"He's watching me. I think I like it. That's the problem."POV: Riven

  The feather hadn't moved. It hadn't shifted from its pce on the nightstand, hadn't vanished into smoke or shadow. The feather stayed where it was, as impossible in the morning as it had been in the dark. Riven y staring at it, eyes tracing the knife-edge of morning light as it peeled across the room, stripping the walls with pale, golden-bandaged stripes. Dust motes drifted in and out of the sunbeam as it sliced through the cracked window, catching against the sharp red edges of this thing that should not exist.

  Still there. Still real.

  He hadn't dreamed the warmth, no matter how many times he silently accused himself of it. Hadn't imagined the weight of it in the dark. It was warm now, even though the window was open to the air and it bit at his skin, blue-toothed and eager. He hadn't imagined any of it.

  Riven sat up slowly, suspiciously, his body feeling loose and unpnned, like it didn't quite belong to him. His muscles ached in weird pces, tender and unused. He felt like he'd fought something in his sleep—or run a marathon inside his skin. The feather didn't move. But somehow it felt different today, like it knew he was awake, like it had been waiting, watching for this very moment.

  Riven reached for the faucet, movements jerky, and twisted it hard. Cold water spshed into the sink with a violence that startled him.

  The feather hissed.

  Not loud, not even real. But Riven jerked back anyway, breathing sharp and fast like he'd touched something electric. He turned slowly, movements careful and deliberate, eyes snapping to the nightstand. The feather hadn't shifted. Not visibly. But its warmth licked against the edge of his senses again, hot and familiar.

  "I'm losing it," he said, out loud this time, the words drifting like weightless things, ft in the air, like they didn't even believe themselves either.

  He pressed his fingers to the edge of the nightstand. Then to the feather.

  It didn't burn. But it didn't not burn. A pulse flickered through his chest, uncomfortably familiar, uncomfortably certain. His eyes closed without meaning to.

  He saw fingers, long and smoke-wrapped, brushing his cheek. He heard a voice—low and certain.

  Mine.

  He opened his eyes fast, backed away faster. The feather hadn't moved. It didn't need to. Because he had.

  The city felt wrong, Riven thought, as wrong as the feather and at least twice as unsettling.

  Not broken. Not burning. Just... wrong.

  He moved through it like someone trying not to flinch, trying not to be seen. The white streetlight bled into everything, smearing the sidewalks and fa?ades with strange brilliance, bleaching out the familiar, strangling it with a ghost-light that hurt his eyes and cut the sounds of the city to pieces. Conversations splintered, torn apart by fast-moving cars, the noise of the engines swelling in awkward dissonance like a radio tuned to the spaces between stations. Riven burrowed deeper into his jacket, hands shoved so far into his pockets they were more rumors than fingers. He tried to shrink into his own shadow, folding himself in like origami, as if he could fold himself away. Something made him gnce upward, cutting between the chaotic brightness and the violent noises. An interruption. A question without a shape yet.

  A red bird followed him.

  It started two blocks back, on a signpost. He hadn't noticed it at first—only saw it there because it was so red, unnervingly vibrant against the washed-out surroundings, one eye tilted toward him like it knew exactly what he was. Too bright. Too attentive. Too everything. Now it perched on a fire escape directly above, rusted railings framing its silent silhouette, observing him from behind the bck bars like a jury of one. He stopped walking. Looked up, neck craning.

  The bird didn't move.

  He turned down the side street, heart thudding, and picked up his pace. It followed. He could feel it, the pressure of being watched, a hot pinprick against his senses. Was he losing it again? He ducked into the nearest café. The door jingled behind him, a single note like the start of a song nobody knew how to sing. It was the kind of pce he liked best, with bad lighting, excellent coffee, and enough familiarity that he could almost find himself in it if he squinted hard enough.

  The barista looked up, offered him a zy salute, the slow blink of someone halfway through their shift and five hours from giving a shit. That was normal. That was fine. He needed to be fine. Riven slid his hood down and approached the counter, breath shallow.

  "Medium dark roast," he muttered. "Whatever's fastest."

  The girl nodded, turned toward the machine—and yelped. The sound spiked like an arm bell in Riven's head.

  "Shit—burned my hand," she muttered, shaking her fingers out like she'd touched a live wire. "Didn't even touch the cup yet. Damn thing's hot already. You running warm today or something?"

  Riven blinked. His thoughts stumbled over the question, tripping and falling apart.

  "What?"

  She pointed at the empty cup waiting under the spout. Steam curled zily from it.

  He backed away.

