Part 1: Eyes in the Glass
Summary:
Riven notices something's changed. Not in him — but around him. Reflections don't match. Footsteps echo wrong. And more than once, he catches people looking — but they always vanish before he can see their faces. The erasure wasn't perfect. Someone noticed. And someone is watching.
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It started with the mirrors.
Not real mirrors — just the kind you pass on the street. Storefront windows. Polished glass. The backs of turned-off TV screens.
They caught things you weren't meant to see.
Like the reflection of a man in a suit, just barely out of step with the world around him.
Or a shadow that turned half a second too late.
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At first, Riven ignored it.
Strangers glance. Pedestrians stare. That's normal.
But this wasn't that.
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Three days after the shelter, he passed a street vendor window in Midtown.
Reflected behind him — across the street — a tall man stood staring directly at his back. Black coat. Gray slacks. Hands still.
Riven turned.
No one was there.
He looked back at the glass.
Empty.
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He tried to laugh it off.
Too little sleep. Too many alleys.
But later that same night, he caught another glimpse.
This time in a turned-off bus terminal screen.
A figure — or a flicker of one — standing under the opposite overpass.
He looked again.
Gone.
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By the end of the week, it wasn't even glass anymore.
It was sound.
Footsteps behind him that stopped when he did.
Breathing, faint, just behind a wall.
The sensation of pressure — not pain, not fear — but focus.
A mental weight pressing gently on the base of his skull. Like someone was looking through him, not at him.
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He moved faster.
Changed boroughs twice.
But it didn't help.
The stillness wasn't just creeping anymore.
It was following.
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One night, after slipping into an abandoned rooftop near the harbor, he paced.
Didn't train.
Didn't stretch.
Just walked in slow circles, hands behind his head, trying to think.
It didn't make sense.
Why now?
Why after weeks of nothing?
Why erase a kid only to come sniffing around after he was already forgotten?
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Unless…
Unless someone expected him to stay gone.
And now, he wasn't.
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He checked the bag — the old ID, the photo, the faded school documents. Still there. Still real.
But that didn't comfort him anymore.
Because someone else remembered too.
And they were getting closer.
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