The mont that presence touched my mind, the entire world seed to quiet down in a very unnatural way. It was as if everything else had politely stepped aside to let sothing far more important take centre stage.
The bats were still moving above , and the strange tune was still echoing sowhere in the distance.
Dudududu!
But both of those things felt distant now, like background noise that no longer demanded attention. What mattered was the thing in front of . Or rather, the thing that had finally decided to stop pretending it was not there.
I pushed myself fully into the swarm, ignoring the way wings brushed against , and landed on sothing that felt almost like ground but not quite real enough to trust. It held my weight, which was all I needed, and that was enough for now.
For a mont, I just stood there and looked around.
The space did not want to exist properly. It shifted at the edges, like it could not decide on a shape, and the darkness was not complete but never stable either. It felt like being inside a thought that soone had not finished forming.
"Alright," I said slowly, letting my voice carry without raising it. "You brought in. Now what?"
The answer did not co imdiately, but I could feel sothing focusing on more clearly now. It was not a physical sensation, not sothing I could point to and say it ca from a direction. It was more like being observed by sothing that did not need eyes.
Then it started to take shape.
Not all at once, and not cleanly either. It ford the sa way everything else here did, uncertain and incomplete, as if reality itself was hesitating.
A tall figure erged from the shifting dark, its outline unstable, its form wrapped in sothing that looked like layers but never fully settled into being clothes or shadow.
Its face tried to exist.
That was the best way to describe it.
Features appeared, softened, then shifted again before they could fully beco anything. Eyes that almost locked onto mine but slipped away a second later. A mouth that looked like it wanted to speak but never quite committed.
I watched it for a few seconds and then let out a quiet breath. "You know, I have to ask," I said, tilting my head slightly, "is that your final form or are you still buffering?"
The presence did not react to the tone, but sothing about the space tightened slightly, like it had noticed the comnt even if it did not care for it.
Then the voice ca.
It was not spoken out loud, and it did not travel through the air. It appeared directly in my head, soft and distant, like sothing that had not fully learned how to communicate yet.
"Why... do you see ?"
I blinked once and then rubbed the back of my neck. "That is really what you are going with?" I said. "No introduction, no dramatic line, just straight to the insecurity?"
It did not respond again imdiately, but I could feel that sa quiet attention waiting for an answer, patient in a way that would have been unsettling if I did not already know how this worked.
I let out a small breath and answered anyway. "You are not invisible," I said simply. "You just remove clarity. That is not the sa thing."
The space around us shifted slightly, like the statent had weight.
"You hide things," I continued, gesturing lightly around us. "You make people doubt what they are seeing, and once they start doubting, they do the rest of the work for you. Their imagination fills in the gaps, and that is where you win."
The figure remained still, but its outline flickered more than before.
"But that only works if the person does not already know there is sothing behind the curtain," I added. "Once I know you are there, I do not need to see you clearly. I just need to find what does not fit."
I pointed at it.
"And that is you."
For a brief mont, nothing moved.
Then the space tightened sharply, like a rope being pulled.
"I... hide... everything."
I could not help the small smile that appeared. "Yeah, and that is exactly why you are easy to find."
That was when it moved.
There was no warning, no buildup. One mont it was standing still, and the next the entire space twisted around . The ground disappeared, and I felt my body drop as if gravity had suddenly rembered it existed.
For a split second, my instincts reacted, my body preparing for impact that was never going to co.
Then I exhaled and let my shoulders relax.
"This again," I muttered.
The fall stopped instantly.
I was standing again.
Sa place.
Sa figure.
It tilted its head slightly, as if it was trying to process why that had not worked.
"Look," I said, brushing imaginary dust off my sleeve, "if you want to scare , you have to commit. You cannot just switch gravity off and on and expect to panic."
The space changed again.
This ti, it rebuilt itself into sothing more familiar.
A street appeared around , clean and quiet in a way that felt staged. People stood frozen in place, mid-action, like soone had paused the world at a random mont.
For a second, it almost looked real.
Then the details started slipping.
Faces blurred.
Movents lagged behind themselves.
Everything felt just slightly out of sync, like a bad imitation of reality.
I looked around and sighed. "You are mixing concepts now," I said. "This is more Riddle than Hiding. Stay in your lane."
The people around turned toward at the sa ti.
That part was almost impressive.
They started walking, their steps uneven, their bodies moving in ways that did not match the ground beneath them.
I watched them approach without moving even a bit.
Reviews
All reviews (0)