Smoke curled lazily above the ruins of what had once been his home. Soren's boots crunched on shards of glass and splintered wood, each step echoing through the empty alleyway. The city around him moved in muted chaos, but here, among the ash and rubble, time felt suspended.
Memories flickered—snatches of warmth, laughter, a home filled with life—but they weren't real anymore. Everything had been burned, erased, leaving only emptiness. The Monster whispered in his mind, low and calm, "Careful. They notice more than you think."
He flinched, though no one was there. He breathed in, forcing himself to focus on the present—the gray pavement, crumbling walls, flickering neon across the street. He wasn't here to mourn, not really. He was pretending. Pretending to face the past, pretending that the ache in his chest could be contained.
Then he saw it.
A figure leaned slightly too far to one side, its posture unnatural, almost impossible. Its face was… wrong. The skin stretched, rippled, like a poorly made mask, yet beneath the distortion, there was a faint echo of humanity. Soren froze, every nerve taut. The Monster hissed, "Don't move your eyes. Don't let it notice."
The figure took a deliberate step forward. Then, its voice came—gravelly, deliberate. "You… you can see me."
Soren's stomach clenched. He didn't answer. Words were dangerous. Breathing was dangerous. Every instinct screamed to move, to flee, to strike—but he couldn't. He clenched his fists inside his coat pockets, forcing his body to obey.
The figure crouched slightly, testing him. "Interesting. Most run. Most scream. Most don't even last ten seconds before they break."
Soren's mind screamed back: Don't react. Don't flinch. Don't let it know. But his body betrayed him in subtle ways—tiny shifts, instinctive adjustments. The Monster whispered again, calm and steady, "Observe. Learn, but stay calm. Not yet."
The figure tilted its head closer, sniffing—or sensing—something invisible. Soren's senses burned as he noticed tiny, almost imperceptible movements: the rhythm of muscles, the twitch of limbs, the subtle pull of a presence in the air. He didn't know why his body reacted, only that it did.
Finally, the figure straightened and stepped back. "Not bad," it murmured, voice fading into the distance. "Most humans are too easy. You… might last longer than I thought."
Soren exhaled slowly, trembling. His heart pounded, yet he knew he couldn't linger. The streets around him were alive with things no one else could see: men with horns walking casually, faces twisted into impossible expressions, writhing appendages curling behind heads where they shouldn't exist.
He kept his gaze low, measured, controlled.
His body was alert, reacting to the unseen world with a precision he didn't fully understand. It was instinct, yes, but something more, something dangerous.
Soren moved through the city streets, each step deliberate. Smoke rose from distant fires, neon lights flickered above shops and apartments, and the ordinary world pressed around him, oblivious. But beneath the surface, threads of something else hummed, shifted, waiting.
A young man brushed past him on the sidewalk, carrying a messenger bag and talking into a phone. Soren felt the presence near him, small ripples in the air, like heat distorting sunlight. He adjusted his pace, careful, blending in, pretending everything was normal. Every glance, every breath, every tiny motion was a test of control. One wrong move, one flicker of recognition—and the figure he had just seen might return, or worse, notice him for the first time.
At the train station, Soren paused, leaning against a pillar. Commuters surged past him, phones in hand, bags slung over shoulders, heads bowed in habitual oblivion. And yet, there it was again—something not meant to exist in the ordinary world.
Tentacles twined around a man's head, his face obscured, but no one seemed to notice. Soren's chest tightened. He could feel the hum, the pull of something alive and aware. He didn't move his eyes, didn't react, but his body twisted slightly, adjusting, preparing for whatever came next.
"You're getting better," the Monster said, voice almost teasing now. "But don't get cocky. You're still fragile."
Soren swallowed hard. Fragile, yes. Every instinct told him to run, to hide, to escape the weight of this hidden world pressing against him. But he couldn't. Not yet.
He exhaled, forcing his pulse to steady, and let his gaze sweep the platform without lingering. The man with the tentacles had vanished, replaced by a commuter who seemed entirely normal. His muscles relaxed fractionally. Another brush with the unseen world survived, another day passed without detection.
Yet as Soren stepped onto the next street, the weight of the ruins behind him pressing against his back, he knew the danger would never truly end. Shadows moved where humans couldn't see, and he had only begun to understand how to walk among them.
And he was learning.