Liewen jerked awake, the suddenness of it startling him into a sitting position. His breath came in shallow bursts, heart racing, as though he had been free climbing in his sleep. The room was dark, save for the dim, pale light of the moon filtering through the blinds, casting sharp lines across the floor.
He didn't know why he'd woken up. There was no noise, no external reason for it. But something felt... wrong. His skin was cold, his limbs stiff, and his head throbbed with a dull ache that only deepened his sense of unease. He rubbed his face, trying to calm his racing thoughts.
The silence of the apartment felt almost suffocating now, the usual comfort of being alone turned into something uncomfortable. The silence was too loud, too still. He glanced around the room, but the darkness seemed to mock him, stretching the shadows into unfamiliar shapes. It was as if the walls were closing in on him, making everything feel... distant.
Liewen swung his legs off the bed, his feet hitting the cool floor with a muted thud. He stood up, feeling the heaviness of his own body, and stumbled to the window, pushing aside the blinds to peer outside. The streetlights glowed faintly, casting their orange hue across the empty streets below. It was the kind of serenity that existed only in the late hours of the night, the world still but humming in the distance.
But even the peaceful sight of the sleeping city didn't ease the tension building in his chest.
He rubbed his eyes and turned back to his room. His reflection caught his attention in the mirror on the opposite wall. For a moment, he didn't recognize the person staring back at him. The face was his, but the eyes were... different. Cold, distant. Like someone else was looking through them.
His pulse quickened.
Liewen turned away quickly, unwilling to linger on it. That wasn't him. It couldn't be. It was just the shadows, messing with his mind. He was just tired, that's all.
But even as he thought it, something in the back of his mind resisted. It wasn't just tiredness that had taken over him in the past week. It wasn't just stress. He felt... off. More off than usual. As though something inside him had shifted, something that made him feel like he was losing grip on who he was.
He stumbled into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water, the cool liquid doing little to settle the storm inside him. He drank it down in one go, placing the empty glass on the counter with more force than necessary.
Focus, he told himself. Focus on something. Anything.
But every time he tried to distract himself, his mind circled back to the same things: the arcade, his behavior, that strange confidence. The way he had spoken to Malik, the way his hands had moved so effortlessly over the controls. It had felt... too easy. Too natural. Like he was someone else entirely.
It wasn't like him to be so confident, so sharp. He was always the observer, the one who hung back, never the center of attention. But there, in that moment, he felt powerful. Like he could do anything.
But that wasn't him, right?
Liewen turned to the window again, his gaze sweeping over the quiet streets. He wanted to scream, to get out of his own skin, but the words wouldn't come. The silence around him felt like a weight pressing down, like he couldn't escape the stillness in his own mind.
He picked up the journal from his desk, the one he hadn't written in for months. The pages were blank, save for a few scattered lines of thoughts from weeks ago. He opened it to a fresh page and began to write, his hand moving almost of its own accord, the words spilling out faster than he could think.
Something's wrong. I can feel it. I'm not myself. I keep acting like... like someone else. At the arcade, when I beat Malik... I was someone different. I was someone bold, someone... confident. I don't even know who that was. It wasn't me. But it felt real.
He stared at the words, the ink still wet on the page. It didn't make sense. But there it was, right in front of him. His own handwriting, his own thoughts, but it felt foreign. Like he was reading someone else's words.
The thought sent a shiver down his spine. What if it wasn't just the arcade? What if it had been happening for longer than he realized? What if he wasn't even aware of the changes, of the shifting parts of himself?
His grip tightened on the journal, his fingers pressing against the cover until the edges of the paper dug into his skin. His mind felt like it was splintering, the fractures between who he was and who he was becoming growing wider with each passing moment.
He didn't know how to stop it. And he wasn't sure if he even wanted to.
A sudden noise—something faint but unmistakable—made him freeze. The sound came from somewhere deep in the apartment, the faintest creak of a floorboard, a distant shuffle. It was probably nothing. Maybe it was just the building settling.
But then, there was a voice.
Not in his head—at least, not exactly. It was a voice that wasn't his. A voice that made his heart race even faster, the words unmistakable, like a whisper caught in the air.
"You don't know who you are anymore, do you?"
Liewen dropped the journal, the book falling to the floor with a soft thud. His body tensed, his breath caught in his throat as he turned toward the hallway, searching the darkness for any sign of movement.
There was nothing. The apartment was still, the silence once again overwhelming.
But the words, the voice—it lingered in his mind, pressing against him like a weight.
"Get a grip." He shook his head, trying to clear the feeling, but it wouldn't go away.
Liewen stepped back, unsure of what to do, the uncertainty in his mind only growing. His thoughts raced, but there was no clear direction, no clear answer. He wasn't sure if he was losing his mind or if something else was happening. All he knew was that the world around him seemed to be slipping away, and he wasn't sure he could hold onto it much longer.
Who am I?
The question echoed in his head, unanswered, as the shadows in the apartment stretched longer and longer, pulling him deeper into the unknown.