A Strange Stillness

The sun broke slowly over Balnoa, dripping gold over thatched rooftops and the narrow stone paths that spidered between old wooden homes.

A thin mist still clung to the coastline, as if the sea wasn't quite ready to let go of the night. The town stirred with quiet discipline. Doors creaked open. Brooms scraped the steps. Voices murmured in half-sleep.

Kaien stood outside the shopkeeper's stall, hands folded neatly behind his back, watching the old man count onions.

Maren had gone inside to ask about fresh herbs. Kaien stayed where she told him to, exactly where she told him to, and waited.

He wasn't restless. He didn't shift or fidget. He simply stood, eyes tracking every motion, every weight shift, every twitch of the shopkeeper's fingers. A cat brushed against his leg once, then thought better of it and moved on.

Two women walked by, their arms heavy with baskets of fish and cloth. One glanced toward him, then leaned slightly toward the other.

"That's her boy," she murmured. "The one she found."

"He doesn't blink much," the other said. "Gives me the chills."

Kaien heard them, of course. He always did.

He turned his head slightly to the side, pretending to study the curve of a wheelbarrow. But his thoughts were already on them.

Tone: low, cautious. Gait: uneven from the left hip. Breath: steady, but tight around the words. Nervousness. Not hostility. They don't understand me. That makes them afraid.

He cataloged it all, stored it somewhere behind his eyes.

Maren returned with a small bag tucked under one arm. Her smile was warm, like always.

"Ready, Kaien?"

He nodded once. The two of them walked back through the square, his smaller footsteps gliding in rhythm with hers.

Later that day, just outside the edge of the village, Kaien heard voices and followed them to the clearing near the old cedar.

Three boys were gathered around something on the ground.

A bird. Small, gray, wing bent at an angle that was clearly wrong.

"It just fell," one of the boys said. "We can help it, right?"

Another was tearing strips from his shirt. "We can make a splint! Like how my dad fixed the goat's leg."

Kaien stepped closer, slow, careful not to disturb the moment. But they noticed him anyway.

"You wanna help?" one asked.

Kaien looked at the bird.

He crouched beside it, hands on his knees, and studied the angle of the wing. The breathing. The twitch of its small, desperate eye.

"The radius is broken," he said quietly. "Clean snap. Internal bleeding. It won't survive."

The boys stared.

"You don't feel bad?"

Kaien looked up at them, expression unreadable.

"It's not about feeling bad. It's about understanding what can't be undone."

No one spoke after that.

The boys left a few minutes later. Kaien stayed, watching the bird until it stopped breathing.

That evening, Maren sat by the window, sewing something small with slow, practiced motions. Kaien sat across from her at the table, a book open but untouched before him.

"The other children said you were cold today," she said, not unkindly.

Kaien looked up.

"Was I?"

"You didn't try to help the bird."

"Helping would have done nothing."

She sighed, setting the cloth aside. "Kaien… do you feel anything when someone is hurt?"

A long pause.

His eyes dropped to the table.

"I think so," he said. "But it's hard to be sure. Everything is always too loud."

Maren blinked. "Loud?"

"Not sound. Just… people."

She didn't press further. Instead, she stood and walked to the kettle.

Kaien watched the steam rise. It moved like smoke, like breath, like something trying to escape.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That night, Kaien dreamed.

Or thought he did.

He stood in a vast white space, silent and endless, with no walls and no sky. Just horizon.

And threads. Glowing, thin, drifting like spider silk through the air. Some curved, some pulsed, some stretched on forever. He reached toward one, hesitated.

When his fingers brushed it, something deep in his chest clicked. Like a door he hadn't noticed was there, opening just slightly.

The scene shifted.

A gray sea. A basket floating. No boat. No storm. Just calm, impossible calm.

Then a voice. Not spoken aloud, not even heard, just felt.

"Remember."

Kaien woke up with cold breath clinging to his chest and the soft, unmistakable sound of pages turning.

There was no book open in the room.

He sat up slowly, bare feet pressed to the floorboards.

They were warm.

But still, he shivered.

He touched the floor with his fingertips, where the threads had been.

Nothing was there.

And yet… it was.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The world was always moving, even when it seemed still. Kaien knew this instinctively, though he couldn't explain how. He could feel it—like a low hum in the bones of the earth. The movement of people. The breath of wind. The drift of seasons through the stone and wood of Balnoa.

He noticed how the old men in the square shifted their chairs by exactly two inches depending on the time of day. How the baker's hands moved faster when she was lying. How the crows always perched on the same three roof tiles, but never all at once.

To most people, these were invisible things. Habits. Coincidence. But to Kaien, they were patterns. Each one a ripple. Each one a part of something larger.

He didn't understand what it meant yet. Only that it was there—some buried mechanism beneath the skin of reality, ticking on without anyone noticing.

And sometimes, in those rare moments of silence—when the town was sleeping and the tide was low—he felt close to it. Like the world was waiting for him to understand.

He didn't know if that made him special. Or cursed. Or just lonely.

But he knew this: nothing in the world moved without leaving a mark. Not wind. Not footsteps. Not memory.

And Kaien… Kaien had begun to see the marks before they were made.

However, he had also come to realize that his perception was not what others would deem "normal."

Children flinched when he stared too long. Adults stopped conversations when he entered the room. He could see it in their shoulders, the way they held their breath just slightly around him—as if he were something dangerous. Unnatural.

Kaien knew that this attention did no good for himself or Maren; it was just a fact.

And so, he tried.

He practiced smiling in the mirror, carefully lifting the corners of his mouth and observing how long he could hold the expression before it felt wrong. He made his voice softer and changed his tone to something warmer, even when it didn't match what he felt. He began blinking more, consciously spacing it out to appear natural.

He laughed at jokes he didn't understand, nodded when others spoke of simple things like fishing or food or weather. He played the part.

Because even if he couldn't feel what they felt, he could understand what they wanted to see.

And Kaien was nothing if not a quick study.

Pretending to be normal became another pattern. Another puzzle to solve.

But sometimes, when he was alone, he would sit in the dark and let his face return to stillness. Let the mask slip.

And he would wonder—not with fear, but with curiosity—if he had ever been normal at all.