Real Life

Omni Pov

A full day had passed since he made the choice.

The weight of it still clung to him, like a shadow that followed too close, a presence he couldn't shake. He had avoided the usual streets, the crowded places, the familiar faces.

 Every passing glance felt like a threat, every camera like an eye he had to avoid.

There was too much risk.

Too many eyes.

Too many questions.

He needed somewhere isolated.

It was easy to find a place that no one cared about.

The warehouse sat abandoned on the edge of town, long forgotten, its doors half-hinged and rusted from years of disuse.

Tall weeds crawled up its outer walls, while shattered windows scattered broken glass like confetti along the ground. The city had moved on from places like this, and that made it perfect.

Inside, the air was stale and thick, filled with the musty smell of old metal and rotting wood.

His footsteps echoed through the cavernous space, bouncing off concrete pillars and the cold steel beams overhead.

It was here, beneath the shadows of a roof no one would bother to check, that he planned to test it.

To see if the choice he made was real.

He pulled back his sleeve, revealing the Rider Watch strapped to his wrist. The sight of it still unsettled him. It was far too real, far too solid for something that shouldn't exist outside of fiction. His fingers brushed across its dark surface, tracing the etched symbols he couldn't fully understand. He took a deep breath, knowing what was supposed to happen next.

In one smooth motion, he twisted the dial, forcing the strange glyphs into place.

"Another Time" the watch growled, its voice low and distorted, carrying a menacing weight.

The familiar distorted voice echoed in the empty warehouse, just as he had expected. But that's where the similarities ended.

His heart skipped a beat.

This was the moment.

'This is it' 

He stood there, waiting, bracing himself for the sudden rush of energy, the flash of dark power, the transformation.

He remembered how it worked in the show.

How it was supposed to work.

 Armor would snap into place, shadows would twist around him, and he would emerge—something more than human, something unstoppable.

But nothing happened.

No armor.

No suit.

No weapon materializing in his hands.

Nothing.

A knot of frustration formed in his chest.

This was wrong.

Completely wrong.

He'd watched the show countless times, memorized every detail. The transformation was supposed to be instant, powerful.

Yet here he was—ordinary, unremarkable, still him.

His fingers trembled as he stared down at the watch.

"Why isn't it working?" he muttered, more to himself than anything else.

He felt foolish, standing in an abandoned building, twisting a piece of metal on his wrist and expecting magic to happen.

But deep down, he knew this was more than just a toy.

He felt it.

"Another Time"

Again, the voice chimed, and again—nothing.

Frustration started to bubble up inside him. He had seen it happen a thousand times.

Something was wrong.

Something was different.

'Why?'

The watch felt the same as it had yesterday, but *he* didn't.

The world around him didn't.

There was no surge of power, no shift in reality.

He was still himself—just a man standing alone in the dark.

He took a step back, his boots scuffing against the concrete floor.

His gaze lingered on the watch, frustration turning to something else—fear, maybe.

Doubt.

He could feel the weight of it growing heavier by the second.

What had he done wrong?

Why didn't it work?

And then, slowly, he started to notice something.

It was subtle at first, almost too faint to catch.

The air felt different. *Thicker*, somehow.

He looked around, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the room.

The shadows in the corners seemed to stretch, lengthening with the setting sun, curling like smoke around the edges of the warehouse.

His pulse quickened, a knot tightening in his stomach.

He couldn't shake the feeling that he wasn't alone anymore.

Something was watching.

Something unseen, lurking just beyond the periphery of his vision.

But there was no sound.

No footsteps.

No rustling of movement.

Just... silence.

It terrified him.

*Grrrr* 

The sudden, animalistic sound ripped through the stillness of the warehouse like a knife.

It echoed off the cold walls, primal and menacing, sending a jolt of fear coursing through him.

His heart pounded in his chest, the sharp, guttural noise pulling his instincts tight, his body stiffening with dread.

He spun around, eyes wide, trying to locate the source of the sound. The warehouse, with its dim light and shifting shadows, offered no clues. The echo distorted everything.

Every dark corner felt like it could hide something terrible.

Something real.

He felt his breath quicken.

His hand tightened on the watch, but this wasn't the time to play hero. Hell, he wasn't a hero.

He wasn't even close. 

So the only choice he could think at the moment.

He ran.

His feet pounded against the concrete floor, the sound of his hurried footsteps filling the space, but behind it all, that noise—the low growl, that monstrous presence—seemed to stalk him.

He didn't look back.

He couldn't.

'What was that?'

'Was it one of those?'

'Were the rumors real?'

Fear gripped him, cold and relentless, propelling him forward as fast as his legs could carry him.

The shadows twisted around him, the warehouse warping into a maze of darkness and uncertainty.

As he darted through a narrow gap between rusted steel beams, something in the corner of his eye froze him.

A monster. 

Its form was barely distinguishable in the dim light, but its glowing eyes locked onto his.

They burned through the shadows, cold and predatory, watching him.

Its grotesque silhouette loomed, twisted and wrong, something out of a nightmare, yet horribly, undeniably real.

He stumbled in his flight, nearly falling over his own feet.

Panic surged through him, every instinct screaming at him to keep running, to escape.

The monster didn't move, but those eyes followed him.