Anomaly

Chapter 4 - Shelter

The rain thickened as he walked, turning the neon glow of the city into smeared streaks of color. His hood clung heavy to his head, his shoes soaked through, but he barely felt it. His skin was too alive, tingling with every droplet that struck, every molecule brushing against him like static on raw nerves.

He needed somewhere to stop. Somewhere to breathe. Somewhere no one would think to look.

The streets here were quieter, a patchwork of shuttered shops and brick buildings with peeling paint. Graffiti sprawled across the walls, tags and shapes that seemed to sneer at him as he passed. He turned corners without thinking, letting instinct lead him deeper into the forgotten arteries of the city.

An abandoned laundromat finally drew him in. Its windows were boarded, the door chained but loose, one side kicked open just enough to squeeze through. He slipped inside, heartbeat pounding, and the city’s noise dulled to a muffled hum behind the boards.

The air was stale, thick with dust and mildew. Rows of rusted machines stood like broken teeth in the gloom, coin slots gaping open. He slid down against the wall, pulling his knees to his chest, his whole body trembling with a fatigue that felt deeper than muscle.

For the first time since the fall, he let his head drop into his hands.

What had he become?

Images crashed through him in jagged waves: the rooftop, the shove, the screaming wind, the scatter. The impossible scatter. He felt it again, the shattering awareness of being everywhere at once — and the terrifying certainty that he could do it again if he let go.

His breath quickened. The air around him seemed to vibrate in rhythm with his panic. Dust motes lifted from the floorboards, swirling faintly before settling back. He clamped his fists tight, willing it to stop, willing himself to stop.

“No more,” he whispered into the dark. “Not now. Not again.”

His voice cracked on the last word, echoing weakly in the hollow space.

A sound answered — not an echo, but the creak of settling wood above. He froze, every muscle locking tight. His eyes swept the shadows. The building groaned again, a roof beam shifting with the weight of rain. Nothing else.

But he didn’t relax. He couldn’t.

He dragged his damp backpack off his shoulders — all he had left after the chase. A cracked phone, a half-empty water bottle, notebooks from a life that already felt like it belonged to someone else. He turned the phone over in his hands, thumb hovering on the power button, knowing the glow of a screen could draw attention.

In the end, he slid it back into the bag.

Answers wouldn’t come from glowing glass. They wouldn’t come from anywhere but the thing inside him.

He leaned his head against the cold wall, eyelids heavy. Exhaustion pressed down hard, but sleep felt dangerous, like surrender. What if the man in the coat found him? What if he scattered in his sleep and never came back together?

His thoughts spiraled until they broke apart, fraying into half-dreams. He saw the rooftop again, the hand pushing him. He saw his body split into dust and light. He saw eyes — not just the stranger’s, but dozens, faceless and watching from the dark.

He jerked awake with a gasp, chest heaving, skin damp with cold sweat.

The laundromat was silent. Empty. But the unease remained.

Somewhere out there, someone knew what he was. And they would come for him.

It was only a matter of when.

He sat in the dark for what felt like hours, counting each creak of the roof and each patter of rain against the boards. Time stretched strange, as though the world outside had sped ahead while he was caught in place.

Sleep tugged at him, heavy and dangerous. Every time his head dipped, he startled awake again, convinced that shadows in the corners had moved closer. That someone was standing between the machines, waiting for him to let his guard down.

He tried to steady his breathing, tried to convince himself he was alone. But the silence wasn’t empty.

He could hear things.

Not voices. Not footsteps. Smaller than that. The air itself.

If he focused — and he couldn’t stop himself from focusing — he could feel the weight of the room pressing in. The damp in the walls. The fine particles of dust clinging to the cracked tile. The faint drift of mold spores hovering where the ceiling leaked.

It was like standing on the edge of a whisper he wasn’t supposed to hear, but once he noticed it, he couldn’t block it out.

His hand shook as he lifted it. Slowly, carefully, he spread his fingers in the stale air.

The dust motes stirred.

Not from a breeze. Not from his breath. From him.

They lifted and swirled, faintly glittering in the thin light that seeped through a c***k in the boards. He held his breath, frozen. His chest throbbed with terror and awe all at once.

Then his concentration slipped. The motes scattered back into the stillness, leaving nothing but empty air.

He curled his hand into a fist, dragging it against his jeans as if wiping off something filthy. His pulse pounded so hard he thought it might bruise his ribs.

“This isn’t real,” he muttered, his voice too loud in the silence. “I’m tired. I’m imagining it.”

But the memory of the raindrops in the street, the shimmer on the glass, the scatter in the fall — they weren’t dreams. They were proof.

He pressed his palms to his eyes until sparks of light bloomed against the dark. He wanted to shut it all out, to force himself back into the small, ordinary life he’d had only yesterday. But the city wouldn’t let him. His body wouldn’t let him.

Something inside him was awake now.

And it wasn’t going back to sleep.

The wind shifted outside, carrying a distant siren. He stiffened. It wasn’t coming for him. Not yet. But the sound clawed at his nerves all the same, dragging him to his feet before he realized he’d moved.

He slung his backpack over his shoulder, scanning the boarded windows, the chained door. He couldn’t stay here. Not long. If the man on the rooftop wanted him badly enough to push him twenty stories, then a chain and some broken boards wouldn’t stop him.

He had to keep moving.

Even if he didn’t know where.

The air inside the laundromat grew heavier with each breath, pressing on his chest until it felt like the walls themselves wanted him gone.

He couldn’t shake the certainty that the longer he stayed, the easier it would be for someone to find him.

So he left.

The chain on the door rattled as he slipped through the gap, rain slanting harder now, washing the alley in silver streaks. The street was empty at this hour, only the glow of traffic lights painting the wet pavement red, then green, then red again in endless rhythm.

He pulled his hood low and kept walking.

His shoes squelched with every step, water soaking cold into his socks. His stomach knotted, not just from fear but from hunger — sharp, twisting, raw. He hadn’t eaten since before the rooftop, and now his body screamed for fuel. But the thought of stepping into a diner, of sitting beneath fluorescent lights with strangers around him, felt impossible. Too exposed. Too human.

Instead, he drifted aimlessly, letting the city’s veins carry him. Past shuttered shops. Past alleys slick with trash and rain. Past flickering lamps that buzzed like insects, their light stabbing too sharp into his skull.

Every sound cut too close. The roll of a bottle under a distant awning. The slam of a car door two blocks away. The faint tremor of subway tracks beneath his feet. He felt them all. Not just heard — felt.

And with every step, the awareness grew.

The water running in the gutter beside him wasn’t just water. It was molecules, bound and simple, pulling at the edges of his mind. The metal of the street signs hummed with stability, rigid and unyielding, daring him to test it. Even the air against his skin felt alive, a tide of particles he could almost command if he stopped resisting.

He clenched his fists and kept walking faster.

“Stop,” he whispered through clenched teeth. “Stop it.”

But the city didn’t stop. It pressed closer, louder, until it felt like the whole world was waiting for him to touch it.

A shiver ran through him, not from cold but from the weight of possibility.

If he could do this — if he could really bend the smallest pieces of the world — then hiding was pointless. He could defend himself. He could fight back.

The thought burned bright, dangerous, and for a moment it felt good.

Then he saw a shadow move at the far end of the street.

His chest seized. He froze mid-step, heart pounding. The figure stood just long enough to be noticed — then slipped back into the dark.

He staggered backward, pulse roaring in his ears. His hands twitched, air shivering faintly around his fingers. He didn’t know if it was the man from the rooftop, someone else sent to find him, or just a stranger out in the rain.

But it didn’t matter.

He wasn’t safe. Not anywhere.