The night passes with Eylin collapsed on his work table, exhausted. The previous day's events still lingered in his mind, each moment pressing against his thoughts like the weight of wet cloth.

  A slight knock at the door. The scrape of a chair. A sound that might have been ignored under ordinary circumstances—but in the slums, nothing was ordinary.

  He groans, dragging himself upright against the table. On the surface, notes lie scattered with the same chaotic pattern as his scattered thoughts: scribbled glyph calculations, ink-stained sketches, failed prototypes that had burned, warped, or exploded. His hand reaches instinctively to his pocket for a cigarette, only to find it empty.

  "Fuck… seems… gotta find more…" he mutters, covering his face with one hand as he shuffles toward the door.

  He freezes.

  On the floor, to the left, lies the corpse of the kitty. Its small, fragile body seems absurdly mundane against the strange events swirling around him.

  "What the hell is this…" he shouts, his voice cracking slightly.

  "What type of sick joke is this," he adds, frustration sharpening each syllable.

  He kicks at it—but instead of the expected resistance, the body disintegrates into a fine dust, carried away by a whisper of wind. A chill crawls down his spine. He feels the weight of it—a small, intimate pressure that makes the hairs on his arms stand. His eyes dart left and right, scanning the alley. No one. Nothing. Yet the sensation lingers.

  "That's strange. Did they go for some cheap meat or something?" he mutters under his breath, though the words feel hollow, absurd. He limps toward the stalls, each step measured, cautious, his boots dragging over the uneven stone.

  Eyes follow him. Some wary. Others curious, inquisitive. A few linger too long. But he ignores them all. Each gaze feels like a probe, each whisper a warning.

  At the stalls:

  "No smoke here, kid," one merchant says.

  "None here, kid," another echoes, the repetition like a mantra meant to exclude him.

  Every stall denies him access, avoiding him like a pestilence. He notes this quietly, calculating, almost amused. They're not afraid of him… they're afraid of being associated with what he has become.

  "Hmmm… it's not like it's something new…" he mutters, shrugging, turning back. Still, there is a faint echo in the alley of eyes that lingered too long, of whispers that might have carried beyond the stalls. His back feels heavier than it should, his presence somehow isolated from the crowd.

  Back in his house, he drops the hoodie on a chair and moves toward his desk.

  "Seems like you're my only comfort now, Desky…" he mutters, running a hand along the wood, tracing the grooves where years of work have left permanent marks.

  He arranges his staff carefully and settles into his chair, though the tension in his back refuses to ease. Something feels wrong, and it has nothing to do with the burns still tender on his hands. He reaches for the rib bone first, expecting its faint pulse—the steady, obedient thrum that has always accompanied his touch.

  It is hesitant.

  A tiny ripple runs across the surface, almost alive, almost as if it resists him.

  "—What the hell," he mutters, pulling back. The sound is dry, jagged, matching the irregularity of his pulse.

  He tries again. Slight warmth returns, but the shimmer of mana trails he coaxed yesterday bends awkwardly, dragging across the floor slower than before, hesitant, as if the air itself has learned to oppose him.

  He frowns, flexing his fingers. Pain isn't new. Delay isn't new. But resistance? That is different.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  He sets the bone down and turns to the stone. It hums faintly, pulsing in a rhythm deliberately out of sync with the bone. When he presses his palm against it, the glow stutters—edges jagged, uneven. The reaction feels conscious, deliberate, as though the tools themselves have gained awareness.

  Something has changed. Something is changing.

  The scribbles on his table—the carefully calculated glyph loops, the modifiers, the anchors—they all seem… off. Ink warps subtly, bleeding along the lines in ways that defy logic. He leans closer, squinting, adjusting his eyes to the minute irregularities.

  A whisper of motion in the corner of his vision catches him. The window frame—the one reinforced with his glyphs—quivers, but there is no wind. No draft. Something brushes it lightly, almost politely, as if the city itself is testing him.

  He freezes.

  A frost runs along his spine. The thought coils in his chest: he isn't failing alone. Something, somewhere, is pushing back. Not violently, not loudly… just enough to keep him off-balance. Enough to remind him that the world he moves through is not a passive stage.

  He sighs, rubbing his charred hand. The lingering smell of burnt hair clings to him stubbornly, each breath scraping against his throat. He looks down at the papers—the notes from last night, from two weeks' worth of trials, calculations he had considered flawless.

  They resist him. Not physically, not magically—but they recoil, subtle, almost sentient, as if the parchment itself disapproves of his efforts.

  "Metal, paper… not that it helps now anyway," he mutters bitterly, watching the lines warp in protest.

  A distant creak from the alley. Faint. Watching. Like a predator feeling him out. He snaps his gaze toward the window. Nothing. And yet, the atmosphere thickens. The very air seems dense, reluctant to yield, pressing against him with invisible hands.

  He grabs the bone again, deliberate, careful, coaxing it. The pulse returns, but this time uneven, flickering at the edges. The glyphs he draws on the desk—normally obedient under his touch—twitch, convulse, then reluctantly settle into place, as though acknowledging a begrudging master.

  He grits his teeth. "Not you too…"

  Hours pass. Experiments that once worked now falter. Simple anchors misalign. Core glyphs refuse to stabilize. Residual mana left from yesterday drifts unpredictably, defying his attempts to settle it.

  And still, no cause is named. No voice calls him out. No shadow missteps. But everything—even the ordinary—pushes back, insisting on resistance.

  He moves from table to desk, from paper to parchment, pen twirling like a metronome of frustration. Every calculation, every attempted glyph, echoes the same unspoken message: You are not alone. You are being watched. And the world does not approve.

  Outside, the city moves as always. Merchants trade, children run through alleys, the slums hum with routine. To anyone else, it appears ordinary. But to Eylin, each footstep, each murmur, each flicker of light whispers of subtle resistance.

  He pauses mid-draw, breathing heavy, eyes tracking a line of energy stretching across the ceiling and vanishing into a wall. The ripple of mana dissipates before he can reach it, like wind refusing his grasp.

  "—I don't understand…" he mutters.

  Somewhere, far enough to remain unseen yet close enough to matter, rules tighten. The world adjusts itself, bending, correcting. Eylin hasn't noticed this invisible leash before. Now, he feels it tug.

  And nothing—no one—tells him why.