  Fast.

  Outside, the red bird was gone. He looked both ways, unsure of what he was even looking for. But the street was too quiet when he stepped back into it.

  Like something was listening.

  Riven made it home without realizing how. Each step bled into the next, and the light and sound and pace of the city faded into a haze both infinite and immediate. He smmed the door behind him, breath rushing out in a sharp, loud shudder, and leaned against the wood like it might try to escape. Was he losing it? Had he ever had it to begin with? The rooms around him felt strange and too bright, like he'd stepped back into a world he didn't belong in, like the city had turned him inside out. And the feather—

  Still there.

  Still real.

  The jar was clean enough to pretend it mattered. He'd rinsed it under scalding water three times, spshing against the porcein sink, the heat blistering his fingers until he almost believed they'd catch fire. Then he dried it with the hem of an old shirt, checked it for dust, checked it again, eyes sharp and restless, the kind of attention usually reserved for wiring explosives. Maybe if it was clean enough, maybe if it was prepared enough, this thing would stop being a dream.

  The feather didn't care.

  It sat on the table like it owned the room, like it owned him, like it was the only real thing and he should be grateful for the chance to know it.

  Riven hovered above it, jar in one hand, breath shallow, pulse crashing like waves inside his chest.

  "You're not special," he muttered, voice splintering. "You're a hallucination with good timing. That's all."

  The feather didn't blink.

  He pced it inside.

  Slow. Gentle. Like it might shatter or scream or vanish. Maybe he hoped it would. Maybe he feared it.

  Then he sealed the lid.

  Seconds passed. A lifetime.

  Nothing happened.

  Then—

  The gss fogged.

  From the inside.

  Riven's stomach twisted. His thoughts twisted. His whole reality twisted, no anchor, just the sight of the feather bleeding warmth into the jar like it was alive, like it was breathing.

  He stared at it for a full minute, pulse climbing like his body knew something he wasn't ready to admit.

  Then: "Okay. Fine. Cool. Really great," he said, sarcasm smudged with shock. The gss kept fogging, a slow sweat curling against its surface, mocking him with its persistence. The feather just sat there, untouched by everything except him. He sat down across from it, eyes fixed, jaw tight, half-petrified, half-hopeful.

  "If you're real," he said slowly, "blink. Or burn. Or move. I don't know. Just—do something."

  The feather didn't move.

  For a beat. For two. For a heartbeat stretched so thin, he thought it might tear.

  Then it tipped.

  Just slightly. Just enough. Just.

  Barely enough to notice. Maybe a shift in air pressure. Maybe gravity. Maybe—

  He leaned forward, heart pounding, almost believing. Almost.

  "No," he said, voice thin, sharp. "Don't do this half-way."

  Silence.

  He stared at the jar like it had confessed something. Or betrayed him. Like it had decided to abandon him completely.

  "You can't just want me when I'm asleep," he whispered. But it could. And it did. He watched the feather like it was a stranger, watched it like it was a lover he couldn't trust.

  The jar stayed still.

  The feather didn't move again.

  But the air tasted like smoke.

  Like it was ciming the room. Like it was ciming him. He closed his eyes, then opened them fast, afraid one would be different, afraid it wouldn't be.

  The bathroom mirror was fogged from a shower he didn't remember taking. The hazy surface shimmered with moisture, glistening like it might dissolve if he touched it. Riven stared at it, breath shallow, uncertainty twisting through him. Had he taken a shower? Had he done it without realizing? Not possible, he thought, because he felt it now, felt the damp shirt sticking to his skin, clinging like a secret he hadn't told yet. The room's warmth closed in on him, suffocating in its stillness, as if the very walls were alive and waiting, holding the air in their lungs, waiting for him to notice.

  He wiped a palm across the gss. Condensation smeared beneath his touch, then cleared. A moment passed, impossibly long, stretching on like time had somehow broken free of itself. His reflection gged.

  Just a flicker. A heartbeat.

  Then it caught up.

  Riven's stomach dropped. Nausea twisted through him, and he lifted a hand, testing, unsure if he wanted to know the answer. The reflection moved with him, up, over. But it was slow, too slow, a half-second trailing behind, a phantom mimicking his movements. He pressed his fingers hard to the gss, desperate to feel something solid, something that didn't feel like a lie. The mirror felt warmer than it should.

  A pulse thudded under his skin, a presence folding in on him, closer than breath. Closer than blood. Not just in the room, but through it, binding him in. He could feel it there, watching, coiled around him like a lover, or a parasite. His reflection smiled.

