The café stayed empty.
Not abandoned.
Empty in a way that felt intentional.
Coulson didn't move to stand. Neither did I. We sat across from each other while the world pretended we weren't there.
The bell over the door didn't ring again.
Outside, the street carried on. Cars passed. Voices echoed. Life continued at a comfortable distance, like it had learned where to stop.
"I should go," I said.
Coulson nodded. "I figured you would."
He didn't ask where. He didn't offer a ride.
That told me more than anything else could have.
I stood slowly, half-expecting the room to resist.
It didn't.
That worried me more.
At the door, I hesitated. My hand hovered over the handle, fingers tingling like they were brushing against something cold.
"Phil," I said.
He looked up.
"If I leave," I asked, "do you lose track of me?"
Coulson considered the question.
"I think," he said carefully, "that sometimes we never had you to begin with."
That was as close to honesty as anyone had been with me all day.
I nodded once and stepped outside.
The street accepted me again.
People were back. Not the same ones. New faces, new conversations, new reasons to be there. The city had filled the space like water.
I walked without direction.
Each step felt heavier than the last, like I was pushing against an invisible current.
My chest tightened.
Not fear.
Pressure.
[Relocation condition approaching.]
I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
No one bumped into me.
No one noticed.
The air around me thinned, sound stretching like it was being pulled away from its source.
[Conceptual reassignment imminent.]
My heart began to race.
"Not here," I whispered. "Not now."
The pressure didn't respond.
It never did.
[Destination compatible.]
Images flickered at the edge of my thoughts. Heat. Steel. Breath forced into rhythm. Pain that demanded precision instead of panic.
I tasted blood.
Or remembered it.
My vision dimmed, not darkening so much as losing definition, like the world was deciding how much of itself it needed to keep.
[Exclusive existence transfer preparing.]
I clenched my fists and forced myself to breathe.
In.
Out.
Slow.
Controlled.
The way it felt right now mattered.
I had the sudden, sharp understanding that whatever came next wouldn't care who I was.
Only whether I could survive long enough to adapt.
[Relocation commencing.]
The street dissolved.
Not into darkness.
Into absence.
I landed hard.
Not on stone.
Not on concrete.
Mud swallowed my boots and nearly took me with it. Cold water surged up my legs as I stumbled forward, arms windmilling until I managed to stay upright.
The smell hit next.
Wet earth. Rotting plants. Stagnant water.
A rice field.
Rows stretched out around me, dark and uneven, reflecting moonlight in broken strips. The water reached just below my knees, thick with silt and cut stalks that brushed against my skin when I moved.
Night pressed in from every direction.
No city glow.
No distant engines.
Just insects screaming somewhere beyond the field and the slow, awful quiet that came between them.
I turned slowly.
Nothing.
No buildings close enough to see. No lights. Just shadowed hills in the distance and a thin line of trees marking the edge of the field.
My breath fogged in front of me.
Too cold.
Too damp.
Too real.
[Relocation complete.]
The pressure vanished all at once, leaving behind a hollow feeling in my chest, like something important had stepped away and locked the door behind it.
I swallowed.
"Okay," I whispered. "Okay."
My voice carried farther than it should have.
The insects stopped.
Not gradually.
All at once.
The silence that followed was wrong.
I froze, water rippling outward from my legs.
That was when I noticed the smell beneath the mud.
Copper.
Old blood.
And something else.
Something sweet and rotten at the same time.
The hairs on my arms rose.
I didn't know where I was.
I didn't know when I was.
But I knew, with bone-deep certainty, that I wasn't supposed to be standing in the open.
I forced myself to breathe.
In.
Out.
Slow.
Controlled.
The way it felt right now mattered.
Moonlight shifted across the water.
A ripple moved against the rows.
Not wind.
Something wading.
Farther back, near the tree line, a shape shifted.
Tall.
Too tall.
I took a careful step backward.
The mud sucked at my foot, loud in the silence.
The shape stopped moving.
I didn't wait to see what happened next.
I turned and ran.
Water exploded around my legs as I forced them to move, every instinct screaming that whatever had noticed me was already deciding how I'd taste.
Behind me, something laughed.
Low.
Wet.
Hungry.
[Hostile environment confirmed.]
I ran until my lungs burned.
The field blurred into streaks of moonlight and shadow as I pushed harder, feet tearing free from the mud with wet, desperate sounds.
The tree line was close.
Too close to fail.
I reached it.
My hand closed around bark.
Solid.
Real.
Relief hit so hard my knees nearly buckled.
I pulled myself forward—
And the world snapped.
I was standing in the rice field again.
Knee-deep in water.
Exactly where I had started.
The mud around me was smooth. Undisturbed. No footprints. No splashes. No sign I had ever moved.
My breath hitched.
"No," I whispered. "No, I ran. I—"
The memory stuttered.
My legs didn't remember burning.
My hands didn't remember bark.
[Escape attempt invalid.][Conceptual action rejected.]
My stomach dropped.
It hadn't moved me back.
It had decided I never left.
The water rippled in front of me.
Closer now.
The shape rose from the field, moonlight catching too many joints, too many teeth. Its mouth opened wide as it lunged.
