Cass woke to the scent of coffee and the distant hum of morning life. The soft chatter of voices, the rhythmic clink of plates, the muffled sound of a news broadcast from the living room—it all blended together into the kind of quiet, domestic symphony that should have felt grounding. Familiar.
But it didn't.
Something was off.
Cass lay there, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the unease to pass. It didn't.
With a sigh, he sat up and rubbed a hand over his face. Shadows of forgotten dreams clung to the edges of his mind—sensations of movement, of urgency, of loss—but no clear images remained. Just a lingering pressure in his skull, like a whisper he couldn't quite hear.
It happened every morning.
It wasn't a big deal.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, his feet touching hardwood, and—
A flicker.
For just a fraction of a second, it felt wrong. The weight of his body wasn't quite right. The floor wasn't just cold—it was empty, like the sensation of standing in a space that didn't exist. A void.
He blinked. The moment passed.
Cass exhaled, shaking his head. Just lingering sleep inertia. That was all.
With practiced ease, he buried the discomfort and pushed himself up, rolling his shoulders as he left the bedroom. He could already hear his kids in the living room, their voices rising and falling in the playful bickering of siblings who had too much energy for the morning.
His wife was in the kitchen, pouring herself coffee. She glanced up when she saw him, smiling.
"Morning, babe," she said.
He stepped closer, pressing a light kiss to her forehead. "Morning. You sleep okay?"
"Not bad." She leaned against the counter, watching him with easy warmth. "Kids have been up for a while. Logan's on that stupid game again. Vera's drawing."
Cass grabbed a mug from the cabinet, hesitating slightly. "Drawing what?"
His wife huffed a soft laugh. "I don't know. You know how she is. Always into something."
Cass chuckled, taking a sip of coffee. "She better not be drawing on the walls again."
"She's using paper this time," his wife assured him, grinning. "Small victories."
Cass smirked, but something still gnawed at the back of his mind. A formless discomfort, like he was walking through a set built just for him, where every line of dialogue had been rehearsed a thousand times before.
He didn't know why he was being like this. It was a normal morning.
Wasn't it?
Pushing the thought aside, he made his way toward the living room.
The moment he stepped inside, Logan barely looked up from his handheld game, but Vera was sprawled out on the carpet, surrounded by scattered pencils and charcoal sticks, utterly absorbed in her latest creation.
Cass strolled closer, peering over her shoulder.
It was a landscape—dark, stormy clouds hanging over jagged city buildings, stark contrasts between shadow and light giving the whole thing a dramatic, eerie feel. The ground looked cracked, uneven. Something in the air seemed wrong, as if the very atmosphere in the drawing had weight to it, pressing down on the scene below.
Not exactly the cheeriest thing for a ten-year-old to be sketching.
"Pretty intense," Cass mused, sipping his coffee.
Vera barely glanced up, shrugging. "I guess."
"What's it supposed to be?"
She tapped her pencil against her chin, thinking. "Dunno. Just looked cool."
Cass frowned slightly. "It doesn't remind you of anything?"
She gave him a blank look, then turned back to her drawing, adding more crosshatch shading to the sky. "Nope."
That feeling in his chest tightened.
She wasn't lying.
Vera wasn't the kind of kid to hide things—she wasn't trying to mess with him, or hint at something deeper. She just liked to draw. To create. There was no weight to her answer, no hesitation, no deeper meaning.
And yet, Cass couldn't shake the sense that he recognized what she had drawn.
Not in a way he could explain. Not in a way that made sense.
Like an old memory pressing against the edge of his mind, just out of reach.
"You always draw cities?" he asked after a moment, keeping his tone light.
"Nah," Vera said, tilting her head. "I do lots of stuff. Animals. People."
He nodded, watching as she sketched without hesitation, filling in the broken landscape with instinctual confidence.
Just a drawing.
Just a kid being creative.
Just a stupid feeling twisting in his gut for no reason.
He forced himself to relax, turning toward Logan instead. "And you?"
The boy barely acknowledged him. "Hm?"
Cass smirked. "Still glued to that game?"
Logan finally glanced up, flashing a smug grin. "It's called Oblivion Siege, and yeah, I'm winning."
Cass took another sip of coffee. "Didn't realize you could win a never-ending game."
"I have the highest score in my server," Logan declared. "That's basically winning."
Cass chuckled, shaking his head. "Alright, fair."
He stayed for a few more minutes, watching his kids go about their morning—Vera sketching, Logan absorbed in his game, both of them completely wrapped up in their own little worlds.
Perfect.
Normal.
Safe.
Then why did it feel like none of it was real?
Cass glanced at the drawing one last time before standing. The unease was still there, coiled in the pit of his stomach, but there was no reason for it. Nothing was wrong.
Nothing at all.
He told himself that as he walked back to the kitchen, setting his mug down with slightly more force than necessary.
His wife raised an eyebrow. "Something up?"
Cass hesitated, then shook his head. "Just tired."
She studied him for a second, then nodded. "Long week."
"Yeah," Cass said absently, running a hand through his hair.
A long week.
A normal morning.
Everything exactly as it should be.
So why did he feel like something was slipping through his fingers?
End of Chapter 1