Nathan Walker had never been special. Born in a quiet town with nothing extraordinary to offer, he grew up believing that life was a routine of school, work, and the occasional weekend escape. There were no enigmas, no thrills, but only the movement of the days in a very robotic way. It wasn't that Nathan disliked his life; it was simply that he didn't have a reason to get excited about it.

He worked at a local bookstore, the kind with dusty shelves and too many books stacked in corners that no one ever touched. The shop was the property of Mr. Jenkins, a very old man with a habit of vanishing in the back room for hours. Nathan was there by himself dealing with that odd customer who would occasionally walk in looking for a thing that did not exist. Sometimes, he daydreamed about what it would be like to escape this town and start anew, but those thoughts were always fleeting. They were a luxury he couldn't afford.

Today, like every other, Nathan was shelving books in the farthest corner of the shop when his eyes fell on something that didn't belong. A small object lay half-hidden beneath a pile of old journals, covered in dust but still somehow gleaming. It was a lump, black as night, and bearing strange runes impressed upon it. The second he ran his fingertips over its surface, a numb shock went up his arm, and for just a second the rest of the world seemed to be quite wobbly, felt as if the Earth was having a big yawn.

Nathan quickly pulled his hand away, but the stone remained in his palm, warm now. A strange hum seemed to emanate from it, low and almost imperceptible, like a distant heartbeat. He stared at it, trying to make sense of what had just happened, but the room remained still. No one else was around. [He] looked sideways nervously at the doorway, half expecting a person to come through the door and spot him with the unusual item, but the shop was still quiet as ever.

A voice broke his thoughts. "What have you found there, Nathan?"

He jumped, nearly dropping the stone. Standing in the doorway of the back room, Mr. Jenkins is staring at what Nathan is holding. The expression of the old man changed, uninterpretable, and he then approached and spoke in a low voice.

"Put it down, boy. That's not something you want to get involved with."

Nathan blinked, unsure of what he was hearing. Mr. Jenkins had never been this serious before. "What do you mean?"

"Trust me," Mr. Jenkins said, his voice almost a whisper. "Some things are better left alone."

Nathan stared at the stone again. It felt… powerful, somehow. That impulse to drop it subsided and he felt something more primal inside him awakening. He did not know it, for that matter, but instinctively was he pulled towards it, as if the stone was somehow beckoning, pleading to be deciphered.

Before he could say anything, Mr. Jenkins turned and walked away, leaving Nathan alone with the object. The hum seemed louder now, and as if by instinct, he gripped the stone more tightly.

For a moment, nothing happened. It was, however, at random that the world within him started to warp. The air became heavy, as if the walls were tightening in upon us. His heart raced. Nathan fell back stumbling holding the stone tight, his thoughts churning with fear. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision, but everything seemed to blur—shadows moving unnaturally, strange shapes flickering in his peripheral vision.

And then, almost without warning as it began, so abruptly did the distortion cease. The bookstore seemed the same as always—stilled, dusty, and stationary. But Nathan felt… different. There was something inside him now, something that hadn't been there before.

He chucked it back onto the counter and stepped backwards. The shop was silent and Mr. Jenkins was not yet back.

life as he knew it was about to change.