The rain had come without warning.
Thin sheets of water fell soundlessly through the night, dampening the empty streets, soaking into the cracked pavement. The town remained asleep, unaware of the quiet storm settling over it.
Ozion stood at the edge of a crumbling alley, staring into the darkness beyond. The water slid down his face, cold, clinging, but he barely noticed. His mind was elsewhere.
Something was watching him.
He could feel it—a presence just beyond sight, hovering at the edges of his perception. It wasn't the first time.
It wouldn't be the last.
His fingers flexed at his sides, a dull pulse thrumming beneath his skin. He exhaled, slow, steady, ignoring the way the shadows around him stretched unnaturally against the alley walls.
"Still there?"
Silence.
The rain pattered against the rooftops, dripped from rusted gutters, pooled beneath his feet.
Then—
A whisper.
Not in the air. Not in the world around him.
Inside.
"I see you."
A voice, soft, curling through the cracks in his mind. It had no source. No shape. It did not belong to the living.
Ozion's jaw tensed.
He should be used to this by now.
The first time it happened, he had been a child—small, scared, staring into the darkness of a too-empty room. A whisper had come then, too. A nameless thing breathing words into his skull.
That was the first time he knew.
The world was not what it seemed.
The people in this town, in this world, went about their lives unaware. Blissfully ignorant of the things that lurked just beyond their understanding. The things that watched, waited, whispered.
Ozion was not ignorant.
He had heard the voices. Felt their hunger. He had walked through rooms filled with shadows that did not belong.
And he had survived.
"You're late," he murmured, tilting his head slightly.
The whisper curled tighter, winding around his thoughts like a vice.
"Not for long."
A chill ran down his spine. Not from fear. From something deeper.
Anticipation.
The rain kept falling. The town kept sleeping.
Ozion turned, stepping back into the night, his shadow trailing too long behind him.
He never looked back.