Jack, time for school. You're old enough to apply now."
The voice pierced the quiet of the foster home.
Soft. Maternal. Oblivious to the mind it addressed.
Jack looked up from the papers.
His small fingers lingered on the pen, hesitating for only a single breath.
A million years of thought, a million years of observation, all packed into hands that were barely five.
"School," he thought.
"A place to watch them all play their parts. Interesting."
He stood, moving with the calm, precise motion of someone far older than his body suggested.
The world had grown wild during his million-year slumber, and already, Jack noted the little details others would miss.
The angle of sunlight through the window,
The uneven floorboards that creaked under weight,
The slight shiver in the caretaker's hand as she handed him the forms.
He reached for the stack of papers.
Name, age, place of birth.
Jack.
Five years old.
No known parents.
He signed carefully.
Each stroke deliberate, neat, unassuming.
"Let them think I am ordinary," he murmured inside his mind.
"Let them see a child. I will see the world."
The foster mother smiled at him, completely unaware of the eternity behind those black eyes.
"There, all done. Now go. Make friends, learn your lessons. You'll do wonderfully."
Jack nodded politely.
Inside, a faint smirk tugged at his lips.
"Friends… and lessons. How quaint. How predictable."
He walked out of the foster home, the city stretching before him like a living puzzle.
Every face. Every sound. Every scent.
It all fed him knowledge.
Knowledge he had no intention of wasting.
Even now, the world did not know him.
Even now, he was invisible.
Perfect.
"Then let us begin," he whispered,
"and see what this world has become while I slept."
Jack's first steps into school were quiet.
He followed the other children, small and unremarkable.
Yet every movement, every glance, every whisper around him was catalogued and analyzed.
He did not speak unless spoken to.
He did not act unless necessary.
But even in his silence, the presence of a god lingered.
And in a city that had forgotten its creator,
a child who remembered everything was about to begin a life no one would ever forget.