Thursday, August 15
10:42 A.M.
Allston, Boston, Massachusetts
The air outside hit different.
Not dramatically. Not enough for anyone else on the street to stop and notice. But the moment Mered stepped out of the building and onto the sidewalk, something about it felt thicker—like the heat had weight to it.
Late summer in Boston was always like this. Humid, a little oppressive, the kind of warmth that clung to your clothes before noon. Normally he'd just accept it, adjust, move on.
Today it made him aware of his own skin.
He stood there a second longer than necessary, keys still in his hand, eyes adjusting to the brightness. Sunlight bounced off parked cars and windows across the street, sharp enough that he had to squint. The light didn't feel wrong exactly.
Just… intrusive.
"Alright," he muttered, stepping forward. "We're outside. Everything's fine."
A guy passed him going the other way, headphones in, nodding faintly to music Mered couldn't hear. A car rolled by slow, bass low and constant through the frame. Someone down the block laughed too loudly at something that probably wasn't that funny.
Normal.
Mered started walking.
Allston in the late morning had its own rhythm—half awake, half already tired. Students, service workers, people in between shifts or avoiding them entirely. Bikes weaving through gaps in traffic. Delivery drivers double-parked like it was their right.
He moved through it without thinking too much, muscle memory taking over. Same route he always took. Same turns. Same cracked sidewalk slabs he knew to step over without looking.
That helped.
Routine made things smaller.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
He pulled it out as he walked.
Aaron: you sure you're good?
Aaron: that text was weird man
Mered stared at it for a second, thumb hovering.
He typed:
Mered: I was half asleep
Mered: brain was making stuff up
He hesitated, then added:
Mered: you ever wake up and your thoughts just don't make sense?
Three dots appeared almost instantly.
Aaron: yeah but I don't text philosophical horror lines at 2am
Aaron: you sound like you saw something
Mered exhaled through his nose.
He looked up from the phone.
Across the street, sunlight flashed off a window.
For a split second, it stretched.
Not outward. Not brighter. Just… longer than it should have been. Like the reflection lagged behind the movement of the car that caused it.
Mered blinked.
It snapped back into place immediately.
He kept walking.
Mered: I didn't
Mered: just tired
He hit send before he could think about it.
Aaron didn't reply right away this time.
Good.
Mered slipped the phone back into his pocket and focused on the street ahead.
A bus pulled up at the corner, brakes hissing. People shifted around him as they angled toward it. Someone bumped his shoulder lightly in passing.
"Sorry," they said.
"Yeah," Mered replied automatically, already moving.
He stepped off the curb with the rest of them, crossing with the light. The sun sat high enough now to cast short shadows, everything clean and defined.
Too clean.
His eyes tracked his own shadow for no real reason.
It moved with him.
Of course it did.
Step. Step. Step.
Then—just for one stride—it didn't.
Mered slowed.
Not enough to stop. Just enough that his pace broke from the flow of people around him.
His shadow caught up immediately, stretching into place like it had never been off at all.
He didn't look back.
Didn't crouch down to check angles or light sources or anything that would turn that moment into something real.
He just kept walking.
"This is stupid," he said under his breath. "You're noticing things now. That's all."
Once your brain decided something was off, it didn't stop. It kept looking. Finding patterns. Making connections that didn't exist.
That was how it worked.
That had to be how it worked.
He reached the other side of the street and paused at the corner, pretending to check traffic before turning down the next block.
A storefront window to his right reflected the sidewalk back at him.
He caught himself in it without meaning to.
Same clothes. Same expression. Same slightly tired eyes scanning the street.
Behind him, people moved in and out of frame.
Everything matched.
He held that reflection for a second longer than he should have.
Then someone passed between him and the glass, breaking it, and he let himself move on.
A few minutes later, he ducked into a small convenience store he'd been to a hundred times before.
The bell above the door gave a weak, familiar jingle.
Cool air hit him immediately, carrying the smell of cheap coffee, cleaning supplies, and something fried that had been sitting too long under a heat lamp.
Better.
Inside felt contained. Predictable.
Shelves. Aisles. Labels. Everything where it should be.
The guy behind the counter glanced up.
"Morning."
Mered nodded. "Yeah."
His voice sounded normal again. Grounded.
He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and stood there for a second, letting the cold bleed into his palm. Then he moved down the aisle, scanning snacks without really seeing them.
His head still felt off. Not dizzy. Not sick. Just slightly out of sync, like his thoughts were arriving a fraction of a second later than they should.
He reached for a granola bar.
His hand closed around it.
For a moment—barely there—it felt like he'd already picked it up.
Like this exact motion had happened twice, layered on top of itself.
He frowned, looking down at the wrapper in his hand.
"Okay," he murmured. "No."
He put it back.
Picked it up again.
This time it felt normal.
He grabbed it anyway and walked to the counter.
The guy rang him up without looking too closely, tapping at the screen with the same bored rhythm he probably used every day.
"That all?"
"Yeah."
Mered tapped his card.
The machine beeped.
Approved.
Routine.
Normal.
He took the receipt, stepped aside, and twisted open the water bottle.
The first sip helped more than the coffee had.
Cold. Real.
He leaned briefly against the counter, letting the world settle around him.
Then something shifted.
Not in the store.
In the reflection.
The convex security mirror in the top corner caught most of the room in a warped, fisheye curve. Mered could see himself in it—small, distorted, standing near the counter.
He didn't mean to look directly at it.
But once he did, he couldn't quite look away.
Everyone else in the mirror moved when they moved.
The cashier shifted his weight—mirror shifted with him. Someone opened the fridge—mirror followed.
Mered stayed still.
His reflection did not.
It adjusted.
Just slightly.
Like it was settling into position after he had already stopped.
His chest tightened.
He looked away immediately, focusing on the label of the water bottle in his hand like it required full attention.
"Alright," he said quietly, barely moving his lips. "That's enough."
No one reacted.
No one noticed.
He straightened, grabbed his stuff, and headed for the door.
The bell jingled again as he stepped back into the heat.
Outside, everything looked the same as before.
Same street. Same light. Same noise.
But the feeling followed him.
Not behind him.
Not in front.
Just… there.
Close.
Mered stood on the sidewalk for a second, eyes scanning without settling.
"This is probably nothing," he said again.
It sounded weaker this time.
He started walking, faster now—not running, not panicked, just a pace that suggested he had somewhere to be even if he didn't.
The city moved around him like it always did.
Cars passed. People talked. Music bled faintly from open windows.
Nothing stopped.
Nothing changed.
Except—
As he crossed another street, he glanced up.
The sky was clear. Bright. Empty.
And for a moment—so brief he couldn't even be sure it happened—one point of light sat there, faint against the blue.
Too sharp.
Too still.
Then it was gone.
Mered lowered his gaze immediately.
He didn't stop walking.
Didn't look back up.
Didn't check again.
His jaw tightened just enough to hurt.
"…yeah," he muttered under his breath.
Not a denial this time.
Not quite an acceptance either.
Just something in between, sitting heavy in his chest as he kept moving through a city that hadn't noticed anything at all.
And that, more than anything, made it worse.