Kaito woke before the bell.
He didn't know why. There was no sound to pull him out of sleep, no nightmare lingering at the edge of his thoughts. His eyes simply opened, and the room greeted him with its familiar darkness.
For a moment, he lay still, listening.
The orphanage breathed around him—quiet, uneven, alive. The faint rustle of blankets. Someone turning in their sleep. A distant drip of water somewhere in the walls.
Everything felt normal.
And yet, something inside him insisted it wasn't.
The pressure behind his left eye was different this morning. Not stronger. Not weaker.
Sharper.
Like a thought that hadn't finished forming.
Kaito sat up slowly. The world adjusted around him as it always did, his right eye compensating for the absence on the left. He swung his legs over the bed and waited, just in case dizziness followed.
It didn't.
Instead, a strange certainty settled in his chest.
Today wouldn't go the way it was supposed to.
The bell rang exactly on time.
Breakfast followed the same routine—thin porridge, quiet murmurs, the clatter of spoons against chipped bowls. Kaito ate mechanically, his attention drifting despite himself.
Something kept tugging at his awareness.
A sensation he couldn't locate.
Across the room, a boy laughed too loudly. Near the door, one of the caretakers checked her watch, frowning briefly before shaking her head and moving on.
Normal.
Still wrong.
Kaito finished eating and stood, expecting to be assigned to the library again.
He wasn't.
— Storage room, the caretaker said, glancing at her list.
Kaito hesitated.
The pressure behind his eye pulsed once, like a quiet objection.
He said nothing.
The storage room sat at the back of the building, narrow and poorly lit. Shelves lined the walls, stacked with boxes of supplies no one remembered ordering. The air smelled faintly of dust and cleaning chemicals.
Kaito worked alone.
At first.
He lifted a box from the top shelf, turned, and froze.
Someone was standing in the doorway.
A boy about his age. Slightly taller. Dark hair that refused to stay neat. There was a faint bruise along his jaw, yellowing at the edges like it was healing.
The boy noticed Kaito staring and raised an eyebrow.
— They told me to help, he said.— Unless you want to do this alone.
Kaito blinked.
— …It's fine, he replied.
The boy stepped inside, pushing the door open with his shoulder.
— Good. I hate standing around.
He grabbed a box without waiting for instructions, stacking it neatly beside Kaito's pile.
They worked in silence for a few minutes.
It wasn't awkward.
That, more than anything, surprised Kaito.
— You're new, the boy said eventually.
It wasn't a question.
— I know, Kaito replied.
The boy snorted softly.
— Fair.
Another pause.
— I'm Jun, he added.— You don't talk much.
— You don't ask much, Kaito said.
Jun glanced at him, then smiled—just slightly.
— Talking's overrated.
Something in Kaito loosened.
Just a little.
They finished faster than expected.
As Jun reached for the last box, his foot caught on the edge of a loose board.
It was nothing.
A small mistake. The kind people made all the time.
The box slipped from his hands.
Kaito reacted before thought could catch up.
The world thinned.
Sound dulled, like someone pressing cotton into his ears. The pressure behind his left eye flared, sharp and focused.
The box stopped.
Not fully.
Not cleanly.
It hovered, trembling, suspended just long enough for Kaito to feel it—feel the resistance, the strain, the wrongness of it.
His breath caught.
No.
The box dropped.
It hit the floor with a heavy thud, cracking at one corner but staying intact.
Jun stared at it, then laughed.
— That was close, he said.— Thought I was gonna drop it on my foot.
Kaito's heart hammered painfully in his chest.
— …Yeah.
Jun picked the box up again, none the wiser, and carried it to the shelf.
— Guess today's just lucky, he added.
Lucky.
The word echoed unpleasantly.
Kaito stared at the empty space where the box had hovered.
His scar burned—not angrily, not urgently.
Curious.
That afternoon, the rain returned.
Heavy this time.
It pounded against the windows, loud enough to drown out conversation. Children gathered near the glass, watching water stream down in chaotic patterns.
Kaito stood farther back.
He already knew.
The certainty from the previous day hadn't left him. It had sharpened, refined itself. He didn't know when the rain would stop—but he knew it would.
And when it did, it wouldn't be natural.
A caretaker frowned as she glanced outside.
— That's strange…, she murmured.
The rain slowed.
Not gradually.
Abruptly.
Drops hesitated in the air, as if the sky had forgotten how gravity worked.
Gasps filled the room.
Then the rain fell again, harder than before.
The moment passed.
Laughter followed. Nervous, uncertain.
— Weird weather, someone said.
Kaito's hands trembled.
Jun looked at him—not at his face, but at his hands.
— You okay? Jun asked quietly.
Kaito nodded too quickly.
— Yeah.
Jun didn't push.
That made it worse.
That night, the dream didn't wait.
Kaito lay awake, staring at the ceiling, when the room folded inward like a page being turned.
He stood in a narrow street under flickering lights. Rain soaked the ground, splashing against cracked pavement. The air smelled like metal and smoke.
Someone stood at the far end of the street.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
Facing away.
Kaito knew who it was.
— Ren…, he whispered.
The figure didn't turn.
A voice spoke from behind him.
Close.
Too close.
— You're early.
Kaito spun around.
No one was there.
The pressure behind his left eye surged violently, blinding him with emptiness.
— Early for what?! he shouted.
The street fractured.
Cracks split the ground, spilling darkness—the same nothingness his left eye saw every day. It crawled outward, swallowing light, sound, texture.
Kaito fell to his knees, clutching his face.
— Not yet, the voice said, softer now.— If you open it now… you won't survive it.
A hand rested on his shoulder.
Warm.
Steady.
Familiar.
— And neither will they.
The dream shattered.
Kaito woke screaming.
His chest burned, lungs desperate for air. The room snapped back into place—beds, walls, shadows. Other children stirred, groaning, but no one got up.
Rain hammered against the windows.
Real rain.
Kaito pressed his palm against his scar, grounding himself.
— …Early, he whispered.
The word no longer scared him.
It unsettled him.
Because deep down, beneath the fear and confusion, he knew the truth he wasn't ready to understand yet:
He wasn't discovering something new.
He was remembering it too soon.