, a faint rattling sound started.
*rattle...! *rattle...!
The wood trembled lightly, almost as if something inside was pressing outward.
The drawer shifted, opening just enough to leave a narrow slit.
From that gap, golden smoke began to seep out.
Thin at first, but steady, curling along the air as it spread into the room.
The smoke slithered along the floor like living threads, moving with deliberate intent.
Slowly, it crept toward the bed, winding its way across the flooring until it reached the base.
The vapor climbed upward, silent and steady, until it touched Razan's body.
Once it made contact, the smoke wrapped itself around him completely.
His sleeping form was consumed, every inch of him covered in the glowing haze.
Then, without warning, it sank into him.
The smoke pushed through his skin as if his body were no barrier at all, vanishing inside him in streams until the room returned to silence once more.
A second passed.
Then ten.
Then—
"AAAAARGH!"
Razan screamed as his eyes shot open.
His back arched violently as he sat upright in bed, the sound tearing through the quiet of the night.
His face twisted in pain, sweat already dripping down as his body trembled from the sudden surge that had ripped him from his sleep.
"Shit… shit… shit…" Razan muttered, his hands clutching at the blanket as he tried to steady himself.
His chest rose and fell rapidly, heart pounding like a drum inside his ribs.
The image from his dream still burned in his head, vivid and sharp enough to wrench him out of sleep.
"Ten days…" he whispered, the words spilling out on their own as sweat dripped down the side of his face.
His pulse hammered louder, the sound filling his ears, but before he could even begin to process what he had just seen—
*Whrrr—
Something flashed in front of him.
A translucent screen appeared in the air, floating inches from his face.
Razan jerked back in shock, eyes widening as the strange projection whirred faintly with a red glow, almost like an alarm or a warning.
"What the—" he muttered, his voice low, his body stiff with disbelief.
Symbols began to crawl across the surface of the screen.
They weren't letters—
not anything he could recognize.
They were sharp, ancient-looking, etched like marks carved into stone.
Each one shifted slowly across the glowing surface, patterns of meaning that his eyes couldn't understand.
But something stirred deep inside him.
He didn't know how or why, but his gut twisted as though the symbols weren't truly foreign.
His instincts screamed recognition even though his mind denied it.
It was as if something inside him had changed—something that now reached for the meaning hidden in those signs.
He blinked once.
The symbols flickered,
the shapes trembling faintly before bending,
reshaping.
The incomprehensible strokes twisted into letters—
letters he could read.
One by one, phrases began to form, sliding across the red glow until at last, words assembled into a sentence.
Razan's eyes widened as the first message revealed itself:
TEN DAYS. PREPARE YOURSELF RAZAN. TEN DAYS.
His breath caught in his throat, and he leaned forward unconsciously as the rest of the text unfolded.
The strange screen pulsed with each word as though it carried weight.
Ten days… the entirety of Earth… the entirety of worlds… every human… every Inari… every species… everyone… will return… to the Origin.
Razan read the last word aloud, his voice shaking.
"What the hell…"