Ascension Beyond Mortality

The rooftop wind was colder than usual.

Elior sat there for a long time, staring at his hand. Nothing happened again—no glow, no warmth, no pulse. Just skin and calluses from lifting boxes and burning his fingers on hot cups.

“Maybe I’m just losing it.”

The city never stopped moving. Somewhere far below, someone was laughing. A couple argued. Sirens wailed in the distance. Life continued without him, like always.

He stood up and went back down to his room.

The next morning, things felt… off.

Not in a dramatic way. More like the subtle feeling that someone was watching you when no one’s there. The kind that crawls up the back of your neck and makes you turn your head for no reason.

At the café, he reached for the hotplate with his bare hand by mistake—and didn’t flinch.

“What the—?”

The metal was scorching. It should’ve burned through his palm. But all he felt was a weird buzz, like static running through his skin.

He stared at his hand. Nothing. No mark. No pain.

“Hey, Elior,” his co-worker Lisa said as she walked by. “You okay? You’re spacing out.”

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Just didn’t sleep.”

That was a lie. He had slept—deeper than he had in years. But he woke up without feeling tired. Not even a little.

The weirdness only got worse.

The automatic door to the café opened a full second before someone approached it. The coffee machine made perfect foam art—without anyone programming it. A bird landed on the glass outside and just… stared at him. Unblinking.

And Elior?

He started hearing things.

Not voices exactly—more like whispers. Echoes. A low hum beneath the surface of the world.

“The hell is going on with me?”

That night, he sat on the edge of his bed, phone in hand. No new messages. No calls. His social life was a desert. He opened an old photo of his parents—blurry, smiling, blurry again. Like they never really existed.

“If you’re out there… if this is connected to you somehow… give me something. Anything.”

And then, as if the world responded—his phone glitched.

For a split second, the screen filled with symbols he didn’t recognize. Geometric shapes, shifting runes, alien text. Then it blinked back to normal.

Battery: 100%

Time: 00:00

Date: [ERROR]

"...That wasn’t a bug."

He gripped the phone tighter.

“Something’s waking up inside me. And I think… someone’s watching.”