The wind carried a crisp chill across the early morning streets, weaving through alleyways and stirring the fallen leaves into lazy spirals. Raven Veyrin stood at the edge of the sidewalk, his eyes half-lidded, taking in the world around him with quiet detachment. His dark coat hung loosely on his frame, shadows clinging to him like old friends.
The city hummed around him—cars, footsteps, conversations blending into an orchestra of noise—but Raven wasn't listening. His attention was drawn to something invisible, something deeper. A whisper in the back of his mind.
Move.
His instinct had stirred the moment he woke up, pulling him to this exact street corner. It was always like this—an unshakable pull, like gravity bending the world just for him.
He trusted it more than anything. It had never been wrong.
"Today's the day," he muttered to himself, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.
The crowd parted without noticing him, like water flowing around a stone. He moved with effortless precision, each step deliberate, as though the universe was adjusting itself around him.
Across the street, a commotion broke out. A delivery truck swerved, its tires screeching. A woman—a pedestrian clutching a shopping bag—froze in the middle of the crosswalk, wide-eyed, trapped in the headlights.
The world slowed.
Time didn't stop. It never did. But for Raven, it always felt like it bent just enough to let him think. He felt the calculations firing off in his mind. Trajectories, speeds, outcomes—all unfolding like clockwork in an instant.
His instinct whispered again: Move.
Raven was already stepping forward before he even registered it. In a blur, he crossed the street, grabbing the woman's arm and yanking her back just as the truck roared past. The force of the wind tousled his hair, but Raven didn't flinch. The woman gasped, clutching his arm with trembling fingers.
"Are you… are you crazy?!" she stammered, her face pale. "You could've been killed!"
Raven smiled faintly, his eyes glinting with something unreadable. "No. I couldn't."
Before she could respond, he was already walking away, disappearing into the crowd.
Raven's pace slowed as he rounded the next corner, his heart steady, his mind calm. It was always like this. Every move he made was guided by that voice—his instinct. Not a guess. Not a hunch. A certainty.
He had tried to explain it once, back when he was younger. No one understood. Not his teachers, not his friends, not even his family. They called it luck, genius, coincidence. But Raven knew better.
It was none of those things.
It was something more.
Something… untouchable.
A strange sensation washed over him—a ripple in reality, subtle but undeniable. His instinct shifted, pointing him toward the alley ahead.
A man stood there, waiting in the shadows, watching him.
Raven stopped. His eyes narrowed. The whisper in his mind grew louder.
Go.
Without hesitation, Raven stepped into the alley.