People like to think they know things. A child jumps off the couch and says they flew for a second. A scientist explains the force that pulled them back down to Earth is gravity. In both of these scenarios they believe they certainly understand things around them. It feels solid—something to trust, something to build on.

But certainty is like a trick. The closer you get, the more it fades, like morning fog. Keep asking why, and every answer starts to fall apart. Why does a river flow? Gravity. Why does gravity exist? Mass. Why does mass pull things in? Every answer just covers up a bigger mystery, like a thin layer of ice over deep water.

Maybe that thin layer is the only thing keeping us from losing our minds and tearingourclothes. Maybe it's enough. Maybe its not.

In a very quiet place. A man was laying still, staring out at the city where massive machines hummed and moved in the distance.But closer to him and all around him the only sound was his heartbeat—

Lup-dup.

Lup-dup.

Slow and Fading.

Outside, life continued. Spacecars hovered past, damaged neon signs flickered, people moved. The world didn't stop for him.

His lips parted. A breath, weak and uneven, barely made it out. One thought lingered, heavy and unanswered.

Why?

Then—evrywhere near and all around him silence. A deep, endless quiet that filled the absence of any sound.

...

Jason woke up with a headache. Not the dull kind that faded after a few minutes, but a deep, aching pressure from the base of his skull, like something was pressing against his brain from the inside.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

He blinked at the ceiling. His phone was on the nightstand, screen black. No notifications.

That was weird. Arnon usually sent him a meme or some dumb joke by now. He checked his call log. Arnon's name was there, but the last call was from three days ago. Jason frowned. He could've sworn they talked yesterday. Or was it the day before?

A faint unease prickled at the edge of his thoughts, but he brushed it aside.

Steam curled against the bathroom mirror as Jason showered, droplets collecting and sliding down in uneven paths. He wiped the glass with his hand and left the bathroom along with his lagging reflection.

After a quick breakfast, he set out food for Jay, his dog—a mix between a German Shepherd and a cutie patootie, or so his sister used to say. She dropping by unannounced was a usual case scenario, stealing leftovers and claiming she "just happened to be in the area." But lately, it had become a rare occurrence. Probably busy with college prep.

Closing the door jason leaves to office slowly walking across the corridor.Nodding to the few neighbors as their eyes meet him.

His apartment was within walking distance from work, but he preferred the shuttle bus that arrives at every 15 mins interval—an excuse to zone out, listen to music, and delay the start of the day just a little longer.

Lucky enough to get a window seat jason watched as the pedestrians moved in coordinated chaos—crossing streets, scrolling through their feeds, rushing to destinations they would barely remember by evening.

At his stop, Jason stepped off, adjusting his bag. The moment his legs hit the ground, a presence settled beside him. He didn't have to look.

"You didn't take the shuttle?" Jason asked.

A man in his early twenties with hair falling a bit below his eyebrows followed him closely behind. Arnon grumbled something under his breath before raising his id to the scanner machine.

They passed through security at the office entrance. Jason tapped his ID card against the scanner. A brief pause—then the green light blinked, and the barrier slid open.A 5 minutes walk followed for him to get to his working place.

Inside, the air was cool, humming with the quiet energy of a company that never really slept. Rows of desks stretched before them, monitors blinking in patterns of endless data. A few coworkers were already hunched over their terminals, fingers moving fast, eyes flicking between screens as if expecting something to leap out at them.

Jason's gaze drifted toward the far end of the room. Their manager was there. That was never a good sign.

Arnon let out a low whistle. "Damn. Tiger's in the cage so early?"

Jason sighed. "Can we go grab some quick coffee before hearing the bad news?"

Arnon looked at him "guess."

Their manager, a man with the patience of a short fuse, paced near the center of the floor, jaw tight as he spoke in clipped bursts to the lead security engineer. There was tension in his stance, the kind that didn't come from a routine firewall issue.

Jason and Arnon exchanged a glance before heading to their stations. Monitors flickered to life as Jason typed in his credentials, the system greeting him with the usual wall of diagnostic reports.

Except something was off.

One of the logs had an anomaly—tiny, almost imperceptible, but there. A ping from an external source, slipping past multiple layers of security without triggering an alert. Precise. Surgical. Like it was meant to go unnoticed.

Jason's fingers hovered over the keyboard. That ping—it shouldn't have been possible. Someone had slipped through the system's defenses without a trace.

He sat back, the weight of his headache pressing against his skull.

This was going to be a long day.