The silence was no longer still.
It cracked.
Sher stepped into what felt like a suspended fragment of reality. The ground beneath him was solid, yet it refused to echo his steps. The sky, an opaque gray dome, pulsed gently with something between breath and thought. There were no shadows. No wind. No time.
Only the presence.
He wasn't alone.
But he was the only body.
A pool of water stretched before him—circular, unnaturally smooth. Sher leaned closer, expecting to see his own reflection.
Nothing.
The surface did not mirror—it watched.
Suddenly, from within the pool, something shifted. A ripple ran across the glassy calm, and there, from beneath, an eye opened. Not human. Not beast. Not even entirely physical. A thing of unformed origin, vast and ancient, gazing through worlds.
It stared directly at him.
His lungs stiffened. Not from fear—fear would be too mundane. From knowing.
"What you see isn't always where you're looking."
"Be careful what you recognize."
The voice didn't echo—it arrived, already inside his mind.
Sher blinked.
When he opened his eyes again, the landscape had changed. The pool was gone. The sky cracked with thin fractures of golden light. And the presence that had watched him? Still there—but now from everywhere.
He staggered, disoriented. His heartbeat refused rhythm. He looked at his own hands and noticed something impossible.
Faint outlines—thin glowing lines—ran up his fingers. Like threaded maps of something far beyond nerves. Something dimensional.
They pulsed, not with blood, but with direction.
Sher fell to one knee, overwhelmed. And that's when he heard them again—not the voice, but the sound:
Breathing. Not his. Not close. But all around.
Then, without warning, everything snapped back.
Color returned. Air rushed in. He was back in the ravine of ancient trees, as if he'd never left.
But he knew.
The Watchers were real.
And they were no longer blind.