Nothing in Lockridge stays the way it should—not time, not memory, not even the people.

Avery thought the strange shadows and missing hours were just stress. But when an entire street loses its sunlight and classmates begin acting like hollow paper shells, Avery realizes the town is being eaten alive by something far older than its buildings.

Jordan, the only other student who remembers the “wrong” versions of events, becomes Avery’s reluctant partner as the two uncover what the rest of Lockridge refuses to see: pockets of frozen time, rooms where clocks never move, and dust that behaves like it’s alive. Whispers of an abandoned research wing under the school hint that Lockridge may once have tried to study the phenomenon—and failed.

Their investigation turns personal when Avery discovers a book that shouldn’t exist, one that depicts moments from their life before those moments happen. The pages rewrite themselves. Drawings shift when no one watches. And every chapter ends with the same warning written in a trembling hand:

YOU HAVE BEEN HERE BEFORE.

As the Dust tightens its hold, Avery and Jordan must navigate a collapsing reality where memory is fragile, identities blur, and every truth can be rewritten. But the deeper they dig, the more they begin to fear that the Dust isn’t invading Lockridge—

It’s waking up.

And it remembers them.

It only shifted — like something turning over in a restless dream.


Avery stood on the overpass, watching the lights below pulse in a rhythm that didn't belong to traffic.


Cars moved, yes, but the glow beneath them flickered as if the asphalt itself had veins.


Ever since Lockridge, the world had grown… porous. The air carried a thickness that wasn't humidity. Dust gathered in places it shouldn't—under streetlamps, in the creases of crosswalks, inside the folds of strangers' clothes.


And sometimes—only sometimes—it moved on its own.


Across the street, a row of old apartment windows lit up in sync, one by one, like a spine cracking into place.


A ripple passed through the pavement—small, like a breath the ground was trying to hide.


Avery felt it travel up their legs, settle in their ribs.


Jordan arrived beside them, breathless.


Not visibly—no new scars, no supernatural markings.


But his reflection lagged sometimes, and Avery had caught him speaking too softly, as if afraid the city might overhear.


Avery pointed at the apartment windows.


Even now, the lights blinked faintly, almost shy.


Jordan exhaled. "That makes seven buildings this week."


A bus rolled past them, sighing like a tired beast.


Its windows fogged from the inside, even though no passengers were breathing there.


The dust at their feet swirled gently, forming half-shapes that vanished when they blinked.


Somewhere deep in the city, a siren wailed—longer than it should have, rising and falling like a voice trying to speak.


But the truth pressed against their teeth:


Chapter 1 - Chapter 1—The City That Breathes