Fragmented

Maren staggered, one hand pressed to the cool stone as her balance slipped in and out of sync with the world. The blue cathedral pulsed around her—like a lung inhaling and exhaling light. Her vision flickered again, turning grainy, then sharp, then smearing into streaks of drifting pixels.

A low, resonant thrum vibrated through her feet.

She blinked—and the world stuttered.

And then they appeared.

Two hooded figures.

Not quite standing.
Not quite floating.
More like imported, inserted into her perception as if some unseen architect had dragged them into her mind’s eye.

Their silhouettes were tall, borderless shapes draped in fabric that seemed to be made of smoke and shadow. Their faces were voids. Their edges glitched, flickering between sharp outlines and dissolving static.

They did not move.

They simply existed, impossible and silent.

A whisper—no, the shadow of a whisper—crawled through Maren’s skull. Not language. Not sound. A feeling. A suggestion.

She tried to step back.

Her foot didn’t respond. Her breath didn’t either.

The hooded shapes tilted their heads slightly, as if studying her across time, memory, or code. For a heartbeat, the blue cathedral dimmed to darkness, leaving only the hollow glow outlining them.

Maren’s pulse hammered.

Who are you?
Or perhaps—what are you?

One lifted an arm—or the glitch approximation of one—and reached toward her. Its hand dissolved into strands of light, like threads unraveling in slow motion.

A tremor shook the ground.
The humming surged.
Her vision fragmented into squares.

The figures flickered.

Once.
Twice—

And vanished.

Gone. Deleted.
As if they had never been there at all.

The cathedral flooded with light again, the strangers resumed their silent march, and Maren stumbled forward, gasping as control returned to her limbs.

She pressed a hand to her temple. The ringing inside her skull slowly receded, but the impression of those figures lingered—like fingerprints left on glass, invisible but undeniably present.

Were they memories?
Warnings?
Projections from something watching her?
Or echoes of something deeper in this fractured reality?

Maren steadied herself, heart pounding.

One thought cut through the haze:

They knew me… or wanted me to think they did.

And the doorway ahead—still glowing, still waiting—felt suddenly much more dangerous.