Three weeks pass like molasses. The resistance headquarters feels like a hospital waiting room – everyone speaking in hushed tones, jumping at unexpected sounds, watching the clock. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I spend most of my time in my quarters, trying to minimize how much my presence disturbs others. It's not just their fear I'm avoiding – Sarah's tests proved that I'm literally warping reality around me now, creating small distortions in local space-time. Electronics malfunction. Shadows move wrong. Water flows uphill in drinking fountains when I pass by.

The new recruit – Dave, I finally learned his name – quit. Officially, it's because of family obligations. Unofficially, everyone knows it's because he can't handle being in the same building as me. Can't handle the way his coffee mug rattled itself off his desk when I walked past, the liquid hanging in impossible geometries before splashing to the floor.

I don't blame him.

The darkness behind my eye has settled into a new rhythm, like a second heartbeat. Sometimes I catch glimpses of my reflection in windows or computer screens, see the way my left eye now contains actual swirls of darkness, like smoke underwater. The changes are becoming harder to hide.

Marcus tries to maintain normalcy. Daily briefings continue, though half the chairs are empty – people finding excuses to attend remotely. He talks about Church movements, about their unusual quiet, about the need to stay vigilant. But his eyes keep straying to the way reality bends slightly around me, the way light refracts wrongly through the air where I sit.

Sarah's tests continue, each one revealing new changes. My cellular structure is still evolving, still trying to exist in more dimensions than physics allows. The effect is spreading – hair, nails, even my clothes start to take on impossible properties after I wear them too long.

"Like you're infecting reality itself," she muttered during one session, then immediately apologized.

I spend a lot of time on the roof, among Marcus's herbs. They're the only living things that don't seem disturbed by my presence. If anything, they're growing more vigorously, though in strange patterns that sometimes form familiar symbols when viewed from above.

That's where James's message finds me, three weeks, two days and four hours after the warehouse incident. My phone buzzes with an urgency I can feel through the case:

Need to meet. NOW. Somewhere private. No devices, no witnesses. Matter of life/death.

The darkness pulses, responding to something in his words. Or maybe to something else, something hiding in the spaces between them.

I text back: Usual place?

NO. Not secure enough. Remember that ghost town you told me about? The one where you first changed things?

My breath catches. I haven't told anyone else about that place, about what happened there. Too far. Church will notice you missing.

Worth the risk. Please. This changes everything.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I study his messages, feeling the weight of the words. James doesn't panic easily. Doesn't break protocol without reason. Whatever he's found must be significant.

When?

Tonight. Midnight. Come alone. Don't tell ANYONE. Even Marcus.

I should tell Marcus. Should report this breach of protocol. Should at least let Sarah know where I'm going, in case something happens. In case I lose control again.

But something in James's urgency calls to the darkness behind my eye. Something about this feels... right. Inevitable.

I'll be there.

His response is immediate: Destroy this phone. Get a burner. They're watching everything now.

The phone dissolves in my hand, its components twisting into shapes that shouldn't exist before collapsing into fine dust. I didn't mean to do that – the power just responded to the thought of destruction. I'm getting stronger. Or maybe just losing control in new ways.

The rest of the day passes with excruciating slowness. I attend the evening briefing, half-listening to reports about Church movements that probably mean nothing. Their successful subject hasn't been seen since the warehouse. Their usual facilities are quiet. Even their routine operations have slowed to a crawl.

"They're planning something," Marcus says for the hundredth time. "Something big. We need to be ready."

I watch the way his coffee mug slides imperceptibly away from me, responding to distortions I can't help causing. The darkness throbs with something that might be anticipation.

After the briefing, Sarah catches me in the hall. "Your readings are still evolving," she says without preamble. "The rate of change is accelerating, but... differently than before. Like your body is preparing for something."

"What kind of something?"

"I don't know. But Vesper..." She hesitates. "Whatever's happening to you, whatever you're becoming – be careful. The quantum fluctuations around you are getting stronger. If they keep growing at this rate..."

She doesn't finish the thought. Doesn't need to. We both know what happens when reality gets too thin, too malleable.

I spend the evening in my quarters, pretending to sleep. The burner phone I acquired sits on my nightstand, innocent and ordinary. At ten, I hear Marcus making his final rounds, checking security. At ten-thirty, the night shift changes over, their footsteps echoing differently through halls that don't quite follow Euclidean geometry anymore.

At ten-forty-five, I get ready to move. The knife – still transformed, still dancing with impossible patterns – goes into its sheath at my hip. I dress in dark clothes, comfortable boots. The darkness behind my eye pulses with growing urgency.

Sneaking out isn't hard when you can make shadows bend around you, when you can convince security cameras to look elsewhere. The garage is empty except for a few parked vehicles. I take one of the unmarked cars, knowing it will be missed but unable to think of a better option.

The desert night feels familiar as I drive, bringing back memories of my first escape. The same stars wheel overhead, though now I can see other things moving between them – shapes and geometries that human eyes weren't meant to process.

The ghost town appears exactly as I remember it, a collection of weathered buildings silvered by moonlight. I park at the edge of town, unwilling to disturb the silence with engine noise. The air feels heavy, expectant.

The general store where I first lost control still stands, its front door still hanging off broken hinges. Inside, the walls retain their subtle ripple pattern, like heat waves frozen in wood. My footsteps echo strangely on floorboards that still carry a metallic sheen.

The darkness behind my eye pulses stronger now, recognizing this place where I first glimpsed what I could become. The air feels thick with possibility, with power waiting to be shaped.

Movement in the shadows. I turn, hand going to the knife.

"James?"

No answer, but something moves again – a figure in the darkness, its shape somehow wrong. The darkness pulses a warning.

"James, if that's you..."

The figure steps forward into a shaft of moonlight. Not James.

My mother - my birth mother, only seen in treasured photos - smiles with a face that's both familiar and impossible, both flesh and something else.

"Hello, little sister," she says in a voice that isn't quite a voice. "We need to talk about what's coming."

The darkness explodes behind my eye, and reality holds its breath.