I should have known something was wrong when my vape clouds started showing me the future. Not like crystal ball stuff – more like glimpses of what might be, possibilities drifting through the vapor like oil on water. But when you're living in a van in Joshua Tree, spending most days bouldering and working part-time at a crystal shop, you learn to roll with the weird.

My name's Dash Kelley, and I see holes in reality. Not tears or cracks like some Parallaxers – actual holes, like someone took a cosmic paper punch to existence. They're always there, hiding in plain sight, but you can only spot them from certain angles. Kind of like those Magic Eye pictures, except instead of sailboats, you see places where reality forgot how to be real.

I discovered my ability during the Event, right in the middle of a heavy sesh behind the crystal shop. One moment I was blowing smoke rings, watching them drift against the desert sunset. The next, my clouds were showing me gaps between moments, spaces that shouldn't exist. The holes were everywhere – in the sky, in the rocks, even in people.

For months I thought I was just really good at finding primo smoke spots. But then I noticed how reality behaved around these holes – like water circling a drain, but the drain led... sideways. To places that made my third eye need eye drops.

That's how I spotted the shadow entity. It was oozing through one of the bigger holes, the one behind Register 2 that made customers' credit cards act weird. Most people walked right past it, but through my clouds, I could see it clearly – a shape made of angles that shouldn't work, wearing reality like an ill-fitting suit.

"Interesting method of perception," it said, its voice tasting like static in my molars. "Most humans require significant trauma to breach dimensional barriers. You simply... drifted through."

I took another hit, letting the vapor enhance my view. The entity was bigger than it first appeared, extending through multiple holes at once. "That's like, just your opinion, man."

The entity made a sound like geometry laughing. "Most who perceive us react with fear or aggression. Yet you... you drift. Like smoke through a keyhole."

"Been practicing the art of chill since before the Event, my dude." I watched through my clouds as more of its true form became visible – a vast origami of dark angles folding through dimensions I probably shouldn't be able to see. "But I'm guessing you're not here for my exceptional vibes."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The crystals in the shop started humming at frequencies that made my fillings vibrate. Through the holes in reality, I could see more entities gathering, their impossible shapes overlapping like a living Escher painting.

"Your species adapts quickly," it said. "Most civilizations we test shatter at the first sight of us. But humans... humans see gods and demons in their dreams, horrors in their art. You were practicing for us long before we arrived."

"Wait." I took another hit, letting the vapor map the cosmic punchcard holes around us. "You're saying the Event was like... a pop quiz?"

"More like a placement test." Its form shifted, becoming something that looked almost like a teacher at a chalkboard, if the chalkboard was reality itself and the chalk was made of condensed darkness. "We seed rifts in countless realities, watching which species can perceive the spaces between. Most go mad. Some evolve. A few... transcend."

Through my clouds, I could see equations writing themselves in the air – math that tasted like color and smelled like jazz. The entity was showing me something, something about the nature of reality itself.

"So what happens to the ones that transcend?" I asked, though I was starting to see the answer in the patterns of the holes. Each one wasn't just a gap in our reality – it was a door into whatever existed before reality was a thing.

"They join us. Teaching new species how to see. How to evolve. How to—" It stopped suddenly, its angles contracting like it had heard something. "Interesting. The boy-who-is-many has begun to understand. Earlier than expected."

"Jaron?" I'd heard stories about the kid who broke reality. "What's he got to do with this?"

But the entity was already folding away through its hole, its last words echoing like smoke rings in my mind: "Watch the spaces between choices, Dash Kelley. The real test is about to begin."

The holes are getting bigger now. Reality feels thinner, like tissue paper in the rain. Sometimes I catch glimpses of other worlds through them – places where humanity took different paths, made different choices. And in every one, the shadows are watching. Teaching. Preparing us for something.

I keep sending reports to the Displacement Underground through quantum drops, but honestly? I'm not sure if we should be fighting these things or studying with them. Maybe both. Maybe that's the test.

For now, I've got a front-row seat to the weirdest show in the multiverse. My van's parked on the edge of Joshua Tree, vape clouds mapping the growing constellation of holes in our reality while the desert whispers equations that shouldn't exist.

Tomorrow I might figure out what it all means. Or maybe I'll just keep drifting through the gaps, watching reality learn new tricks.

Either way, the sunset's beautiful, the crystals are singing quantum lullabies, and my clouds keep showing me possibilities that taste like tomorrow.

Sometimes the best way to face the apocalypse is to just... vibe with it.