I'd always felt like an echo in my own life. A thin, rather frail kid, who blended into the crowd. It was as if my existence was a minor note in the world's symphony, barely audible. In school, sports were torture, my grades never stood out, and my conversations were limited to nodding along to what my few friends said. At seventeen, I was the definition of ordinary, and until recently, that normalcy was something I accepted without much thought. But lately, something had started to change. A strange restlessness, like a constant vibration I couldn't ignore. It wasn't anything specific, but a feeling that accompanied me everywhere, as if the air around me was slightly charged. Sometimes, when I gripped the metal railing on the stairs at school, or opened the door to our house, I felt a strange tingling in my fingertips. It was a gentle throbbing, almost imperceptible, but enough to make me frown and wonder what the hell was going on. At first, I thought it was the stress of approaching finals, or maybe I wasn't getting enough sleep. "You should go to bed earlier, Hyuk," my mother would say, noticing my dark circles. I just nodded, not daring to mention the strange sensations running through my body. But the restlessness persisted, growing stronger, as if something inside me was awakening. One afternoon, while waiting for the bus home, I leaned against the metal pole at the bus stop. It was a sunny day, but I felt a chill run down my spine. Suddenly, a surge of energy surged up my arm, a strange force that seemed to emanate directly from the cold metal beneath my hand. The pole vibrated slightly, and I had the fleeting, unsettling impression of being able to feel the internal structure of the metal, its tiny atoms moving in a silent dance. I jerked back, my hand jerking as if it had burned me. "What the hell...?" I muttered to myself, staring at the pole with a mixture of fear and confusion. My heart was pounding like a drum in my chest. I couldn't explain it. It was as if the metal was... alive. I hadn't told anyone. Who would believe me? They'd probably think I'd gone crazy. In our world, unexplainable things didn't exist, or at least, that's what I'd always believed. And I'd always preferred to stay in the safety of the known. The following days were a torture of confusion and mounting anxiety. The incidents became more frequent and more intense. One day in art class, we were working on a sculpture using copper wire. It was a malleable material, easy to mold. But as I tried to shape it, the wire began to bend and twist in my hands without my applying any conscious force. "Is everything all right, Ryu Hyuk?" the teacher asked, approaching my table. "You seem a little... tense." "Yes, Professor, I'm just having a little difficulty with this," I replied, trying to sound normal as I struggled to control the wayward wire. Fortunately, the other students were focused on their own projects and didn't notice anything amiss. But I felt a cold sweat break out on my forehead. I had to release the wire quickly, feigning clumsiness to avoid arousing suspicion. "Perhaps you need a little more practice," the teacher suggested before continuing on his way. Nighttime was the worst time. In the solitude of my room, I often woke up with a strange sensation, as if something invisible were surrounding me. It was a silent, yet palpable presence that seemed to vibrate in sync with the metallic objects around me: my bedframe, the nightlight on my nightstand, even the small paperclips scattered on my desk. Sometimes, I swore I heard a soft, almost inaudible buzzing coming from these objects. I would cover my ears with my hands, trying to block out the imaginary sound, but the sensation persisted, making me feel increasingly paranoid. One afternoon, while searching the internet for some logical explanation for all this, I stumbled across an obscure, almost forgotten forum that talked about people with "special abilities" living hidden in our society. At first, I dismissed it as the typical garbage found on the internet, stories invented by people with too much imagination. But as I read the accounts, a gnawing sense of recognition began to grow inside me. The descriptions of strange sensations, of the sudden manifestation of inexplicable powers, resonated with my own experiences in a disturbing way. "Could it be...?" I wondered quietly, feeling a chill run down my spine. In the midst of my online search, a brief news story caught my attention. A vague report about an "unusual incident" on the outskirts of town. It mentioned the sudden appearance of an "unidentified creature" that had caused some property damage before disappearing without a trace. Authorities were investigating, but no concrete details were offered. Most online comments attributed it to a hoax or a simple misidentification. However, as I read the creature's vague description, I felt an even greater chill. It conjured up an image of something unnatural, something that didn't belong in our world. For the first time, the idea that my strange sensations might be connected to something much larger and more mysterious began to take shape in my mind. What if those creatures were real? What if what was happening to me was real too? That night, as I lay in my bed, the metal frame vibrating slightly beneath the mattress, I couldn't sleep. The normalcy of my life had completely shattered, revealing a reality far stranger and more uncertain than I could have ever imagined. The metal around me seemed to whisper incomprehensible secrets, and the shadow of the creature mentioned in the news story loomed over my thoughts like an impending nightmare. I knew, with a growing and terrifying certainty, that my life had changed forever. The traces of an unknown power had begun to mark my existence, leading me down a path I had never dreamed of. . Hello, how are you? I hope you are well. Here you can download the book in PDF format. https://ko-fi.com/winterstar01/shop