Triton kept staring at the blood dripping from his hand.
He saw it, but he didn't feel it.
The crimson liquid trickled down his fingers, staining the papers on his desk, pooling between scattered pens and a half-empty coffee cup. The sight should have alarmed him. It should have hurt. But it didn't.
The scene felt like it was happening to someone else, somewhere else—like he was merely an observer passing through his own life.
The Sound That Wasn't There
Screams.
They weren't coming from his coworkers. No one in the office had even noticed yet.
And yet, the sound was there—deep, sharp, echoing from within him.
It wasn't a single voice. It was a chorus, a rising cacophony of whispers and shouts, pressing against the walls of his mind, demanding to be heard.
He closed his eyes, but he couldn't shut out the noise.
Then—
"Wake up."
The voice resonated inside his skull, a whisper from another world.
It was disturbingly familiar, but he couldn't recall where or when he had heard it before.
Then—
"Triton!"
His eyes snapped open, and this time, the voice was real.
The Eyes of the Living
One of his coworkers stood in front of him, his face frozen between fear and confusion, eyes wide as they locked onto the blood pooling on the desk.
It only took seconds before the others began to notice.
"Oh God, what did you do?!"
"Someone call an ambulance!"
"Do you need a bandage?"
The noise flooded the room, too many faces looking at him with concern. But he couldn't answer.
He wasn't sure what he was supposed to say.
Should he tell them he hadn't realized what he was doing?
That he had found himself holding a knife as if it had materialized out of thin air?
That they wouldn't understand, even if he tried to explain?
Before he could form an answer, someone was already pressing a cloth against his wound, while another reached for their phone.
As always—
Triton didn't resist.
The White Room, Again
Another hospital. Another night of artificial lights and the scent of antiseptics.
This time, his mother wasn't holding his hand.
She sat on the chair beside the bed, hands clasped tightly in her lap, eyes searching his as if trying to find something—something she wasn't sure still existed.
His father wasn't there. Maybe he had nothing left to say.
As for his sister, she stood by the window, like she always did. But this time, her expression was different.
It wasn't just exhaustion.
It was a mix of sorrow and despair—like she had finally realized that this cycle would never end.
"Why, Triton?"
His mother's voice was quiet, yet heavy with years of fear and worry.
He couldn't answer.
He had no answer.
He didn't even have an explanation for himself.
He tried to remember how he had ended up holding that knife at work, but he couldn't.
Everything was hazy, blurred—like a dream slipping away before he could grasp it.
But one thing remained clear in his mind.
"Wake up."
The voice still echoed within him, carved deep into his being.
Yet he had no idea what it meant.
The City That Didn't Care
Two days later, he was discharged from the hospital again—under one condition: intensive therapy sessions, more medication, stricter supervision.
He didn't care much.
Back in his apartment, he left the lights off.
He sat on the couch in the darkness, watching the city lights flicker and dance against the glass of his window.
Outside, life went on as if nothing had happened.
Cars moved, people walked, lights flashed—unbothered by whatever was happening inside him.
He raised his injured hand, staring at the bandages covering the wound.
The pain wasn't the problem.
The problem was that he couldn't remember the moment he chose to do it.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, trying to shake off the strange feeling that had been haunting him since that day.
Then—
A sharp ringing.
Like an old machine coming to life after years of silence.
He pressed his fingers to his temple, but the sound didn't go away.
And then, for a brief moment, he saw something in the window's reflection.
Not his own.
Another shadow—standing right behind him.
The Shadow That Shouldn't Exist
He turned around quickly—
But the room was empty.
There was no one there.
And yet, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching him.
Silently.
Waiting for the right moment to reveal itself.
His heart pounded against his ribs, a slow, suffocating dread creeping up his spine.
The ringing grew louder.
He squeezed his eyes shut, gripping his temples as a wave of dizziness washed over him.
And then—
The room shifted.
The air thickened, the temperature dropped, and the silence became something heavier—something alive.
Triton forced himself to open his eyes.
The apartment was no longer the same.
The furniture was there, the walls remained intact, but something was different. As if he had stepped into a version of his home that was… incomplete.
The colors were duller. The edges of objects blurred. The light outside his window flickered unnaturally, as if struggling to exist.
And then he heard it.
Footsteps.
Soft. Measured.
Not from the hallway.
Not from outside.
From inside the room.
Right behind him.
A slow, dreadful realization gripped him.
He wasn't alone.
He turned his head—just enough to catch a glimpse—
And his breath hitched in his throat.
Because standing there, watching him with hollow, unreadable eyes—
Was himself.
But it wasn't just a reflection.
It was something else.
Something that should not be.
And then—
It smiled.