It started with a hum. Not louder—deeper.
Ezra stood in his room just after sunset, the last of the daylight slipping off the window like it had given up. The house was dim, still. No music, no voices, just the sound of his breath and the quiet shifting of the walls.
He hadn’t touched the seam in weeks.
But tonight, it was warm again.
He stepped closer. The line was barely visible, but he knew exactly where it ran—straight down from the ceiling to the baseboard. A thin vertical scar on the wall, like something had been stitched and left to fade.
He pressed two fingers to it.
And the room vanished.
Not into darkness. Into elsewhere.
The first vision hit hard.
He was outside—late afternoon, hot light slanting across a gravel lot. A truck tailgate down behind him. Music playing somewhere, muffled. The smell of beer, smoke, something burnt.
And he saw himself, yet somehow not himself—laughing hard, back arched, shirtless.
He knew that body.
That neck.
That angular jawline.
A man on either side of him—also shirtless, grinning, loud. Someone shoved his shoulder. He shoved back, grinning wider, mouth open mid-joke. Another leaned in, laughing with him. They were passing a bottle, laughing about someone—a girl, probably—something crude, bragging, easy.
His stomach churned. That old scar at his groin throbbed faintly.
He was watching what looked like himself in the scene.
His voice. His laugh. And it didn’t feel borrowed. It looked like it belonged.
The vision snapped off like a switch.
Ezra stumbled back from the wall, hand shaking.
He braced himself, heart thudding, then reached out again—slower this time. His fingers touched the seam.
The second vision came quieter.
A field. Overgrown. Not a grove exactly, but a patch of wild land—brambled, sunlit, scattered with half-dead trees. Dust rising in the late light.
He could smell dirt. And something faintly sweet beneath it, like the ghost of fruit that used to grow here. And there—at the center of it—was the same man.
His face. His frame.
Crouched low, forearms resting on his thighs, head bowed like he’d been there a while.
Ezra couldn’t hear anything. No wind. No sound.
Just the shape of stillness.
Then the man looked up.
Right at him.
No threat. No shock.
Just… recognition.
Like he’d known Ezra was coming.
Ezra opened his mouth to speak—but the vision was gone.
He stood alone in his room, the hum of the seam soft beneath his skin.
The air felt thinner. Charged.
And his heart—still thudding—didn’t feel scared.
It felt called. And under the pulse of adrenaline, something else stirred—reverence. Like he hadn’t just seen another version of himself… he’d been summoned by it.
He looked down. There was dust on his boots.
Faint. Pale. The color of citrus bark.
Not from this house.
Not from this side.
He didn’t pack anything.
Didn’t grab a jacket. Didn’t write a note.
He just walked outside.
Toward the lot.
(Chapter from The Grove. Contact me if you’d like to read the full story)
CovenantRoad 
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