WARNING: SENSITIVE CONTENT

  Disclaimer: This story was first made in Wattpad, and is now being transported to Royal Road, please enjoy, I am open to DM's and criticism. Thank you! -Fiun

  Ch. 1

  Do you ever feel like you're not real?

  It starts with a thought. Small. Insignificant. But once it's there, it writhes, tangling itself into everything you do. A whisper when you wake up, a shadow behind your reflection. You blink, and for a moment, the world is too slow to follow.

  You tell yourself it's nothing. Just another morning. Just another step forward. But then, a misstep. The floor beneath you feels thinner than it should, like it's waiting to give way. The air is heavier today, pressing down on you, sinking into your skin. There's a rhythm to it, a pulse—except it doesn't match your own.

  A crack in the mirror is not always seen. Sometimes, it's felt. A hesitation in your breath, a silence where there should be sound. You move through the day, following the script. Smile at the right moments. Speak when spoken to. You laugh when you're supposed to, but it doesn't feel like laughter. It feels like an echo of something you were supposed to be. Something you once were.

  And then you see it.

  A flicker in the corner of your eye. A glitch. A break in the pattern of the world. The way the streetlights flicker in perfect synchrony. The way the people around you pause for just a second too long before continuing as if nothing happened. Like an unseen director called 'cut' and forgot to tell you.

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  The sky is too still, the clouds painted onto a canvas stretched too thin. And the wind—where is the wind? You hold your breath and listen, but there is only silence, thick and pulsating, waiting to be acknowledged.

  You try to tell yourself it's nothing. You always tell yourself it's nothing.

  And then, the ones you call your friends begin to change.

  Not all at once, not in ways you can immediately define. But you start to notice it—the way their words feel borrowed, as if rehearsed. The way they laugh in unison, their voices melding into a single, hollow sound. The way they hesitate, if only for a breath, before answering your questions.

  You test it. You change your rhythm. You break the script. A joke where there should be silence. A question they shouldn't expect. And they falter.

  For a fraction of a second, they do not know how to respond.

  And then, as if a switch is flipped, they recover. A smile, too perfect. A nod, too delayed. Their hands move in the same absent-minded way, their laughter resumes as if nothing happened. But you know. You see it now.

  They are not out of sync with the world.

  You are.

  You sit among them, surrounded by familiar faces, but you feel like an intruder in your own life. Their eyes slide over you as if they expect you to vanish. And maybe you will. Maybe you already have.

  But then, someone turns toward you. No name, no features you can remember. Just a presence, standing too still. Watching. And you know, deep inside, that they see it too.

  Their lips do not move, but you hear them anyway, a voice without a source, a thought that isn't your own.

  "Are you finally awake?"

  And the worst part?

  She's just waiting for you to admit it.