Ch-5.Missing, is it?

The door swung shut. The bell above it chimed.

Skyler was gone.

But the air still carried his presence, thick and suffocating, like a hand pressing against Kael's throat.

Kael exhaled sharply and ran a hand through his hair. Get it together. He was letting a stranger—no, not a stranger, not exactly—get under his skin.

But that was the part that terrified him the most.

Skyler wasn’t just some unsettling passerby. The moment he spoke, the moment he got too close, kael had felt it.

That thread.

That pull.

Something buried in his bones, something he shouldn’t remember—but almost did.

Almost.

Kael clenched his fists and forced himself to move. He grabbed a stack of books, pretending he could will away the unease if he just focused on something else.

He didn’t realize he was gripping them too tightly until his fingers ached.

With a sharp exhale, he set the books down and turned away. He needed space. Air. Anything but the feeling of something crawling beneath his skin.

But as he stepped toward the staircase leading to his apartment, something caught his eye.

The bookshelf Skyler had touched before leaving.

Kael stilled.

Something was wrong.

It wasn’t obvious—not at first—but there was an unnatural gap on one of the shelves, a missing book.

Kael frowned, stepping closer.

He ran his fingers along the space. He knew this shelf well. Every book was exactly where he had placed it this morning. But now—

Something wasn’t there.

He scanned the titles. The gap was small, but he knew, he knew there should have been a book between them.

And yet, no matter how hard he tried—

He couldn’t remember what it was.

His breath turned shallow.

He always remembered his books. Always. He knew their titles, their spines, their exact placements down to the inch.

So why couldn’t he picture this one?

His heartbeat thudded against his ribs.

The air felt thick again. Suffocating. Wrong.

Kael took a slow step back, pulse hammering.

What did Skyler take?

And worse—

Had it ever been there at all?

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