started with the headaches.
Not sharp. Not migraine-level. Just dull and weird, like someone knocked on the inside of his skull and forgot to stop.
August woke up feeling like his head was full of static.
He sat on the edge of his bed, holding his face in his hands, whispering, "Ow," like it was a prayer. The notebook was still on his desk. Closed. But even with his back turned, he could feel it watching.
No.
Not watching.
Waiting.
"Not today," he muttered. "I've got school, I've got class, and I already have enough going on without my childhood OC holding a grudge."
Still, he looked over.
Still, it didn't move.
Still, he packed it in his bag.
He didn't tell Alex. Not yet. He didn't even know how to start that conversation.
"Hey, remember the sword guy I made up when I was twelve?
Turns out he's alive and sad and possibly haunting my spiral notebook."
Yeah. That'd go over great.
He walked to school with one earbud in, hoodie up, sketchbook pressed flat against his back like it might absorb into his spine if he let it.
That's when he noticed the birds.
Or—more accurately—the lack of them.
No chirps. No rustling wings. No early-morning arguments between robins over whose branch was whose. Just wind. Just leaves.
Too quiet.
August slowed down.
Then stopped.
He turned slowly in a full circle, trying not to feel stupid.
No birds.
No sound.
The wind touched his face—but nothing moved.
Across the street, a tree stood perfectly still. Not swaying. Not creaking.
Frozen.
August took one step forward.
The world snapped back.
Leaves rustled. A car honked in the distance. A dog barked two blocks away like it had to make up for the silence.
He blinked, heart suddenly pounding. The headache sharpened—just for a second—then dulled again.
"What the hell was that?" he whispered.
No answer. Of course.
He made it to school. Mostly on autopilot. The halls were the same. The teachers still tired. Someone spilled coffee on the main stairwell again and no one cleaned it up.
But August felt off.
Like he was walking through a copy of his day. Same layout, same people, but thinner.
Less real.
Alex waved to him in homeroom. "Yo, you okay? You look like you just lost a fight with an existential crisis."
"I am the crisis," August muttered, sliding into his seat.
"You been writing again?"
"…Sort of."
He didn't elaborate. He couldn't. Not yet.
Instead, he opened his sketchbook under the desk.
No new words.
No new pages.
Just Arthur. Still kneeling.
But this time…
Arthur was looking up.
Right at him.
The headache didn't go away.
By third period, it had rhythm.
Not just pain—pulses. Like a second heartbeat in his skull, one he didn't own. It didn't sync with his. It lagged. Deliberate. Like a drum echoing from far underground.
Thump…
…thump.
...thump.
August winced and rubbed his temples, trying not to make a scene. His teacher was going on about European revolutions, something about guillotines and public unrest, but all August could hear was that beat.
He looked down.
Sketchbook open. Arthur on the page. Same kneeling pose.
But something was wrong.
The sword had shifted. Slightly. Its angle. Its shadow. He didn't draw that.
He was sure of it.
He blinked and looked closer.
No—definitely different.
Arthur's head had tilted.
Just a bit.
August slammed the book shut.
Too hard. Loud. A few people looked over.
He coughed, shrugged, and mouthed "sorry" like he dropped it. His hands were sweating. Palms cold.
He shoved the sketchbook into his bag and stared at the whiteboard for the next fifteen minutes like it held the secret to sanity.
Alex caught him in the hallway after class.
"Hey. You good?"
"Yeah."
"You're lying. That was the 'I'm fine but my soul's on fire' voice."
August didn't answer. He just tugged his hoodie up higher and said, "You ever think a story could, like… get stuck in you?"
Alex blinked. "What, like writer's block?"
"No. Like—you write something so strong, so weirdly alive, that it doesn't stay in the book. It stays in you. Even after you stop writing it."
Alex tilted his head. "Dude. I once made a comic about sentient oatmeal that ate people. So, yeah. I get it."
August almost laughed. Almost.
But the pulse was still there in his head.
He walked slower the rest of the day. More careful. He stopped talking as much. Let his surroundings wash over him like noise. But something about the world felt thinner again.
Not wrong.
Just off.
The sky outside the cafeteria window didn't shift the way it usually did. The clouds stayed too still. When someone dropped their tray, the crash didn't echo right.
August opened his sketchbook again.
Not to draw. Just to check.
Arthur's sword was planted deeper into the ground now. A crack split beneath it, like the weight of it was caving something in. The shading was darker. Harsher.
But the part that made August stop breathing?
There was a second figure behind him now.
Faint.
Unfinished.
A blurry silhouette. Standing in the distance.
Watching Arthur.
Watching him.
By last period, August knew something was wrong.
Not just weird. Not just "I need sleep and fruit snacks" wrong.
This was inside him now.
The pulse in his head had grown stronger. Not painful. Just… deliberate. Like someone tapping behind a wall, waiting for him to tap back.
The second figure in the sketchbook hadn't moved. Still faint. Still watching. But it was clearer now. A little taller. A little closer.
And for the first time—
August felt watched back.
He sat in the back of class, pretending to listen, while his thumb grazed the edge of the paper. His body buzzed with something that wasn't adrenaline. Wasn't fear.
More like… resonance.
Like something inside him remembered how to feel something it shouldn't.
Then came the first jolt.
He flinched.
Sharp.
Quick.
A line of pain across his ribcage—thin, like a cut that didn't break skin but made his whole nervous system blink.
He grabbed the edge of the desk and tried not to gasp. Looked down.
Nothing there.
No blood. No tear in his shirt.
But he felt it. Still burning.
He opened the sketchbook.
Arthur's ribs had a new line drawn in. Faint. Hairline fracture.
August stared at it, breathing shallow.
"No," he whispered. "No, that's not real. That's not—"
Another jolt.
This time, in his shoulder. Then his back. Like someone tracing a knife without pressing hard.
Arthur's back in the drawing was marked now too. A faint cut. Identical location.
August's hands were shaking.
He stood up.
"Bathroom," he muttered to the teacher, who barely looked up.
He left the classroom, shut the door gently, then ran.
Straight to the far hall.
Empty. Silent. Dust floating in beams of light through narrow windows.
He leaned against the wall, heart in his throat.
Pulled out the sketchbook.
Opened to the latest page.
Arthur still knelt there.
But now—
He was looking away.
At the silhouette.
And the silhouette?
It was looking directly at August.
A line had formed underneath.
A new one.
Written slowly, like it cost something to say:
"If you keep remembering… you'll let it in."
August's mouth went dry.
He wanted to say let what in?
But something in him already knew.