Normal is a Lie, Right?

The walk to school was just like how it was on any other day.

The trees swayed gently in the wind, their leaves crisp with early morning dew. The air held the bite of a waning summer, clean and cold. Around them, people moved with the same rhythm they always had—laughing, yawning, checking their phones, living like there was nothing looming above them.

And maybe for them... there wasn't. 

All except one. 

Riku didn't like silence much. Not when it was this heavy. He'd normally fill the morning air with dumb banter, music, or a joke about Tetsuya's hair. But today, everything in him felt like it was holding its breath.

Riku walked beside Tetsuya, his shoulders hunched, his eyes unfocused, his mind trying to race off to anywhere but the present moment. Unfortunately, it was all in vain.

The earlier conversation spun in his head, repeating like a glitch in a record.

"If I could just hear their voice..."

"The Silent God..."

His fingers curled in a bit, brushing against the fabric of his hoodie pocket where his marked hand hid. It still burned, ever so faintly—like it remembered something he hadn't yet fully processed. To remind him that the world wasn't as intact as he or everyone thought. That something had changed.

In him.

Around him.

Through him. 

"You ready for that physics test?"

"What?" Riku's mind snapped out of its trance. 

"Yeah. Our physics test is today." Tetsuya snorted. "Ring a bell?"

"Huh? Oh... yeah, right." Riku replied, looking at the road. 

"You study?"

"No..." Riku shook his head without even looking up. He was beyond caring about school, let alone one class. 

"Ha! I thought so. You were never one for giving a damn about class. Always buried in some weird book in the corner like a monk."

Riku gave a half-smile "It's better than failing spectacularly like you."

"Hey now, I've been studying. A little." Tetsuya grinned, but it faded quickly when he noticed Riku wasn't matching his usual energy.

"You sure you're good? You've been acting like a divorced dad this morning."

Riku paused. 

He wanted to say something. He really did.

But how in the hell would he start that conversation?

Yeah, I think I saw a reflection of a God in my bathroom mirror. Or maybe it was me. Also, my hand is burning like the ninth level of hell and is literally branded with a symbol, along with a cursed book that is writing to me in real time. Anyways, how was your morning?

"Just woke up on the wrong side of the bed," He lied. "Nothing major."

"You sure?" Tetsuya asked again, softer this time. "You're not, like, losing it or anything?"

Riku looked at him. The worry in Tetsuya's eyes was real. Honest.

For a second, Riku loathed it.

Because he didn't feel real anymore. 

He forced a grin. "What, and miss a chance to mull over this test with you? Never."

***

Inside the classroom, Riku stared at the chalkboard. The loud, booming voice of his teacher and the tapping of the chalk against the porcelain enameled steel did nothing to deter Riku from his thoughts. 

His eyes drifted to the window instead. 

Outside, the sky seemed… too wide. Too open. Like it was staring back.

He tried to listen to the outdoors. The chirping of the birds and the leaves rustling as the crisp breeze passed by, was somewhat of a balm to his agitated mind. 

Despite that, he could almost hear it—some silent call, humming beneath the normal noise of life.

The mark on his palm pulsed again.

"Shinsora?"

He jumped. 

The teacher raised an eyebrow. "I saw your test that you handed in earlier..." He motioned to the front desk.

"...Uh..."

A couple of chuckles were heard. The teacher sighed. "Focus, Shinsora."

He nodded numbly. He wanted to let the teacher know that he tried. He really did. 

He'd scribbled something on his physics test paper just to appear functional, but his eyes kept dragging back to the window like gravity had shifted sideways. The clouds moved too slow. The light filtered in wrong. At one point, he swore the shadow of a bird perched on the sill didn't match the shape of the actual bird.

None of it felt real.

The bell eventually rang. Chairs scraped. Tetsuya leaned over to Riku's desk.

"You gonna survive the rest of the day?"

"Define survive."

