The cold early morning air hits the old, standing billboards, making the metal creak with a sound like a closing door. A man stands in a black coat, a bag in his hand, his round hat obscuring his face. He slowly begins his walk down the street.

“The name's ..., I am a detective. My office is just half a mile away. It didn't take a long time for them to take our world. The fight never happened, but it was all over.” The voice lingers in the air; his boots click against the wet remnants left behind by a crying sky.

“I have a wife, who has recently gotten nice to me. She and I have been married for quite a long time.” His dark brown eyes look up at the people talking on the sidewalk. A distant piano melody seems to guide his steps. His pale skin glistens under the dimly lit sky.

His eyes are distant. The houses are quiet, calm. Heavy, industrial vehicles are parked along the roadside. The massive towers remain hidden in the low clouds above.

“I didn’t actually feel sad about it, but I feel like I am left entirely alone,” the voice keeps echoing in his mind. “Why? Why didn’t I change into one of them?”

A few moments pass, and he looks down as another pair of boots stops directly in front of him. He wears the same black coat, but his mind is wandering elsewhere. Deep into the past.

The distant voice of a professor echoes, bleeding into the memory of children's laughter. “Some people call this a hallucination. But you are different; detectives and thinkers see this and call it intuition. But as soon as you get a glimpse that everything is true, it stops being a mere intuition. After all, that’s how we have always lived. We think deeply…” The voice slowly fades away.

“Hell nah, man. Are you listening to me at all?”

The voice of another man breaks the silence. ... looks up to see him laughing as he speaks. “It’s actually good news! The person you investigated is finally arrested, man. You did a great job there.”

His friend... or was he truly his friend?

He just glares at his friend. The thought of what that criminal became echoes heavily in his mind. “I saw him devour a person in the alleyway. And then he turned to look at me like nothing happened.”

He simply nods to his friend who is leaving, saying, “I'll be off for today. See you next week.” The sound of boots slowly fades into the distance, leaving him standing there completely alone.

It’s nighttime now, and the workday is over. He slowly returns to his house. The front door swings open.

“Welcome home, my dear,” she says. She is standing right there on the doorstep, her eyes boring into him with an eerie smile. She wears an apron, and the house behind her is brightly lit. Her feet are red from standing all day. His eyes instantly take in the small details.

“I was waiting all day for you to come home. I cooked your favourite, so please freshen up before the food gets cold.”

“Ok,” he says. But even as he goes to wash up, he can feel her stare. It cuts right through the space, heavy and unblinking, tracking him even while he takes his bath.

A few minutes pass.

The television drones in the background while he sits alone in his room. Outside, the window frames an eerie, green-hued sky cutting through skeletal black branches, casting a strange light across the space. Books lie scattered in chaotic piles across the table and the floor. Near them, a heavy handgun rests silently on the desk. He sits back in his chair, dressed in a black-and-white shirt, holding a silver glass in one hand and a book in the other.

He turns a page, murmuring aloud: “A host.”

The TV broadcast continues seamlessly: “In numerous ways, a host is an absolute necessity for these entities. Eliminating the primary host could be all it takes to bring down an otherwise unkillable being.” He listens to the audio drone. He whispers to himself, “No new technology will ever be invented again. No more wars, no more hate... these entities have truly stopped it all.” A faint, bitter smile touches his face, but then his mind drifts back to the heavy burden his wife carried in the days before the change. “I don’t like this, being with you. Just let me go.” Her voice echoes like a ghost from the past.

He lifts his head from the pages, looking around the quiet room, deeply processing the reality of his situation.

“It really is a synthetic heaven then,” he hums softly, a melancholic smile forming on his lips.

“But there’s nothing messy left. Would I sacrifice myself... as the host... just to return our world to the chaos it used to be?”

He steps into the bathroom, the cold weight of the gun heavy in his hand as he gazes into the mirror. His eyes are tired, deeply weary. Suddenly, a soft knock sounds against the wood. The door opens to reveal his wife.

She speaks softly, “Honey, is everything alright?” Her words cut short the moment she sees the weapon in his hand. Her grip on the doorknob tightens.

He turns his head toward her, the gun resting in his palm. His dark brown eyes lock onto the sudden, raw shock rewriting her expression.

“I was a terrible husband, and you never truly wanted to be with me,” he says, a bitter laugh echoing within the four narrow walls of the room. “This is the only way I can give you your freedom back.”

Tears begin to spill from his pristine, doll-like wife. She breaks, weeping silently, yet she doesn't step closer or move to stop him.

“I am sorry I couldn’t protect you,” he whispers. “And I can’t bear to live with a version of you that is just acting like someone else.” He raises the gun, clicks the safety off, and looks at her one last time. “Don’t cry. It takes time to move on, but I am giving you exactly what you once asked for. It might work, or it might fail, leaving you consumed by them forever... but I have to try something, right?”

“I understand,” she says. Recovering from the initial shock, she straightens her posture and smiles, a single tear falling softly as she nods in compliance.

His eyes widen as she accepts his fate so easily. A heavy, quiet realisation passes between them. He looks at her, his voice cracking. “I wish I could have spent more time with the real you. But that has just become a fantasy.” She steps backwards out of the bathroom, lingering for a moment with that artificial, gentle softness before the door clicks shut between them.

A second later, a sharp gunshot echoes through the house. Outside the door, his wife collapses, crying violently as her true mind breaks free from the grid. Startled by the sudden blast, a flock of birds scatters from the electric wires, fleeing into the open sky.

And just like that, the world finally starts to move.