Xavier awoke to the quiet sound of cicadas.
The sky above him was painted in hues of gold and violet, twilight bleeding into dusk. The air was warm, thick with humidity, but beneath it lingered a chill that didn't belong. It clung to his skin in a way that made his hair stand on end.
He sat up slowly, joints aching as if he'd fallen, though he couldn't remember how. Asphalt stretched beneath him—cracked, uneven, broken in places by time and neglect. The road twisted into the distance in both directions, swallowed by a forest that grew too close to the edge, like it had crept forward in his absence.
He blinked.
His hoodie was damp, smeared with dirt. His sweatpants were torn near the knee. Paint flecked his hands—ochre, black, hints of dried crimson—and he was still wearing his socks, but no shoes. The last thing he remembered was his bedroom, canvas in front of him, brush in hand, music humming low. A normal night.
Now this.
He stood cautiously, breath shallow, muscles tense. No signs. No traffic. No buildings. Just the soft, rhythmic chirp of cicadas and the hum of a single dying streetlamp overhead.
Wherever he was… it wasn't home.
The longer he looked, the more he noticed the wrongness. Not obvious things—nothing overtly supernatural or out of place—but details that didn't add up. The way the trees didn't sway despite the wind brushing his face. The fact that the clouds above didn't seem to move. The air felt too thick, like it had weight.
He walked.
There was no other option. The road stretched ahead into the unknown, and something deep in his chest urged him forward. His footsteps echoed louder than they should've, each one sharp and clear in the silence.
A rusted road sign passed on his left. The lettering had long since faded. Beneath it sat a forgotten wooden shrine, half-sunken into the earth. The charms strung across it were yellowed and brittle, the rope sagging with age. It smelled faintly of old incense and moss.
He didn't linger.
He kept moving, trying to calm the rising discomfort in his stomach. The woods on either side of the road grew darker as the sun slipped below the trees, shadows stretching like fingers across the asphalt. Still no people. Still no noise beyond the insects.
Then, without warning, the cicadas stopped.
Xavier halted mid-step.
The silence was sudden and complete. No transition. No tapering off. Just gone.
His pulse spiked. He turned slowly, scanning the forest, the road behind him, the trees above. Nothing moved. Not a leaf. Not a branch. Even the air had gone still.
Something pressed against his skin—subtle, like static. A tingling that crawled across his arms and settled behind his eyes. It wasn't pain. It wasn't heat. Just… presence.
He rubbed his shoulder. It ached now, dull and insistent. When he pulled back his sleeve, he caught a glimpse of faint light under his skin—thin lines, golden and flickering like candlelight trapped beneath the surface. It disappeared as soon as he looked directly at it.
His breath quickened.
He didn't know where he was. He didn't know how he got here. But something about this place felt hollow. Not abandoned—emptied. Like it had been drained of life.
And yet… something watched.
Not with eyes. Not with malice. But from underneath. Beneath the world. Beneath everything. A weightless, formless awareness, just out of reach, brushing against his soul like a fingertip across glass.
He backed away from the trees, returning to the center of the road.
The moment passed. The tension eased. The cicadas didn't return.
Xavier took one last look at the forest—and kept walking