The digital walls I've built are crumbling. Every morning I wake up wondering if today is the day he finally finds all my secrets. The day he exposes everything I've worked so hard to hide. I can feel him getting closer—methodically dismantling my defenses, piece by piece. My nightmares are filled with glitches now. And sometimes, I swear I can feel him watching, even when all my devices are off. I'm running out of places to hide. I'm running out of time.
---
Tokyo never sleeps.
But tonight, the silence was wrong.
Kira lay still in bed, her breath shallow, ears straining for something—anything—familiar. No honking taxis. No muffled conversations from the apartment next door. Just an unnatural stillness pressing against the walls like a held breath.
A heaviness settled in her chest—that familiar dread that had become her constant companion. Ever since the glitches started appearing, sleep had become a luxury she could no longer afford. Even with her eyes closed, fractured code seemed to dance behind her eyelids, a digital reminder that normalcy was slipping through her fingers.
Her fingers tightened around the sheets. She never woke up before her alarm. She never slept through it either.
Her gaze flicked to the digital clock on her nightstand.
6:00 AM.
Exactly when it was supposed to go off.
Then why hadn't it?
A cold prickle ran down her spine, ice crystallizing along her vertebrae. The wrongness of the moment clawed at her senses. Slowly, she reached for her phone and unlocked the screen, the blue light harsh against her dilated pupils.
A message.
"Did you sleep well?"
Her stomach clenched, a knot of fear tightening beneath her ribs. The number was unsaved, but she didn't need to check. She already knew.
The same presence that had been slipping into her life for weeks—unseen but never unnoticed. Rearranging files. Shifting timestamps. Leaving subtle, taunting reminders that he could reach her anytime he wanted. A digital phantom that had somehow breached every firewall she'd constructed around her carefully compartmentalized lives.
But this?
This was different.
This was closer.
She exhaled slowly, forcing herself to stay calm. Don't react. Don't let him know he's getting to you.The mantra echoed in her mind, one of many survival tactics she'd adopted since the stalking began. Reaction was vulnerability, and vulnerability was death in this game of digital cat-and-mouse.
Throwing the covers aside, she moved to the mirror. Her reflection stared back at her—pale skin, dark circles under tired eyes. She barely recognized herself anymore. The confident performer who commanded stages as Luna had been replaced by this hollow-eyed ghost, jumping at shadows and checking over her shoulder.
Then—
A glitch.
A tiny flicker in the glass, like a frozen frame in a corrupted video.
Her breath caught.
Her pulse roared in her ears, blood rushing like a tsunami.
No. Not again.
She spun away, heart hammering. She needed something normal—coffee, the news, anything to drown out the unease slithering under her skin. Something tangible to anchor her to reality as it continued to fracture around her.
She stepped into the kitchen, poured herself a cup of coffee, hands trembling slightly, and switched on the TV. The bitter scent of coffee grounded her momentarily, a small sensory mercy.
Static.
Then the news.
Then—
The screen froze.
Not buffering. Not a weak signal. Just... stuck.
The news anchor's face was locked mid-sentence, lips parted.
Kira's fingers tightened around her coffee mug, ceramic hot against her skin. First the alarm, then the mirror, now this.The pattern was escalating, becoming bolder, less subtle. A cold dread unfurled in her stomach—he was testing the boundaries now, seeing how far he could push before she broke.
Something was wrong.
She grabbed the remote, pressed buttons. Nothing. The image didn't flicker, didn't refresh. It just—
Stayed.
Then—
The lights flickered.
Her breath stalled, crystallizing in her lungs.
A power issue? No. The fridge was still humming. The clock on the wall still ticked. Everything electrical seemed normal except for what was directly in her line of sight. As if the glitches were meant specifically for her—a personalized haunting.
Then, as suddenly as it started, the TV resumed. The broadcast continued like nothing had happened.
But Kira knew better.
She reached for her phone again, her skin ice-cold. Breathe. Just breathe. No new messages. No notifications.
Yet that silence didn't mean he wasn't there. It was worse, somehow—the knowledge that he was watching, waiting, gathering data with each passing second. The weight of his invisible surveillance pressed down on her shoulders, heavier than any physical burden.
Taking a slow, steady breath, she whispered,
"It's fine. It's just in your head."
But the words felt hollow, a feeble attempt to deny what she already knew to be true. This wasn't paranoia. This wasn't imagination. Something—someone—had found a way to manipulate her reality, one digital artifact at a time.
Then—
"You're not alone, Kira."
Her blood ran cold, freezing in her veins.
The voice wasn't coming from the TV.
It was coming from her phone.
Her fingers trembled as she looked down. The screen displayed a call in progress.
00:01
00:02
00:03
She never answered.
How is this possible? The thought raced through her mind, panic rising like floodwater. Even with her technical knowledge, she couldn't fathom how someone could bypass the security protocols she'd built herself.
Slowly, she lifted the phone to her ear, her pulse hammering. Her throat constricted, fear a physical presence now, squeezing the air from her lungs.
Silence.
Then—
A whisper.
"You should be more careful, Kira."
Her grip turned white-knuckled, fury momentarily overriding terror. This was her life he was toying with, her sense of security he was systematically dismantling.
"Go to hell."
A soft chuckle, low and unbothered. The sound crawled across her skin like insects.
"We both know that's not possible."
The call ended.
The screen flickered back to normal. The apartment returned to stillness.
But Kira knew better.
This wasn't over.
He was getting closer.
And she was running out of places to hide.
---
A FEW DAYS EARLIER – KAIROS WATCHES LUNA
In a dimly lit room, multiple monitors glowed in the darkness—lines of code running like veins across the screens.
Kairos leaned back in his chair, watching.
On his monitor, a girl was singing.
Her voice was flawless. Haunting. A melody that crawled under his skin and refused to leave.
He tracked every underground artist worth his time. But he had never seen her before.
Her name on the broadcast: Luna.
A ghost of a smile tugged at his lips.
Another enigma.
His fingers moved over the keyboard, pulling data, running scans.
No real name. No history. Just a voice that could bring a city to its knees.
Interesting.
Then—his phone buzzed.
An unknown number.
He picked up, voice low. "Talk."
"We need you to track someone."
His gaze stayed locked on the screen. "Who?"
"Yukimura Kira."
For the first time, his attention shifted.
"Send me everything."
The line clicked dead. Seconds later, files poured onto his screen—photos, locations, a digital trail of the girl he was meant to stalk.
Kairos scrolled through the images.
Long, strawberry blonde hair. Sharp eyes.
A girl wrapped in secrecy.
Something about her felt... off.
His fingers drummed against the desk as his gaze flicked between Luna on stage and Kira's photos.
Two different lives.
Two different people.
Or so he thought.
Because the more he looked...
The more the pieces didn't add up.
And Kairos never liked an unsolved puzzle.
---