The Peculiar Patterns of Project X-9
Chapter 2 Residuals
Atlas didn't sleep that night.
Not because he was scared.
Because everything felt… too correct.
His parents were home.
Actually home.
They ate dinner together. They laughed at a bad movie. His dad burned the popcorn and didn't get mad about it.
That alone should've been enough to make Atlas happy.
But every time he smiled, something in the back of his head whispered:
This wasn't supposed to happen.
He woke up the next morning with the same feeling
like a sentence that ended early, but the page kept going.
At breakfast, his mom checked her phone and frowned.
"That's weird," she muttered.
"What?" Atlas asked.
"The meeting in Chicago. I swear it was scheduled for today. But now it says it was never confirmed."
His dad leaned over. "You sure?"
"I'm sure."
They shrugged it off.
Atlas didn't.
At school, things got worse.
Not loud-worse.
Quiet-worse.
The teacher paused mid-sentence, confused, like she forgot what she was about to say.
A kid in the back raised his hand, then slowly lowered it, like he forgot why it was up in the first place.
During recess, Atlas noticed something that made his stomach twist.
The swings creaked.
But there was no wind.
"You feel it too, don't you?"
Atlas turned.
Freya stood beside him, arms crossed, eyes locked on the playground.
"Feel what?" Atlas asked, even though he already knew.
She didn't answer right away.
Then she said, "Like someone erased something and forgot to clean up the edges."
Atlas swallowed.
"Kenshin said everything was finished," he muttered.
Freya looked at him sharply. "That's the problem."
They found Kenshin where they always did.
Same park.
Same sandbox.
Same calm posture, sitting cross-legged like the world wasn't leaking around him.
But something was off.
The goggles weren't on his face.
They were on the ground.
And Kenshin was staring at them like they might bite.
"You broke something," Atlas said.
Kenshin looked up. His eyes were tired.
"I didn't," he replied. "I just… used it."
Freya frowned. "That's the same thing."
Kenshin didn't argue.
Instead, he picked up the goggles carefully, like they were fragile not powerful.
"Do you know what happens," he said, "when an outcome changes, but the world remembers the old one?"
Atlas felt cold. "What?"
"You get leftovers," Kenshin answered. "Residuals."
He explained it slowly.
Not like a lecture.
More like a confession.
"The Race doesn't rewrite everything," Kenshin said. "It chooses what's already finished. But when something finishes too early… the rest of the story doesn't always disappear."
Freya's voice dropped. "So the world knows something's wrong."
"Yes."
Atlas stared at the goggles. "Then why did it work?"
Kenshin hesitated.
"Because happiness," he said carefully, "was a valid ending."
A shadow passed over the sandbox.
All three of them looked up.
For half a second, Atlas saw something he couldn't describe
not a shape, not a figure
more like a gap.
Like a sentence missing a word.
Then it was gone.
Freya grabbed Atlas's sleeve. "You saw that too, right?"
Atlas nodded.
Kenshin stood up.
"That wasn't supposed to happen," he said.
"Was that The Race?" Atlas asked.
Kenshin shook his head.
"No," he said. "The Race doesn't appear."
"Then what was it?"
Kenshin looked at the goggles again.
"…Something checking the results."
That night, Atlas dreamed.
He stood on a track with no lines.
No runners.
No start.
At the end of it, something waited.
Not a person.
Not a god.
Just a feeling.
Like the story was looking back at him.
And asking:
Are you sure this is how it ends?
When Atlas woke up, there was a mark on his wrist.
Not a bruise.
Not a cut.
Just a faint symbol
like a circle that never closed.
Across town, Kenshin sat upright in bed, breathing hard.
For the first time since he found the goggles, he whispered:
"…I don't think I'm the one in control."
End of Chapter 2.