Kael learned early that being looked at was not the same as being seen.
People looked at him every day. Teachers, classmates, strangers in passing. Their eyes slid over his face and moved on, satisfied with what they believed they understood.
His eye did not do that.
The moment Kael's left eye settled on someone, the world changed—subtly, but permanently. Something inside him aligned, like a lock recognizing its key. He did not search for information. It arrived fully formed.
Names.
Not one name. Not even a list. A weight made of many names, each pressing differently against his thoughts. Names given. Names taken. Names forced. Names carried until they broke something inside the person who bore them.
Kael was four years old when he realized this wasn't normal.
A woman crouched in front of him, smiling too carefully. She was a social worker, though Kael didn't know that yet.
"What's your name?" she asked.
Kael stared at her left eye.
Her smile stiffened.
He knew her answer before she spoke.
He knew every answer she had ever answered to.
The pressure bloomed behind his own eye socket, warm and invasive. Somewhere beyond sight, stone scraped against stone.
A grave was carved.
Kael looked away and whispered the first name she hated being called.
She flinched.
By the time he turned ten, Kael understood the rule:
If he saw someone long enough, they were recorded.
He didn't know where the records were kept. Only that they existed. He could feel them accumulating—each new presence adding weight behind his ribs, like breath held too long.
Sleep brought no relief.
Dreams filled with impressions rather than faces. Pride that tasted bitter. Shame that felt like rust. Love that weighed more than hatred ever could. Every name carried exactly the burden its owner felt when it was spoken.
His parents tried everything.
Doctors found nothing wrong with his eye.
Covering it didn't help. Closing it didn't help.
The eye saw regardless.
It did not blink unless Kael forced it to. The first time the world acknowledged him, it was New Year's Eve.
Fireworks fractured the sky above the city, colors blooming and dying in rapid succession. Kael stood among the crowd, hands buried in his coat pockets, bracing for the usual pressure that came with being surrounded by people.
It never came.
Instead, there was silence.
Not the absence of sound, but the absence of weight. The names fell away all at once, leaving his mind terrifyingly empty.
Then something answered him.
Not a voice. A certainty.
Once.
The fireworks froze.
Flame hung motionless. Smoke stopped curling. People halted mid-movement, mouths open, eyes wide with expressions that would never complete.
Kael's breath echoed too loudly in his chest.
The sky split.
An eye opened where the clouds should have been.
It was vast, bloodshot, and unmistakably real. Veins crawled across its surface like roots seeking soil. Purple bled inward toward a slit pupil that watched without curiosity, without judgment.
It simply observed.
The city buckled.
Stone replaced asphalt. Buildings gave way to empty houses and broken paths. Hills rose where streets had been seconds before. Graves emerged everywhere—old, new, countless—each one bearing names Kael could feel before he could read them.
To his right, on a hill that had no right to exist, stood a church strangled by dead vines.
The pressure returned.
This time, it pressed outward.
People collapsed as one. Knees struck stone. Spines bowed. Cursed energy—whatever little most of them possessed—was crushed into nothing. No technique responded. No instinct answered.
Only Kael remained standing.
Inside his eye socket, something burned.
Not the real thing.
A reflection.
A copy of the eye above.
Understanding settled into him, heavy and complete.
This was a Vigil.
This was a record.
And now that the world had been seen—
It would never be unseen again.