  He didn't.

  Then, soft and certain as breath—

  "Don't look away."

  Riven jerked back, shock breaking over him in sharp waves. The mirror cleared, abandoning him to silence. Normal. Empty. The ache in his chest felt like accusation, like certainty, like loss. The noise of his own breath was louder than he wanted it to be. He turned. And froze.

  The feather was on the sink.

  Not the nightstand.

  Not the jar.

  Waiting.

  He didn't sleep. Not really. Not since the feather. Not since everything. He sprawled across the bed, fully clothed, half inside his own thoughts and half outside, an exile in his own life.

  The ceiling stared back at him, bnk and white and empty, like a page waiting for words he didn't have.

  He crossed his arms behind his head.

  Like that would stop his chest from feeling too tight.

  Like that would hold him together.

  The feather was under his pillow.

  He hadn't put it there.

  Or maybe he had.

  He didn't remember.

  He didn't want to remember.

  The boundary between what happens and what's allowed to happen was thinner now. He tried to convince himself he could still tell the difference—that he wasn't drowning in his own uncertainty, that he was the one letting these things in, not the other way around. The needle in his thoughts threaded somewhere near panic.

  His eyes stung. But he didn't close them.

  Wouldn't let himself.

  Somewhere in the apartment, a pipe clicked. Too loud. Too alive.

  The air was warm. Too warm for the window being cracked.

  Too warm for sanity.

  He turned onto his side.

  The feather pressed faintly against his cheek through the pillowcase. It didn't burn. Didn't scald. Didn't hurt.

  But it pulsed—

  Just once.

  Like acknowledgment.

  Like a promise.

  Like a threat.

  He didn't flinch.

  Didn't reach for it, either.

  He y still and silent like he was the one haunting this pce, barely breathing, hardly daring to hope that he'd earned the attention this time.

  Instead, he whispered—soft, like he wasn't ready to hear it himself:

  "Stay."

  His voice quivered like a loose string, the lone note in a song he'd been afraid to sing.

  Nothing answered.

  But the silence curled close like something had.

  He rolled away from the bed, searching, as if he might find it.

  Without knowing what it was.

  Without knowing if he wanted to. He moved room to room, scanning for signs, desperate, half-certain he'd see it there, see him there, haunting the edges of Riven's own mind.

  The feather was on his notebook.

  The distance from his bed to the desk wasn't long, but what it cked in space it made up for in implication.

  It had followed him. Or led him.

  He wasn't sure which was worse.

  Riven sank into the chair, the air around him thick and electric with waiting. He hovered above the notebook, above this red impossibility that always seemed to know where he'd never dare to look. The spiral binding cut into his wrists with its sharp coil as he stared it down, challenging it with his silence, daring it to be nothing more than a dream.

  He didn't expect it when his own hand moved, fingers curling around a pen that stabbed awkwardly from the mess on his desk. He didn't realize he was opening the notebook until he saw himself do it, like an out-of-body experience that didn't have the decency to leave his body behind.

  The first page stayed bnk, except for the feather's shadow like an accusation across the paper.

  He didn't know what he was writing, not at first. But the words unfurled like smoke, old and uninvited.

  I'm not losing it.

  It's finding me.

  They cwed their way down the page, letters sprawling, obsidian ink like fresh blood against bone-white paper. He watched his own fingers move, watched them betray him, watched them scrawl words he didn't know he knew.

  I might want it to.

  He stopped. Frozen over the page. Shocked by what his hand had written. Shocked by how true it was. The silence pressed tighter against him, an embrace or a noose. It should have been unbearable.

  But it wasn't.

  Riven dropped the pen like it was burning him, but his chest didn't feel any looser because of it. The air thinned around him in a strange echo of relief and terror as he leaned back in his chair, breathless, shaking with something between panic and etion.

  He pushed the notebook away like it might bite him if he didn't show it who was boss. But nothing was his here—not the air, not the words, not even his own hand as it reached up to knead against his forehead, a desperate effort to shake loose what had taken hold.

  Enough, Riven thought. Enough for one night.

  He stood, and the motion felt strange and unpnned, like every movement since that damn feather had entered his life. Like he wasn't quite connected to himself anymore. He watched the room like it might lunge for him if he turned his back too fast. Was this even a fight he could win?

  The feather y quiet on the desk, waiting with insistent heat. His bed waited too, across the room and across the hours, where sleep would only drag him deeper into this half-life of dreams and smoke and red-edged certainty.

  "Stay," he heard whispered with sweet nothings.