Tetsuya gave a small laugh, grabbing his bag and stretching. "Lunch time. That vending machine better still have melon soda."

Riku got up, but his legs felt like water. Like puddles in those old monochrome films his mom used to watch.

Funny... He thought. He actually remembered something about his parents. Who knows where they were.

As they walked down the hallway, Riku's vision started to clear, albeit it was still foggy like it was before.

They walked through the hallway. Around them, everything was normal. Students joked, lockers clanged, someone was arguing about losing a flash drive — the usual. But Riku felt like a thin sheet of glass was wedged between him and the rest of the world.

No matter what he did or how hard he tried, he felt as if that feeling could never wane. 

The mark on his hand itched.

Then, it burned.

Harder than before.

He hissed and stuffed his hand into his pocket, biting back the instinct to yelp.

"You okay?" Tetsuya asked.

"Yeah," Riku said, too quickly. "Just jammed my hand earlier."

Tetsuya raised a brow but didn't press. "Wanna head to the roof? I kinda need air after that test."

Riku blinked. "We're allowed up there?"

"We're not," Tetsuya said with a grin. "C'mon."

"You're too much, man." Riku retorted. 

***

The wind was much clearer on the rooftop. It whipped Riku's hair back and chilled his sweat-damp skin. The view was exactly what he needed — wide, clear sky, a glimmer of sea in the distance, and the town stretching far beneath them. 

Tetsuya leaned on the railing, eyes scanning the horizon.

"I like it up here," he said. "It's like the only place that doesn't expect anything from you."

Riku didn't answer at first. He was staring at his palm again. The mark was glowing faintly, almost indistinguishable from the veins beneath his skin — like it was bleeding light.

"Tetsuya..." he began.

But then he stopped.

Because Tetsuya was gone. 

Not dead. Just gone. Like he hadn't even existed in the first place. 

He looked over the railing. Nothing. No body or anything else.

"Tetsuya...?"

The word barely had time to form in Riku's mouth before the weight of absence hit him like a punch to the ribs.

No sound.

No shift of footsteps.

No slam of the door behind him.

Just emptiness.

He spun around, eyes darting across the rooftop. Nothing. Not a soul. As if Riku had never spoken to him at all.

"What the hell?" he whispered, heart beginning to pound. He took a step toward the rooftop door.

It didn't move. Locked. Sealed.

The wind stopped. The sky dimmed.

And then—he heard it.

That sound again.

Not quite a voice. Not quite a hum. It was more like... a pressure. A resonance. Like something old and vast and deeply wrong was standing just behind him, breathing down his spine.

He turned around, then froze.

At the far edge of the rooftop, standing perfectly still with feet hovering just above the concrete, was a figure.

It didn't have a face. Its head was smoothed over, like it was made of melted porcelain. Black smoke coiled from its limbs like oil in water. Its arms were too long, brittle fingers dragging against the air as if tasting it.

"What the hell?" Riku took a step back.

The mark on his hand flared, white-hot.

The thing twitched, then started gliding forward—not walking, just... drifting, like thought through a dream.

"Nope," Riku muttered. "No no no—"

He turned and ran, slamming his shoulder into the rooftop door. It didn't budge. He kicked it, then again. Nothing. The steel felt like stone, unmoving, uncaring.

"Come on, come on, COME ON! OPEN, DAMN IT!" 

Behind him, it screamed.

Not with a mouth. Not with lungs.

It was a static-surge scream, like someone twisting a frequency knob too far, a screech that tore into his skull and tried to pull his thoughts apart.

"I don't wanna die," Riku gasped, scrambling away. "Not like this. Not from some damn, stupid voodoo horror thing—"

The mark on his palm burned once more.

No—not burned. It opened.

Like an eye.

And in that moment—

Everything slowed.

The creature lunged again, but now it moved like it was trapped in syrup, sluggish and glitching. Riku's own breath sounded louder, slower. The world lost its sharpness, edges turning soft, sound collapsing into a single heartbeat.

