Elias felt it the moment he stepped outside.
The air was wrong.
Not thicker. Not heavier.
Expectant.
The hospital doors slid shut behind him with a hiss that sounded too final. Morning light spilled across the street—gray, overcast, ordinary at a glance. Cars idled at the curb. A bus hissed to a stop. People moved with the careful speed of those who hadn't yet decided whether panic was justified.
But above it all hung a pressure that had nothing to do with weather.
Elias pulled his jacket tighter and walked.
No destination. Just distance.
The two men who'd escorted him didn't follow. They stood near the entrance, speaking quietly into earpieces, already shifting their attention elsewhere.
Low priority, Elias thought.
He made it half a block before the System flickered.
[SYSTEM ADVISORY]Environmental parameters updating…
The words hovered, then stuttered.
[UPDATE DELAYED]
Elias stopped walking.
A woman brushed past him, muttering an apology without making eye contact. Somewhere nearby, glass shattered. No one screamed. No one ran.
Everyone was learning new thresholds.
Elias looked up.
Clouds dragged themselves across the sky in heavy, layered sheets. Lightning threaded between them—not striking, just connecting, like synapses firing.
He felt it then.
Not a gaze.
A weight.
As if something vast had turned its attention in his general direction—not to look at him, but to notice the absence he created.
The System pulsed weakly.
[NOTICE]Pantheon proximity: INCREASING
Source: UNRESOLVED
"Of course it is," Elias murmured.
He started walking again, faster now, keeping his head down, letting the flow of pedestrians swallow him. A siren wailed somewhere in the distance, then cut off abruptly.
The pressure followed.
Not like pursuit.
Like gravity.
Every step felt fractionally heavier than the last, as if the concept of moving freely was being questioned.
Elias turned down a side street.
The buildings here were older, brick worn smooth by decades of neglect. Fewer windows. Fewer people.
The pressure eased.
Just a little.
He exhaled slowly.
"Okay," he whispered. "So you're tied to… what. Visibility?"
The System didn't answer.
It never did when the questions were good.
He felt it again—a ripple this time. Subtle, precise.
Something had tested the space he occupied.
And found it… inconsistent.
[SYSTEM ALERT — PASSIVE]Authority resonance detected.
Classification: INDIRECT
Indirect.
Elias almost smiled.
"So this is how you do it," he said under his breath. "You don't show up. You just lean on the world until it cracks."
The street ahead shimmered.
Not visibly. Not in any way a camera would catch.
But Elias felt the rules flex—like a joint pushed past its comfortable range.
A traffic light at the intersection flickered green, then red, then green again in rapid succession. A parked car's alarm chirped once and fell silent. A stray dog froze mid-step, ears flattened, then bolted.
Elias stopped.
The pressure peaked.
For one breathless moment, the world seemed to wait.
Then—
It passed.
The sky lightened. The air loosened. The city exhaled.
Elias staggered slightly, catching himself against a brick wall. Sweat slicked his palms despite the cool air.
[SYSTEM STATUS]Pantheon attention event resolved.
Outcome: NO DIRECT INTERACTION
"No interaction," Elias said quietly. "Just a warning shot."
He pushed himself upright.
Whatever had noticed him hadn't found enough to act on.
Yet.
But that wouldn't last.
He understood that now with unsettling clarity: being unregistered didn't make him invisible.
It made him interesting.
Elias moved again, deeper into the city, toward older neighborhoods where infrastructure sagged and stories overlapped without anyone remembering why.
Places gods didn't look at first.
Behind him, far above the cloud line, something ancient withdrew its attention—irritated, uncertain.
A problem for later.
The System flickered one last time.
[SYSTEM NOTE — ANOMALY LOG]Subject presence produces localized authority distortion.
Analysis pending.
Elias didn't slow.
If attention was inevitable, then distance was his only defense.
And if the world was going to bend around him—
He would learn exactly how far it could bend before it broke.