The city didn’t feel like a city anymore. Not after the attacks. The streets were empty. The shops were broken. The air felt heavy like it was tired of holding itself together.
Smoke still rose from some buildings.
Not from fire anymore. From something deeper inside the walls.
People who survived stayed hidden. Windows were covered. Doors were locked. Voices stayed low.
Nobody trusted the outside.
The tall shapes still stood everywhere. Near roads. Between buildings. Beside burned cars. Inside broken shops.
They didn’t rush now.
They didn’t need to.
The city already felt smaller. Like the space itself was shrinking.
I walked alone through the broken street. Glass cracked under my shoes. Posters were burned into the walls. Cars stood frozen where they died.
The air felt stretched.
Not cold.
Not hot.
Just wrong.
Near the city center, the ground was cracked open. Not wide. Just enough to feel unnatural.
The tall shapes stood around it.
Not protecting it.
Not guarding it.
Waiting.
The space above the crack felt heavier than the rest of the air. Like pressure with no shape.
The closer I stepped, the harder it became to breathe. My head started hurting. Not sharp pain. Pressure. Like my thoughts were being pushed together.
The air started moving without wind.
Slow.
Careful.
Like something was trying to pass through. Then it hit me.
Not a voice.
Not words.
A push of thoughts.
Images.
Feelings.
A place with no sky.
No ground.
No direction. Just endless pressure.
A world that collapsed under its own presence.
Too full.
Too heavy.
Space itself broke there. Nothing could move properly. Nothing could breathe. So what survived learned how to press into other places. Not with bodies. With pressure.
They didn’t walk between worlds. They thinned them. They stretched them. Until there was room to exist again. That was what the tall shapes were. Not monsters with teeth. Not ghosts with faces. They were pressure given shape. Their forms were only shadows of something bigger.
They weren’t here to hunt. They were here to **replace**. They didn’t want people. They wanted **space**.
Cities.
Buildings.
Air.
Ground.
A stable world to settle into.
People were just obstacles. That’s why they didn’t chase. That’s why they didn’t scream.
They just cleared.
The images shifted.
I saw Arun.
Younger.
Sitting in class.
Drawing quietly.
Not calling anything.
Not summoning anything.
Just noticing something others couldn’t see.
Pressure in the corners. Darkness in empty spaces.
His drawings didn’t bring them. They made the wall thinner. They showed where reality was weak.
That was enough.
He didn’t open the door. He weakened it. And the pressure pushed through.
The images faded.
The air went still again.
The tall shapes around the crack turned slowly. Not toward the city. Toward me.
My chest felt tight. My head felt full. But I didn’t step back. I didn’t look away.
The pressure hesitated.
Not stopped.
Hesitated.
That was when I understood something else. They weren’t afraid of me. They were slowed by me.
Where I stood still.
Where I stayed aware.
Where I refused to look away.
The space stayed firm.
Not open.
Not thin.
Just stable.
I wasn’t a door. I wasn’t a weapon. I wasn’t special. I was an anchor. A point where reality held its shape. That’s why the shapes watched me. That’s why they didn’t rush me.
I wasn’t prey.
I was resistance.
The crack in the ground didn’t grow. The air didn’t stretch.
For now.
I turned and walked back through the broken street. Smoke still rose. Glass still cracked. The city still felt wounded. But it wasn’t empty yet.
That night, I stood on the roof of my house. The sky looked heavy. The shadows looked deeper. The tall shapes stood everywhere.
Watching.
Waiting.
To them, I wasn’t a survivor. I wasn’t prey. I was the thing they had to push through.
And for the first time,
I planned to push back.
