"Is he awake?" Her voice carried the ease of routine, as though it were a question she had asked countless times before. Juson nodded faintly before answering, "No. He's sleeping."
She paused for a moment before asking again, "Still?" Juson glanced toward the hallway where Herik's room lay hidden beyond the corner. "Yeah." The single word lingered in the quiet kitchen longer than it should have, leaving behind a faint, inexplicable weight. Before either of them spoke again, the kitchen light dimmed for the briefest instant before returning to normal. Yokina noticed it immediately. "Power again?" she asked. "Probably," Juson replied, though certainty was absent from his voice. Silence settled once more, calm but strangely fragile.
The stillness lasted only a moment before a dull metallic click echoed faintly from somewhere deeper inside the house. Both of them froze at once. Yokina turned first, her attention fixed on the hallway. "...Did you hear that?" she asked quietly. Juson never answered. He was already walking, his pace quickening with every step. Another sound followed, clearer this time. Metal shifting. The bedroom door. Yokina hurried after him, calling instinctively, "Herik..." She reached the doorway first and pushed it open, only to stop so abruptly that Juson nearly walked into her. "What happened..." he began, but the words died before they left his mouth.
He felt it immediately. The room itself seemed wrong. The air carried an unnatural heaviness, as though something invisible occupied the space and refused to let it breathe. Herik lay upon the bed, his small body restless beneath the sheets. His fingers twitched occasionally while his face remained tense, strained by something unseen even though his eyes stayed tightly closed. Above him, the ceiling lights flickered violently, throwing the room into an endless rhythm of light and shadow while a low whirling sound filled the silence. It never changed in pitch. It never stopped. It simply existed.
Juson's gaze slowly lifted toward the wall above the bed, searching instinctively for the source of the disturbance. Then he saw it. The clock mounted there had become impossible. Its hands no longer ticked forward one second at a time. They spun. All three of them. Faster and faster until the numbers blurred together, collapsing into meaningless circles as though time itself had broken apart. Juson took an unconscious step closer, unable to pull his eyes away from it. The whirling sound deepened, almost vibrating through his chest.
Somewhere behind him Yokina called his name. "Juson...?" Her voice sounded distant, muffled, as though it had travelled through water before reaching him. He never answered. Every part of his attention remained fixed upon the spinning clock. It continued accelerating until it seemed impossible for it to move any faster. Then, without warning, everything stopped. Instantly. The hands froze. The lights steadied. The strange sound vanished completely. Silence returned so suddenly that it felt louder than the noise itself.
Juson blinked hard and drew a sharp breath before slowly turning away from the wall. Yokina stood exactly where she had been moments earlier, staring at him with quiet confusion. The room looked perfectly ordinary now. The lights burned steadily. The clock rested peacefully on the wall. Nothing appeared out of place. "Why are you staring like that?" she asked. Juson couldn't answer. At that very moment he felt a small tug against his shirt. His eyes dropped instinctively. Herik stood beside him. Awake. Silent. Looking directly into his face. Juson's breathing slowed almost immediately, but not from relief. Something inside those eyes held him still. For the briefest moment, they didn't feel like the eyes of a child.