In the haze of that moment, he saw something. 

Someone, actually.

A boy.

A little older than Riku, dressed in dark, ritualistic robes woven with iron-thread lines. His hair was a windswept mess of black, and his eyes gleamed like twin lanterns under a storm.

He said something, but the words didn't reach Riku's ears. He couldn't tell from the distance or from his own panic. At this point, he couldn't tell which one it was. 

Chains erupted from the boy's hands and latched onto the apparition.

They didn't just bind it. They silenced it.

The creature didn't scream—it froze, mid-air, its smoke-like limbs spasming as if reality had suddenly caught up with it and decided it had no place here. The moment the chains touched its form, pieces of it began to fracture, like someone was smashing a glass statue underwater.

Its porcelain-smooth head caved in slightly, then warped in reverse, pulled back by an unseen force. Riku could feel something coming off it—like static peeling away from skin. Fear. Anger. Something ancient.

The boy moved fast. Inhumanly fast. With one hand he dragged the chains taut, and with the other, he raised a blade—short, ceremonial, lined with etchings that shimmered with a red script. It pulsed once. 

The blade struck the entity square in its chest. No blood. No impact. Just a discontinuity—a ripple in space where the blade entered—and then, the apparition vanished, disintegrating into smoke and scattered symbols that vanished into the wind.

Riku collapsed to his knees, chest heaving.

The rooftop brightened. The door behind him clicked.

Time resumed.

Footsteps approached.

"Someone like you shouldn't be seeing constructs of that level. Well, not yet anyway. But that's for later, I suppose."

Riku looked up. His mouth moved, but all he could feel was the bottomless pit of frustration. His lungs were hollow. 

"You're lucky," the boy said, crouching down to Riku's level. "If your Gate hadn't half-awakened, that thing would've torn you apart, and you wouldn't have even known it."

Riku blinked. "My friend-"

"I know. I'm sorry I got here later rather than sooner. We'll get him back. Trust me." 

Riku tried to find his voice. "Who are you?"

They boy hesitated. Then extended his hand.

"Akio Tanaka. Junior Mantrik, provisional level. Pleased to meet you."

Riku stared at the hand like it might explode. Then, slowly, he took it.

Akio helped him to his feet. "You're not insane, by the way."

"Oh... thanks," Riku coughed, sarcasm involuntary. "That helps so much."

"Hey, I mean it! You're just... early."

Riku brushed dirt off his hoodie. "Early for what? Hallucinations? Monsters? Burning symbols? Self-writing books in my room?!" His confusion and bitterness were almost tangible. 

Akio looked past Riku, toward where the creature had once been. "Your Mantra shouldn't be leaking this soon. Or this erratically for that matter. And your Gate shouldn't have been stirring in such a way to attract these kinds of constructs. Yet it came anyway."

Riku froze. The words didn't make sense. "My what shouldn't be manifesting? Can you slow down and speak like a human for once? Wait... you are human, right?"

"Look," Akio said. "I know this is overwhelming, but we need to get you somewhere safe. If more constructs are slipping through the Myth Veil, then you're going to attract a lot worse."

"What?"

"No time to explain here. The school is phasing back to normal." Akio turned toward the rooftop door, now slightly ajar. "Come with me. I'll answer what I can."

Riku hesitated.

"I don't even know you," he said. "For all I know, you could be one of those... things."

Akio turned. For the first time, there was no humor in his eyes—only a hardened seriousness that didn't belong to a teenager.

"If I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn't have saved you," he said. "I don't know what kind of messed-up domino tipped your story over, but you're already part of this now. Whether you believe me or not, you need help. You can either choose to tough this out on your own, or you follow me and have an actual fighting chance."

A beat passed.

Then another.

Riku swallowed, then nodded once.

"Fine. But if this ends with me strapped to a hospital bed drooling on myself, I'm haunting you."

Akio smirked. "Deal."