Fenrik didn't sleep that night.
Every time he closed his eyes, the shadow returned.
Not as a shape—but as a feeling.
Like something unseen standing just behind him, waiting for the moment he turned around.
Morning came quietly.
Too quietly.
Fenrik sat up on his bed and stared at the ceiling, his left eye seeing nothing but darkness, his right eye catching the faint cracks in the plaster above. His chest felt heavy, like someone had placed a stone there while he slept.
Yesterday wasn't a dream, he thought.
The symbol.
The voice.
The pressure.
It had all been real.
College felt different that day.
Not louder.
Not scarier.
Just… distant.
Fenrik walked through the campus courtyard as students laughed, argued, lived. Their voices blended into meaningless noise. He felt like a stranger passing through a world that no longer belonged to him.
"Hey—move!"
Someone bumped into him.
Fenrik stumbled, catching himself just in time.
"Watch where you're going, man," a student muttered before walking off.
Fenrik didn't reply.
He barely heard it.
His mind was somewhere else.
The message came during third period.
Fenrik's phone vibrated once on the desk.
Unknown Number.
He ignored it at first.
Then it vibrated again.
And again.
Annoyed, he slid the phone into his lap and opened the message.
Kaizen Ryu has been hospitalized.
Fenrik's breath caught.
Another message followed instantly.
Traffic accident. Critical condition.
Kaizen.
His fingers tightened around the phone.
Kaizen Ryu—his childhood friend. The only person who had ever noticed Fenrik's blind eye and pretended not to. The one who used to say, "Doesn't matter how you see the world. I'll cover your blind side."
Fenrik stood up so suddenly his chair screeched across the floor.
"Hayashi?" the teacher called. "Where do you think you're—"
Fenrik was already gone.
The hospital smelled like disinfectant and fear.
Fenrik stood outside the emergency ward, his hands trembling. Doctors and nurses moved past him, faces serious, steps quick.
He caught fragments of words.
"Severe trauma—"
"—internal bleeding—"
"—we're trying—"
Trying.
That word echoed in his head.
A man in a dark jacket approached him slowly.
"Fenrik Hayashi?"
Fenrik nodded.
"I'm afraid…" The man hesitated. "Kaizen Ryu didn't make it."
The world went silent.
No ringing.
No dramatic collapse.
Just emptiness.
Fenrik felt something tear inside him—quietly, cleanly, like a thread snapping.
"…No," he whispered.
The man continued speaking, but Fenrik couldn't hear him anymore.
Kaizen was gone.
The one person who stood beside him.
The one person who laughed with him on that same old garden bench, talking about stupid dreams and impossible futures.
Gone.
Night fell without Fenrik noticing.
His legs carried him somewhere familiar.
The garden.
The broken stone path crunched under his shoes as he walked toward the bench beneath the dead sakura tree. The moon hung low, pale and cold.
Fenrik sat down slowly.
His shoulders shook.
"I didn't even get to say goodbye," he murmured.
Tears slipped from his right eye, tracing warm lines down his face. His left eye felt nothing. It never did.
"Why him?" Fenrik asked the empty garden. "Why not me?"
His hands clenched.
"I'm the broken one," he whispered. "I'm the useless one."
The air grew cold.
Too cold.
Fenrik froze.
The garden lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
The same pressure from last night returned—stronger this time.
Fenrik lifted his head, heart pounding.
"Not again…" he breathed.
The shadows gathered beneath the bench.
The ground cracked silently, glowing faint red.
And then—
Light.
Not harsh.
Not blinding.
A soft silver glow rose from the ground in front of him.
Fenrik stared, breath caught in his throat.
From within the light, something took shape.
Not fully.
Not yet.
Just the faint outline of something massive… ancient.
The pressure felt different now.
Not threatening.
Watching.
Fenrik swallowed.
"…Kaizen?" he whispered, his voice breaking.
The light pulsed once.
No answer came.
The glow faded suddenly, vanishing as if it had never existed.
The garden returned to normal.
Silence.
Fenrik sat there for a long time, staring at the spot where the light had been.
Something inside him had changed.
The grief was still there.
The pain was still there.
But beneath it—
A question had been planted.
What if Kaizen's death wasn't the end?
What if it was the beginning of something else?
Fenrik stood up slowly.
As he turned to leave, he didn't notice the faint mark glowing briefly on the back of the bench.
A symbol older than the garden.
Older than the world he knew.