The glass doors of the academy felt heavier than usual as Ren pushed them open. The late afternoon sun hit his eyes, making him wince. Ten hours in stiff robes, rehearsing the same walk across a stage and forcing smiles until his cheeks ached—it all weighed on him.
"Sigh… what a long day," he muttered, stepping onto the empty sidewalk. His bag felt heavier than usual, and his thoughts drifted to the digital files on a photographer's hard drive. I wonder how I even look in those photos. Probably like a zombie.
When the yellow taxi pulled to the curb, the cool blast of air conditioning was a small mercy. He slumped into the back seat.
"Greetings, sir. Please take me to xxxx," he said.
The driver, an elderly man with a face like a roadmap of wrinkles, glanced at him through the rearview mirror with a kind smile. "Sure thing, lad."
Ren didn't want to think about school anymore. He pulled out his phone; the soft glow of Balatro illuminated his tired face. The rhythmic clicking of digital cards was the only thing keeping his mind awake.
"You look exhausted, young man," the driver said. "Big day?"
Ren didn't look up from a Full House he was trying to complete. "Graduation practice… and the photos. I think I've seen enough of my own face for a lifetime today."
The old man chuckled, starting to tell a story about his grandson.
"You know, I also have a graduating grandson… his name is Jam—"
The world didn't just stop; it tore itself apart. One second there was the hum of the engine, the chime of the game—the next, there was only screeching metal and spinning horizons.
Ren felt weightless, as if he were slipping through space itself. Then everything went black.
When he opened his eyes, the world was silent. The smell of gasoline and burnt rubber filled his lungs. He was lying on the pavement, his body cold and strange, as if it weren't entirely his own.
His phone lay inches away, cracked, its screen flickering the last thing he would ever touch. A soft Ding! cut through the silence—a notification he couldn't tap:
From: Mom
How did practice go? Are you tired? I cooked your favorite pasta, and your sister is waiting for you with a secret graduation gift! (Don't tell her I told you!) Have a safe trip home.
Ren's chest tightened. His eyes closed, and the glow faded into nothingness.
Then came the voice: soft, omnipresent, and impossible to ignore.
"Ren. you're time is up."
The blackness began to ripple, like liquid shadow. A shape emerged—if it could be called a shape at all. It shifted constantly, never staying the same for more than a moment: a shimmer of light one second, a dark void the next, with fragments of eyes, mouths, and impossible geometry flickering across its form. Ren's mind recoiled. He could not look directly at it and could not turn away.
It had no fixed form, no beginning or end. It was everything and nothing at once, and yet, somehow, it was aware of him.
"You lived," the voice said, reverberating from everywhere and nowhere. "And now, your actions will be weighed."