05-28-2025, 08:45 PM
Nora didn’t notice it at first. Not really. Claude had always been quieter than her: thoughtful, reserved, annoyingly capable of absorbing things before reacting. So when he didn’t jump in right away with his usual commentary, she assumed he was just mulling it over. Processing. And for a while, everything felt normal. Or what passed for normal these days.
She'd been in the zone, pouring her energy into the glyphs, the prophecy, the pattern. Her voice had been steady, focused on explaining what she’d pieced together. Showing him the scans, the translations, the way the same sigil kept resurfacing across time like a cosmic watermark. The fact that no one had figured out what it all meant drove her up the wall. Claude, though. Claude saw things she didn’t. His brain worked differently. Cleaner. More structured. She needed that. So when he finally spoke, she felt a small rush of relief. She wasn’t doing this alone.
She gave a half-smile when he brought up the Mayan calendar. Of course he’d go there, and nodded along as he traced the astronomical symbols. That was the point. The heavens. Cycles. Endings. It tracked. She leaned in, following his finger to the Latin line at the bottom of the page.
“You got it right,” she said, eyebrows raised. “I triple-checked that translation. It’s been annotated that way across four different sources. Always the same phrasing. He who sees before the sealing may stand outside. It’s the only consistent part.”
She was about to launch into a theory about the eye when he paused, and that’s when she really saw what was happening. The wince. The rubbing of his temples. The sharp, too-quick movement toward his bag. Nora blinked.
“Wait. Are you okay?”
He didn’t answer right away. He was already popping the pills. That, more than anything, made her stomach drop. Claude didn’t do painkillers. Not unless he was on death’s door. As a kid, he’d broken a toe and walked on it for two days before she noticed the limp. As an adult, he wore discomfort like it was a private badge of honor.
“Claude,” she said again, more firmly this time. Her voice softened, but her concern sharpened. “How long has this been happening?”
She moved toward him, abandoning the glowing glyphs on the screen. They could wait.
“You looked tired this morning, but I thought, I don’t know. I figured you were just being quiet. Not dying of a migraine.”
She hesitated, arms folding tight across her chest. Her brain flicked through a dozen possibilities. Stress. Light sensitivity. Something he ate. Or—No. That wasn’t what scared her. What scared her was the possibility that this—whatever was happening to Claude—wasn’t just physical. Her fingers twitched, wanting to reach for him but stopping halfway. She wasn’t great at comfort. She was better at problem-solving. Fixing. Finding meaning in chaos. But Claude wasn’t a mystery to be decoded.
“You’re not having weird visions, are you?” she asked, voice lower now. “Hearing voices? Feeling chills? Please tell me this is just a headache.”
She'd been in the zone, pouring her energy into the glyphs, the prophecy, the pattern. Her voice had been steady, focused on explaining what she’d pieced together. Showing him the scans, the translations, the way the same sigil kept resurfacing across time like a cosmic watermark. The fact that no one had figured out what it all meant drove her up the wall. Claude, though. Claude saw things she didn’t. His brain worked differently. Cleaner. More structured. She needed that. So when he finally spoke, she felt a small rush of relief. She wasn’t doing this alone.
She gave a half-smile when he brought up the Mayan calendar. Of course he’d go there, and nodded along as he traced the astronomical symbols. That was the point. The heavens. Cycles. Endings. It tracked. She leaned in, following his finger to the Latin line at the bottom of the page.
“You got it right,” she said, eyebrows raised. “I triple-checked that translation. It’s been annotated that way across four different sources. Always the same phrasing. He who sees before the sealing may stand outside. It’s the only consistent part.”
She was about to launch into a theory about the eye when he paused, and that’s when she really saw what was happening. The wince. The rubbing of his temples. The sharp, too-quick movement toward his bag. Nora blinked.
“Wait. Are you okay?”
He didn’t answer right away. He was already popping the pills. That, more than anything, made her stomach drop. Claude didn’t do painkillers. Not unless he was on death’s door. As a kid, he’d broken a toe and walked on it for two days before she noticed the limp. As an adult, he wore discomfort like it was a private badge of honor.
“Claude,” she said again, more firmly this time. Her voice softened, but her concern sharpened. “How long has this been happening?”
She moved toward him, abandoning the glowing glyphs on the screen. They could wait.
“You looked tired this morning, but I thought, I don’t know. I figured you were just being quiet. Not dying of a migraine.”
She hesitated, arms folding tight across her chest. Her brain flicked through a dozen possibilities. Stress. Light sensitivity. Something he ate. Or—No. That wasn’t what scared her. What scared her was the possibility that this—whatever was happening to Claude—wasn’t just physical. Her fingers twitched, wanting to reach for him but stopping halfway. She wasn’t great at comfort. She was better at problem-solving. Fixing. Finding meaning in chaos. But Claude wasn’t a mystery to be decoded.
“You’re not having weird visions, are you?” she asked, voice lower now. “Hearing voices? Feeling chills? Please tell me this is just a headache.”
![[Image: Shield-removebg-preview.png]](https://thefirstage.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Shield-removebg-preview.png)