The sound still finds me sometimes.

  Not in dreams.

  In ordinary places.

  A kettle left on too long.

  Train brakes stretching thin against metal.

  Nails across a chalkboard.

  It becomes that sound.

  Long.

  Unbroken.

  I don’t react anymore.

  I just wait for it to pass.

  Three years later, the world hasn’t slowed down for anyone.

  Manifestations thread through everything now — not dramatic, not rare. Just there.

  A man adjusts the trajectory of a falling package without looking up from his phone.

  A cyclist leans too hard into a turn and corrects the angle mid-motion like the road decided to forgive him.

  Two kids argue outside a café, one of them flaring heat across his fingers to make a point he probably won’t remember tomorrow.

  No one stares.

  It’s just life.

  I keep my hands in my pockets and look through the transit hub job board.

  Listings flicker in and out.

  Urban Logistics Coordinator — Manifestation Required

  Structural Reinforcement Assistant — Active Output Preferred

  Medical Stabilization Trainee — Healing Type Recommended

  Crisis Response Intern — Sync Screening Mandatory

  I scroll slower than I need to.

  Degree requirements: fine.

  Experience requirements: manageable.

  Manifestation requirement: non-negotiable.

  It’s not discrimination.

  It’s efficiency.

  If someone can lift steel with a thought, you don’t hire the guy who needs a crane.

  Fair enough.

  “You’re staring at it like it insulted you.”

  I don’t look away from the screen. “It did.”

  Jude steps beside me, shoulder bumping mine lightly.

  He looks exactly how he’s always looked — relaxed, grounded, like he’s already made peace with wherever he’s standing.

  The air around his hands hums faintly, subtle tension lines, like a thread, tightening and releasing without him thinking about it.

  A cart rolls too fast toward a curb nearby. He flicks two fingers absently.

  The cart slows mid-motion like someone quietly took gravity down a notch.

  The driver doesn’t notice.

  Jude does.

  “Apply,” he says.

  “It says manifestation required.”

  “You have one.”

  “Where.”

  “Hidden. Dormant. Dramatic reveal later.”

  I laugh — quiet, real.

  “You’ve been watching too many training vids.”

  “You’ve been watching none.”

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  He scrolls with one hand, stopping on a listing.

  “Urban logistics is expanding south,” he says. “Good pay. Flexible.”

  “Requires active output.”

  “So apply anyway.”

  “And say what.”

  “That you’re charming.”

  I glance at him. “Is that a marketable skill now?”

  “It is if you stop pretending it isn’t.”

  I shake my head, still smiling.

  It fades a second later.

  He notices.

  He always does.

  “You know it doesn’t matter,” he says, not pushing, just stating it.

  “What doesn’t.”

  “Being able to Manifest.”

  I shrug. “It matters to them.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me.”

  That lands softer than he probably intends.

  I look back at the screen.

  The world moves around us in quiet corrections and invisible adjustments. Heat shifts. Pressure bends. Momentum reroutes.

  Everyone responds to something.

  I’ve never felt it respond to me.

  “You ever feel it?” Jude asks suddenly.

  “Feel what.”

  “That pull. Like the world’s waiting for you to answer it.”

  He lifts his hand slightly. The air tightens between his fingers — not dramatic, not flashy, just controlled.

  A stray receipt on the pavement rises a few inches, hovers, then drops.

  “Feels like negotiation,” he says. “Like it’s asking what you want.”

  “Sounds exhausting,” I reply.

  He snorts. “You used to think it was the coolest thing in existence.”

  “I used to think a lot of things.”

  He studies me briefly.

  “You haven’t trained in a while.”

  “I graduated.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  I shrug. “I retired early.”

  “At twenty-two?”

  “Very exclusive club.”

  He laughs.

  I do too.

  It’s easy.

  It just doesn’t reach as far as it used to.

  For a while, Manifesting was all I cared about.

  Breathing patterns.

  Cognitive focus sessions.

  Dark rooms.

  Bright rooms.

  Silence thick enough to feel like judgment.

  I kept waiting for something to shift.

  For the air to tighten around me.

  For the world to answer back.

  It never did.

  Eventually, trying started feeling like knocking on a door that wasn’t there.

  So I stopped.

  “You’re thinking too loud,” Jude says.

  “I’m not thinking.”

  “That’s worse.”

  I bump his shoulder back. “You always this insightful?”

  “Only on weekdays.”

  A group of former classmates walks past us, laughing too hard at something small.

  The air ripples faintly around them — small displays of control, casual flexes, unconscious adjustments.

  They look like they belong to something.

  Jude looks at them, then at me.

  “You’re coming tonight.”

  “Coming where.”

  “Marlow’s graduation party. Seven. Half the class is going.”

  “I wasn’t invited.”

  “Uhhh… yea, you were dude.”

  “I didn’t see it.”

  “Because you left it on read, Mr. Celebrity.”

  “That’s different.”

  “It absolutely isn’t.”

  I hesitate.

  Not visibly.

  Just enough for him to see it.

  “It’s not really my scene,” I say.

  “You say that like you have scenes.”

  “I do.”

  “Name one.”

  “Transit hubs.”

  He grins. “Thrilling.”

  I look back at the job board.

  It refreshes again.

  New listings.

  Same requirements.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “It’s a party, Kayde. Not a Manifestation trial.”

  “That you know of.”

  He rolls his eyes. “You don’t have to manifest to exist.”

  The words sit between us.

  Not sharp.

  Not heavy.

  Just there.

  I glance at the crowd shifting around us — effortless corrections, invisible alignments, a world that moves like it trusts itself.

  “I’ll think about it,” I say.

  “You always do.”

  He starts walking backward a few steps, hands in his pockets.

  “Seven. Don’t make me come drag you.”

  “Yea right.” I shake my head.

  He turns and disappears into the crowd.

  I stay where I am a little longer.

  The job board refreshes again.

  I don’t scroll this time.

  Seven.

  It would be easier not to go.

  Stay home.

  Avoid the comparisons.

  Avoid the quiet way people measure each other without meaning to.

  A cyclist swerves too hard near the crosswalk.

  Momentum shifts.

  Someone corrects it instantly.

  Clean.

  Efficient.

  Normal.

  The light changes.

  I step forward.

  If I don’t go, nothing changes.

  If I do, nothing might change either.

  But at least I’ll know.

  Seven isn’t far.