Chapter 1: The Reflection That Wasn't

The city breathed neon. Towers loomed like titans carved from chrome and glass, pulsing with advertisements that whispered dreams no one truly believed. Drones hummed overhead like mechanical fireflies, weaving through the twilight haze. Sidewalks moved beneath tired feet, and people moved even faster—eyes down, minds elsewhere. In this world, miracles were made of algorithms, and silence was the only thing outlawed.

But beneath all the noise, something slept.

Elias Tran had always known he didn't belong. It wasn't rebellion. It was rhythm. The world around him danced too fast, too loud, like a song he could no longer hear the melody of. He walked its streets like a forgotten lyric, half-humming a tune no one else remembered.

He left the bookstore late, as always. The place didn't draw crowds—not anymore. But Elias liked the dust, the silence, the feel of spines beneath his fingers. The city outside might have replaced magic with machines, but within those shelves, time still bent toward wonder.

Before heading out, he passed the old ledger drawer near the front counter—a dusty thing filled with forgotten donations and discarded family books. One had his grandfather's name scrawled inside, barely legible, the pages filled with odd notations and spirals that made no immediate sense.

He paused. A single word, circled in fading red ink, stood out: "Threadkeeper."

It meant nothing. But it felt like something waiting.

His feet led him, without thought, toward the old park—an island of neglect surrounded by towers. Nature clung there like a ghost, vines strangling rusted fences, trees too stubborn to die. His mother always warned him not to go. It wasn't safe. It wasn't monitored.

That's why he went.

The cracked stone fountain stood at its heart, dry for decades. Moonlight skimmed its basin like breath. Elias dropped his bag, sat on the rim, and let the city's distant roar fade to something close to peace.

He closed his eyes.

And he listened.

Not to the city. Not to machines. To the hum beneath.

> "You have to listen for what's behind the world, Eli," his grandfather used to whisper, back when such talk was just the nonsense of dying old men. "Most people only hear what they're told. You have to feel the silence hum."

Tonight, the silence hummed back.

When he opened his eyes, someone was watching him.

A boy sat beneath a crooked lamppost, notebook balanced on his knee, pencil moving faster than thought. He was younger, maybe. Or maybe not. Time had a way of warping around people like him—frayed at the edges.

Their eyes met.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," the boy called.

Elias stood. "Maybe I'm still seeing one."

The boy grinned, sharp as cracked glass. "Jamie. You come here a lot. I draw you sometimes. Hope you don't mind."

He wandered over, held out the notebook. Spirals. Broken gates. Eyes that bled light. Elias turned a page—stopped.

There. A door. Not drawn. Remembered. Tall as sky, shaped like bone. Set in shadow. A place that did not exist. Except it did. Elias had seen it—in dreams that weren't dreams. Always behind him, always closed.

He swallowed. "Where did you see this?"

Jamie shrugged. "I didn't. I just… drew. Doesn't feel like mine, you know? Like it's someone else's memory. I just translate."

A silence stretched.

Jamie spoke first. "Do you ever feel like the world's… off? Not broken. Just—wrong. Like it forgot something important."

Elias looked up. Above them, a feather drifted. Pale. Luminous. Weightless.

It landed between them.

Neither boy moved.

The world around them didn't pause—it leaned.

And far above the towers, beyond satellite nets and surveillance suns, something shifted. The Veil—a thing no one remembered, because it had taught the world to forget—shivered.

Not in warning.

In recognition.

And somewhere deep inside Elias Tran, a door stirred.

Back home, on a high shelf gathering dust, a voice recorder clicked on by itself. A brittle voice crackled through the static:

> "If you're hearing this, Eli, then the thread has found you again. Remember what I told you—some truths come dressed as silence."

The recording ended.

But the silence remained.