Shattered Time-Chapter 22: Those Who Watch

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Kael awoke to cold metal beneath his cheek.

He was no longer in the kitchen. No longer in a dream.

He was strapped to a surgical table, arms pinned, his glitching watch shattered at his feet, its pieces twitching like insects. His red notebook lay just out of reach, pages torn, bleeding ink onto the floor.

Overhead—eyes. Dozens of them. Cameras? No... not exactly. They blinked.

Alive. Observing. Hungry.

He tried to scream but found no voice. His throat was raw. Like he'd been screaming for hours before he even woke up.

Then came the sound—tap. tap. tap.

He looked up.

A figure stood in the corner, cloaked in static and shadows. Their face was... wrong. Like the concept of a face, scribbled out by a shaking hand.

They moved closer, silent, dragging something behind them—a chair.

They sat across from him, smiling without lips.

"We've been watching you, Kael."

The voice echoed inside his skull. Not through his ears. Through him.

"The girl was not meant to exist. You've seen that now."

Kael stared at them, tears tracing down the sides of his face.

"What are you?" he choked.

The figure leaned closer.

"The ones who keep time clean."

He blinked. Confused. Broken.

"Pulse," they whispered. "It is not a thing. It is a reaction. A rejection. A scream of reality trying to eject what doesn't belong."

And Kael? He was the carrier now.

The more he remembered her—the more she existed—the more unstable the world became.

The walls around him began to glitch. Melt. Whisper.

The figure stood, gently placing a hand on Kael's forehead.

"Sleep, glitchborn."

The world folded. The table vanished.

Kael was now... in a hallway. An endless one. Flickering.

And in the distance—her voice. Crying. Screaming. Begging him not to forget.

He ran. Fast. Barefoot, bleeding.

Every door he passed showed him versions of himself—laughing, dying, killing, hiding. All fake. All possible. All watching.

And at the end of the hallway...

A mirror.

But it wasn't his reflection.

It was hers.

Smiling.

But not at him.

At something behind him.

Kael turned—

Blackout.

---

End of Chapter 22.