The thing hit me from the side.
I barely saw it move before something slammed into my ribs and sent me skidding through the water. Pain detonated along my side and I screamed as I hit the mud face-first.
Something warm ran down my cheek.
Blood.
I pushed myself up just in time for it to crash into me again, all teeth and limbs and weight. Its arm stretched, joints popping, claws closing around my shoulder.
Pressure.
Bone creaked.
I couldn't breathe.
It didn't pause.
It just squeezed harder, mouth opening wider as it leaned in, breath hot and rotten against my face.
I clawed at its wrist, fingers slipping on slick skin. Panic crushed thought flat. There was no plan. No technique. Just the animal need to keep my chest from collapsing.
I gasped.
And breathed.
Wrong.
Shallow and desperate, air tearing at my lungs as I slashed blindly with the broken piece of wood I'd ripped from the field earlier, dragging it across the demon's forearm more out of reflex than intent.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the grip failed.
Not because it loosened.
Because it ceased.
The fingers opened all at once, slack and useless, and I dropped into the water as the pressure vanished. I sucked in air and rolled away, coughing hard enough to taste blood.
The demon shrieked.
Not in pain.
In confusion.
It lunged again, jaws snapping inches from my face, arm flailing as it tried to grab me.
Its hand closed around nothing.
Again.
And again.
Each attempt failed at the last instant, fingers twitching like they no longer understood the idea of holding.
[Localized conceptual instability detected.]
It didn't retreat.
It charged harder.
That was worse.
I scrambled backward through the water as it followed, movements growing more violent, less coordinated. It slammed into the mud, tore up stalks, bit at nothing.
It struck the ground wrong.
Its weight shifted without balance.
The demon crashed face-first into the field.
I didn't wait.
I ran.
This time, nothing snapped me back.
I didn't stop until my legs gave out near the edge of the field and the ground rose beneath my hands instead of water.
I lay there shaking, lungs burning, heart hammering.
When I finally looked at my hand, it was trembling.
Not numb.
Not broken.
Just uncertain.
I clenched my fist.
It closed.
I hadn't beaten it.
I hadn't hurt it.
I had broken something so basic it didn't even understand what was wrong.
And that terrified me.
Dawn found me walking.
The field gave way to a narrow dirt road cutting through low hills and dying grass. I followed it because it existed, and because standing still felt like an invitation.
Smoke rose ahead.
Thin.
Careful.
A village.
Small. A handful of buildings huddled together like they expected the dark to come back early.
I waited at the edge of the road until someone noticed me.
An older man stepped out of a squat building near the village edge, carrying a bucket. He froze when he saw me.
I raised my hands.
"Where did you come from?"
"I don't know," I said.
He stared at me for a long moment, then sighed.
"You're bleeding on my road," he muttered.
He led me inside.
The building smelled like iron and smoke and old oil. Tools lined the walls. Heavy things meant to shape other heavy things.
A forge.
He cleaned the worst of my wounds without ceremony and wrapped my ribs tight enough to hurt and loose enough to breathe.
"You're lucky," he said.
"Why?"
"They usually finish their meals."
He let me stay.
The forge woke before the village did.
The sound of hammer on metal pulled me from sleep.
"You're breathing better," he said without turning.
"My name's Elias," I said.
He nodded. "Hoshino."
No ceremony. Just fact.
My eyes drifted to the blades along the wall.
"Don't touch," he said.
"I wasn't."
"You were thinking about it."
He handed me a dull training blade.
"Hold it."
The weight felt honest.
Wrong in my hands.
"You don't need a sword yet," Hoshino said. "You need to learn how to breathe when you're afraid."
"That's not something you teach," I said.
"No," he replied. "It's something you earn."
He turned back to the forge.
But he didn't tell me to leave.
And that mattered.
The village didn't sleep easily.
I learned that when voices carried through the thin walls just after dusk. Low at first. Then sharper. Urgent in a way that made my chest tighten before I understood why.
Hoshino paused mid-motion, hammer hovering over the anvil.
He didn't ask what was wrong.
He already knew.
Footsteps hurried past the forge. Someone knocked on a door farther down the road. A child started crying and was hushed too quickly.
I stood. "What happened?"
Hoshino set the hammer down carefully. Too carefully.
"Livestock," he said. "Or someone walking home too late."
"That's it?" I asked.
He looked at me then, eyes dark and tired.
"That's always how it starts."
Outside, torches flickered to life one by one, small points of light pushing back the dark without actually defeating it. The mountains loomed beyond them, silent and patient.
I thought of the rice field.
Of water rippling where it shouldn't.
Of something laughing because it knew I couldn't run.
Hoshino picked up the training blade from the rack and rested it against the wall. Not offering it. Not hiding it.
Just acknowledging it.
"You can leave in the morning," he said. "No one would blame you."
I watched the torchlight sway.
Listened to the fear people tried not to let show.
And realized something cold and unavoidable settle into place.
If I stayed, the night would come again.
And next time, it wouldn't be waiting in a field.
....
Thanks for reading chapter 3.
Feel free to drop any power stones or anything, though I don't mind because the games gone and I'm doing this for enjoyment because I cant find anything good to read.
.....