Volume 1 – Chapter 7: Fractured Skies

[April 22 – 1:45 PM]

The knock was soft. Too soft.

I felt it before I heard it — a distant shiver that grazed my spine. It got too quiet around us. Too thick. Like the city was already in some sort of suspended animation and we were just stuck in it, waiting for something to happen. The knock came again. Three steady taps.

I froze. No one should be out there. There couldn't be. Not here. Not at this time.

Rika stiffened beside me. Her eyes flicked to the window, to the door, then back at me. The fingers of one hand twitched towards her pocket, where her switchblade usually dwelled. There was no need for her to say a thing. I could read her panic, her uncertainty, in her eyes.

I sat up away from the desk and, gradually, a weight that made no sense felt as if it had landed on my chest. No one had succeeded anyone had to be here. We hadn’t informed anyone of our whereabouts.” Nobody knew about this old, derelict building we were in, deep under tons of decayed buildings, decayed lives. The door was locked, the windows were sealed, nothing was moving. Too still.

The knock came again. They were softer this time, as if they were testing us — testing our resolve.

I looked at Rika, who was already grasping her blade. Her fingers whitened around the hilt, a tightness that had snagged her shoulders. I could feel it too. We were not talking about some casual visitor. Whoever it was at the door wasn’t looking for a chat.

I gestured for her to be quiet. I didn’t know what I was doing, but felt that was the only thing to do. Gradually, I edged closer to the door. My pulse was calm, but I sensed the adrenaline creeping in, my muscles hardening, every square centimeter of skin quivering. Whoever this was, they weren’t rushing. They weren’t panicked. They were waiting.

I halted right by the door, straining to hear if any other noise was forthcoming. I could hear nothing except the quiet, rhythmic beating of my heart, the rasp of my breath. The knock echoed in my ears.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

It was nearly too rhythmic, too deliberate.”

Now Rika was curled up next to me, her breath a whisper in the stillness. “Kaito. What do we do?”

I didn’t have an answer.

I couldn’t tell her we were going to open the door. That sounded like a trouble invitation, like an invitation to a mistake. But I also couldn’t not hear it. We were both on edge, nerves wearing thin. We couldn’t exactly let whoever this was walk away but I also had this feeling that if I opened that door it would lead us down the path we couldn’t control.

Then, another knock.

Knock.

It wasn’t a hurried one. One knock, as a signal.

I stepped back from the door, shaking as my hand dragged over my face.

Now Rika’s eyes were on me, her expression hard. “We’re not opening that door,” she said again, her voice tight with determination. I could see she wasn’t afraid to take a stand.

But, still, I felt a strange pull. A need to look, to see what was being held on the other side.

And then it came—a voice.

It was initially quiet, and just enough to hear through the door. Not panicked. Not angry. Just… flat.

“Kaito. Rika. Open up.”

I froze. I could barely breathe. How did they know our names?

Rika’s fingers danced near the blade again, but she didn’t take it out. Her jaw clenched.

“Who the hell is that?” she hissed, barely audibly.

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

The voice went on — sounding more, at least in its tones, insistent, but nevertheless calm, even at the eerie level.

“I know you’re in there. I know you saw the file.”

The file. My stomach twisted. The USB. The message. The video. The warning. Was this about that? Did we make a mistake? Did someone track us down? How had they found us?

I felt a sick rising in my throat.

I heard Rika swear under her breath, panic flashing through her. “We have to go. Right now. If they know about the file…”

I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t sure whether we should flee. But I couldn’t simply keep the door shut and pretend we hadn’t heard. I could not escape whatever was happening. At this point, that was already too late.

“Open up,” the voice repeated. “We’re not going away.”

Rika’s fingers flew to the knife in her pocket and pulled it out, the cold steel shining in the dim light. “We don’t open it. We wait. We stay silent.”

I nodded, stepping away from the door.

But the person on the other end kept going. No more knocks, no yells. Just that same low, detached voice, with an edge of finality.

“That was a mistake,” he said tersely, his tone matter-of-fact.

My blood ran cold. It was a weight that no one could easily disregard, the words, so calm, so cold…

I wanted to scream, to ask questions. I wanted to know what the hell was happening. But I couldn’t. All I could do was stare at the door and listen to the silence that ensued.

The man didn’t knock again. Didn’t say another word.

Instead, I heard footsteps. Slow. Measured. Like he knew we were still there, listening. But he didn’t hurry. He wasn’t rushing off. He was walking away. Fading into the night.

And with that, he was gone.

I glanced at Rika, eyes wide, mouth a thin line. There had been just the slight easing of tension in her body, but the fright remained. That sense of fear that something really had just shifted, that we had crossed a line that we couldn’t come back from.

"What the hell was that?" she said in a shaky voice now.

I choked a little, my mind whirling, but there were no answers. No explanations. Just the terrifying realization that we had made a potentially fatal error by even acknowledging the message.

“I don’t know,” I said, feeling the silence settle over the room once more. “But we have to get this figured out. And fast.”

Rika nodded, but she said nothing. Both of us sensed that something was different. Something had locked into place. We were no longer safe. Not here. Not anywhere.

For a long time, neither of us had moved. The seconds passed like hours, and all I could do was watch the door. Each shadow a threat, every sound magnified by the dark. Something had happened. Something had been set in motion and now we were awaiting the repercussions.

And I wasn’t sure if I was ready for them.

[April 22 – 2:30 AM]

We didn’t see each other much after that. Then I was there, waiting, and the weight of the moment hung on the air, but every look we exchanged felt like a thousand questions we never asked. The tension hadn’t eased. In fact, it had only grown.

Rika walked around the room in short, frustrated circles gnawing on her bottom lip, her mind visibly racing. I remained perched by the window, constantly scanning the street for signs of activity. But all I saw was the same deserted street, the same darkened city, the same heavy silence.

I knew we couldn’t stay here. Not like this. Not with the risk of whoever that had been reappearing. We needed answers. We had to figure out what the hell was going on before it got worse.

But where did we even start?

Rika halted her pacing and spun to me; the look in her eyes was cold. “We must locate the one who sent the file. Whoever they are. And we need to do it now.”

I nodded, the stomach knotting in me. We couldn’t afford to wait. The game had changed. And now, it was simply about enduring whatever came next.