The Disappearance of Korran Veyl

Korran Veyl wasn't a Calyra scholar, a priest, or a soldier. He was something else entirely, a kid of the sprawling cybercity, brought up by the Net's pulse and born under neon lights. Millions of people watched his streams by the time he was twenty. With only a flickering headlamp and his constant running commentary, they saw him crawl through abandoned subway tunnels, hack shut doors, and jump fences.

He had a sense of humor. He acted carelessly. People loved him.

Then he began to look in the wrong direction.

The foundation of Korran's channel, WatchfulEye, was exploration. For the rush of adrenaline and the excitement of abandoned objects, his devotees tuned in. However, he broke into a sealed government block one night in the lower industrial sector. There was a silence, blacked windows, and unidentifiable sigils on the walls.

As soon as he entered, the stream glitched. There was a crack in his voice. The video stumbled. Nevertheless, as his headlamp revealed the first room, tens of thousands of people were watching live:

Hundreds of cots, all perfectly made yet vacant. The identical spiral was sewn into the fabric of each pillow.

It was worse in the second room. Files on desks, names in heavy red ink crossed out. Photographs of individuals who have never been reported missing were displayed on the walls. Children, women, and men. They were strangers to the audience, yet they all had the same mirrored, glassy eyes.

Then came the third chamber.

He stepped into the frozen stream. But the sound was still there. Deep enough to rattle bones, a low buzzing sound permeated the speakers. "Do they breathe?" Korran whispered. His footsteps on the damp stone were the only sound to break the silence.

The stream ended.

Supporters believed it was a ploy. It could be a scary segment or a marketing gimmick. However, people started to worry when the channel never returned to the internet. His accounts were overrun with messages. No one responded. Officials invaded his home and deemed him "detained for public safety." There was no trial. There were no charges read. Within a day, his apartment was cleaned, and all of the walls were painted white.

"Citizen Korran Veyl committed transgressions against restricted sectors," was the only line the Calyra used to describe the incident. There is no record left.

However, the observers recall.

Backchannels still carry clips of the stream, which are exchanged like artifacts. The buzz that rattled the speakers, the spiral-stitched cushions, and the pictures on the walls are all still inexplicable. Some claim that in order to preserve TCOSA's unity, the higher-ups hushed him. Korran saw something that was never intended for mortal eyes, according to others.

Nevertheless, his supporters mutter one last thing. That if a screen is left on in a dark environment for an extended period of time, the pixels may occasionally distort into static. Occasionally, a glass-eyed, pale face flashes there. It hums.

Korran is reportedly still streaming.

And that the WatchfulEye is constantly keeping an eye on you.

Korran had previously made other illogical mistakes prior to the Black Block stream that put an end to his career. His crowd developed memes, clipped them, and joked about them. In retrospect, however, the warning flags were already present.

The Cathedral of Drain

He started one of his most well-known streams by smirking and making jokes about the stench while crawling into a storm drain. However, the tunnel led to a vast room with crimson water and walls carved with odd, repeating arches that resembled the ribs of a long-dead animal. Spectators claimed to have seen hands reaching, tugging, then sinking again in the water. Korran dismissed it with a laugh, referring to it as "rats on steroids." Beneath his voice, however, the recording captured something else: a choir humming in a language that no one understood.

The Nursery of Glass

He streamed from an abandoned hospital wing a few weeks later. Broken cribs littered the walls, each one coated in shattered glass as if the ceiling had collapsed. However, rather than being dispersed, the shards were stacked in spirals. The shards shook together as he passed between them, vibrating to an unheard cadence. No child was ever seen on camera, but his chat exploded when a shrill, infant-like wail echoed in the background. He was clearly upset when he signed off early that evening, and for the first time in his career, he didn't make light of it afterwards.

The Static-Filled Theater

For all the wrong reasons, this one went viral. He entered a shuttered movie theater, which still retained the title of an unproduced movie on its marquee: The Sleepless Divide. The seats were filled inside, not with humans or beings, but of tar-smeared mannequins with faces. They were all facing the black screen. Static filled the lens as Korran turned on the outdated projector, but his audience insisted they saw faces pressed against the screen's inside as if they were attempting to claw out and forms moving in the white noise. The mannequins' heads all turned in his direction at once before the stream shut off abruptly.

Supporters made jokes about Korran's "alien curse," saying he was too skilled at spotting inappropriate locations. The reality, however, was more straightforward: he was inquisitive, bold, and desperate for the next viral video.

The Black Black was then discovered by him. Then he disappeared.

Those who archive his feeds now mention a trend. Spirals could be found concealed in the painted faces of the Theater, the glass fragments of the Nursery, or the stone ribs of the Drain Cathedral. As though each stream drew him further to a center no one was supposed to reach, the spirals became tighter with each new finding.

And his supporters ceased to laugh once he vanished. Because he was completely engulfed by the last spiral he discovered.