I spin toward the balcony, heart pounding. Nothing but shadows and headlights down below. The city keeps moving, unaware that something here has shifted. “It’s fine,” I whisper. “You’re just paranoid. You’re just…”
Out of nowhere, the TV clicks on. Static crackling across the screen like the universe is trying to tune itself until it finally cuts to the live news station.“…mystery outbreak reported in three major cities…”The camera shakes. A female reporter in a hazmat suit tries to speak clearly over the sound of sirens and confusion. People are being loaded into ambulances behind her. Panic blooms in the background like mold. She stumbles over the next line.“Symptoms appear sudden…neurological, possibly systemic…patients are reporting hallucinations, respiratory distress, and…”
The screen jitters again. I take a step forward, unconsciously. Like I’m being pulled behind her through the chaos, until I notice someone walks across the frame. Tall. Pale. Clean Suit. Every movement is precise, too precise. The camera wobbles again. A man screams. An EMT drops something. The footage swings and he turns, facing the camera dead in the center.
His eyes shift to the color of glacier melt. Skin like marble. Hair almost white with no expression written on his face. It’s like he’s looking right at me. I stagger back a step.
The image blurs and glitches until it’s frozen. The TV turns black. “No Signal” written across the screen. I stand there, breathing hard with clenched fists. Something cold crawls under my skin. I move toward the window; crack it open for air. The city’s still out there but it feels farther away than it did five minutes ago.
My phone vibrates. There’s no caller ID, no notifications, just pulse like vibrations.
Another fucking knock at the door, sounding the same as before. “Fuck this,” I whisper to the room. I don’t go to the door this time.
I’m about to grab a knife from the kitchen when something behind me creaks from the balcony. The sound is metallic, soft, but deliberate, like the sound of weight on a railing. I grab the closest thing with heft, an empty wine bottle, and hold it like a weapon. The room’s quiet. Too quiet. Then I see him.
Through the sheer curtain, framed in pale city light and shadow, a man stands on my fucking balcony. Hands clasped behind his back. Just standing there patiently. “Fuck no,” I whisper. “Nope. Not tonight.” I can’t look away. His face, it’s the same one from the news, the same one I’ve sketched in the margins without knowing. Glacier eyes. Silver-blonde hair, cut short. Wire-rimmed glasses that do nothing to soften the chill of him. He looks like a man born of frost and lab notes. Then he moves, slowly. He raises a single hand and places it against the glass, claiming the space. I step forward when the curtain sways and I realize the balcony door is unlocked. I know I didn’t leave it that way. I’m about to scream and takeoff running when the lights suddenly flicker. Not once, but twice until they go out and all that's left is complete darkness.
I grab my phone. Turn on the flashlight and point it at the glass. He’s gone.
“No. No. No,” I say, spinning around because he’s now inside, standing between me and the exit. “Lux,” he says calmly. I throw the bottle and he catches it like physics bend to him out of respect. “That’s not necessary,” he murmurs.
“Get the fuck out.”
“You opened the door.”
“No, I didn’t…”
“The first one,” he says, stepping closer. “The real one.” His voice isn’t threatening. It’s worse. It’s clinical. Dissecting.
He walks the room like he’s taking notes and I’m a lab rat trying to bite the hand with the clipboard. “Who the hell are you?”
“You already know.”
“Guess again, Frostbite.” That gets a flicker of something. A curve of his lips. Almost a smile. Hestops just in front of me. The movement feels invasive. He then raises one gloved hand and peels the leather from his fingers.
“This will be uncomfortable,” he says, and touches my hand. Just the tips of his fingers against mine. The cold hits first. It feels deep, almost cellular. My body stiffens and my vision blurs, until it collapses.
FLASH.
A hallway. Stark white walls, sterile and suffocating. The fluorescent lights overhead buzz with a constant, stuttering flicker, like they're trying to blink something away. The air hums with that too-clean chemical tang that burns the inside of your nose.
Then I see her, a younger version of me, too small, and too pale lying still in a narrow hospital bed. Tubes snake from both arms, feeding into separate machines that hiss and click like they're alive. Her. Me? My chest rises and falls too slow, too careful. A steady beeping cuts through the silence, each one a tiny metronome counting down to something I don’t want to know.
The walls feel like they're closing in…watching. I can't move. I’m not sure why I’m here but it looks like I’m dying and yet there’s an eerie smile that remains on my face. Someone leans over me and whispers a single word.
FLASH.
I gasp and stumble back right into the arms of this strange man who just showed up uninvited. He catches me with steady, almost gentle, hands. I scream while pushing myself out of his arms and off his body. “What the fuck was that? What did I just see?” He straightens his suit jacket, unfazed.
“A memory. Or marker.”
“You’re insane.”
“No,” he says. “I’m constant.”
“Get out of my apartment.”
“Of course.” He walks to the balcony, opens the door, but before stepping out, he looks back. “You were not dying in the vision, Lux.” His eyes still locked on mine, cold but certain. “You were evolving.” Then he’s gone.
