Chapter 1: A Glitch in the Quiet

Author's Note: Alright, now that you know what to expect, dive right into Chapter 1! Happy reading! ❤️

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The hum of the refrigerator was the only tether Prismo had to the passing of time. In the cramped, low-lit apartment, the silence wasn't just the absence of sound; it was a heavy, deliberate thing he had spent a decade perfecting. Outside, the city was buried under a freezing winter fog, swallowing the streetlights and blurring the sharp edges of the concrete sector below.

He liked the blur. It meant he didn't have to look too closely at anything.

He was adjusting the angle of his desk lamp, letting the harsh LED beam cut through the gloom of his workspace, when the quiet fractured.

It didn't start with a bang. It started with a systematic distortion—a violent shudder in the air that made the hairs on his arms stand up. The screen of his laptop didn't just flicker; the code cascading down the monitor physically warped, stretching horizontally like pulled taffy. Prismo frowned, blinking hard. He reached out and tapped the side of the plastic casing, assuming the graphics card was finally frying. He reached for the power cable to unplug it, entirely convinced it was just a hardware failure.

Then came the sound from the hallway.

A heavy, dragging thud, followed by the unmistakable, terrifying screech of metal scraping against the frame of his front door.

The apartment was dead silent before the lock clicked.

Prismo didn't even have time to turn around before a pair of massive hands clamped onto his collar. In one fluid, terrifying motion, he was hoisted clean off the floor. His feet dangled in the empty air. He felt completely weightless, like a feather caught in a storm.

Am I being robbed?

The thought scrambled through his brain, but he couldn't process it. His mind went blank, paralyzed by the sheer suddenness of it all.

"ANSWER ME! WHO ARE YOU?"

The man's voice roared through the small room, rattling Prismo's eardrums. The stranger's brow furrowed into a deep, menacing scowl, and his grip tightened. The fabric of the shirt choked off the shorter man's airway. Prismo instinctively reached up, his fingers clawing uselessly at those massive wrists. There was no matching his strength. Not a chance.

"P-Prismo..." the pink-haired man choked out. The words felt small, scratching against his throat like gravel. He swallowed hard, desperate to draw a single clear breath. His arms lost their strength, dropping to his sides and trembling uncontrollably. "... Christopher."

The giant didn't let go. Instead, he pulled him closer, bringing his face only a few inches from Prismo's. "Where is this place?"

He was so close that Prismo could feel the hot, ragged burst of breath against his own cheek. It sent a cold spike of adrenaline straight down his spine.

"M-my room," Prismo whispered, twisting his face away. He didn't dare look the stranger in the eye. The intensity in the giant's gaze felt lethal—like a single direct look could kill a man on the spot.

The man squinted, his eyes tracking the movement of Prismo's face. Prismo could feel him surveying every single inch, analyzing his expression. Then, something shifted. The absolute certainty in the stranger's violent glare began to fracture. A profound, hollow confusion washed over the giant's features, like a man suddenly waking up in a room he didn't recognize. He searched Prismo's terrified eyes, desperately looking for a memory that was slipping through his fingers.

"You. You were calling me. Why?" The anger was still there, but beneath it lay a ragged edge of panic.

Prismo stared past him, his heart hammering against his ribs. He wondered when this guy was finally going to let him go, genuinely terrified he was about to wet his pants.

"W-what? I-I didn't," Prismo stammered, his jaw shaking so badly he could barely form the syllables. "I d-don't even know you. R-really." He bit his lower lip, praying the giant would see the honesty in his panic.

The giant's eyes lost their focus for a fraction of a second. Abruptly, the pressure vanished. The stranger dropped him.

Prismo hit the floor hard, the linoleum bruising his knees as he gasped for air. Above him, the man took a few heavy, unstable steps backward until his spine hit the wall, slumping slightly against it as his chest heaved.

"It was you... but it doesn't feel like you, either," the giant muttered. He looked toward the dim corner of the room, rubbing his face with a massive, calloused palm. "There must be a mistake."

"Y-yeah," Prismo managed to say, his voice sounding incredibly small in the quiet room. A wave of shaky relief washed over him. "There must be o-one?"

The man didn't answer. "Fuck. That trip took too much out of me," he panted.

With trembling fingers, the stranger fished a crumpled packet from his jacket pocket and pulled out a lighter. A small spark illuminated the dark, followed by the dull amber glow of a cigarette.

So he smokes, Prismo thought, watching the thin trail of gray rise toward the ceiling. He had quit everything years ago—smoking, drugs, all of it. But watching the man take a drag made a sudden, starving craving hit Prismo's chest, making his own lungs ache for a taste.

Then, the giant shuddered. It wasn't a normal shiver. His physical outline seemed to glitch, separating into a blur of digital static for a fraction of a second before snapping back into a solid shape. The stranger pressed a hand against his neck, wheezing in absolute agony. He was coming apart at the seams. He was fading right in front of him.

The terror in Prismo's chest slowly turned into something else. Sympathy. He didn't know who this person was, or how he had managed to bend reality to break into his apartment, but he couldn't just sit there and watch a man dissolve on his floor.

Shit.

Prismo scrambled to his feet, grabbed his heavy laptop from the desk, and shoved it into his bag. He needed help. He needed Damien.

Huff, huff, huff...

Prismo ran.

He burst out of the apartment complex and into the cool night air, sprinting as fast as his legs could carry him. But the further he got from his room, the worse he felt. A strange, hollow discomfort was tearing at his insides. His stomach wrenched with sudden, sharp waves of pain, and the air felt thick, almost heavy to breathe.

The streetlights were sparse, leaving the pavement mostly in darkness. As he pushed himself harder, his vision began to betray him. The edges of his sight blurred, filling with a dull, static-gray haze. Everything became an unclear smear of shadows. Still, he kept running.

Oof!

Prismo slammed directly into a solid frame, the impact rattling his teeth.

"Ah! Oh my god, I am so sorry!" Prismo stumbled backward, his arms wrapping tightly around his laptop bag to protect it.

Under the faint moonlight, the person he had collided with was already pushing himself back up. He was a man wearing a neat office uniform paired with trainers, his silhouette crowned by a shock of vibrant blue hair.

"It's okay—" the man began, brushing the street dirt from his slacks.

"Good, good," Prismo breathed. He let out a ragged sigh, wiping a sheen of cold sweat from his forehead. His mind was too consumed by the image of the collapsing giant in his bedroom to focus on who he was talking to. He forced his legs to move again. "Still, I'm so sorry, man!"

Without waiting for a reply, Prismo propelled himself forward, disappearing back into the dark night.

Left standing alone on the asphalt, the blue-haired man—Jarl Cloutier—froze. The words he had been about to say died in his throat. He watched the stranger's running form grow smaller and smaller until the pink hair and skinny frame completely blended into the shadows ahead.

Jarl's heart skipped a beat.

That face. Those eyes. The exact tilt of his shoulders as he apologized. It was entirely too familiar.

Memories from a lifetime ago flooded his mind, sharp and violent. He remembered the orphanage, the freezing railyard, the crushing loneliness, and the one skinny, clumsy boy who used to throw his own fragile body in front of fists to shield Jarl from the world. The boy who had promised to stick it out, only to vanish into the system, leaving Jarl to build a life out of armor and rules.

Jarl had spent ten years searching for that ghost.

"That can't be you... P-Prismo?" Jarl muttered into the empty street. His body suddenly felt heavy, his knees weakening under the sheer shock of the realization.

The pink hair. The striking brown eyes. It matched the vague rumors he'd heard at a repair store days ago.

It was him. He had finally found him.

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