Hyperfixation

*By Antonio*

It started innocently enough. A passing interest. A thought that stuck longer than it should have. 

Anna had always been the type to fall deep into her hobbies, but nothing quite like this. She called it *hyperfixation*, laughing at her own obsessiveness, turning her newfound passion into a joke among her friends. First, it was gardening, then baking, then the history of obscure Roman battles. Her enthusiasm never seemed to last beyond a few weeks. Until now.

It was a normal Monday when Anna stumbled upon a cryptic book in a dusty corner of a local thrift store. Its black cover was unmarked, and the pages had a faint scent of old leather and something she couldn't quite place. The title was scratched in small silver letters: *Fractured Realms: An Inquiry*.

"Never heard of it," she muttered, flipping through the pages. Strange symbols and intricate diagrams filled the margins, but something about the book *called* to her. It was almost magnetic.

Her fingers tingled as she held it, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that the book had found her, not the other way around.

### The Descent

Anna was back home before she even realized she’d purchased the book. Her dinner sat untouched as she buried herself in the pages, night after night. The words seemed to pulse in rhythm with her heartbeat. The diagrams swirled with each blink. The book wasn't just about knowledge—it felt alive.

The deeper she read, the stranger things became. She found herself losing time. Entire afternoons disappeared, and her dreams began blending with reality. In one particularly vivid dream, she stood at the edge of a shimmering lake surrounded by fog. The moon hung low, and voices whispered from the mist. They spoke in the same language that she had seen in the book, though she had never learned it. Somehow, she understood.

"I have to know more," she whispered to herself, her hands trembling. Every new discovery only fueled her obsession.

Her friends noticed the change, of course. Her texts became sparse, her once lively conversations dulled. She started missing work deadlines, skipping meetups, but Anna didn't care. This was important. The book had shown her fragments of something larger—a secret hidden in plain sight.

### Cracks in Reality

As weeks passed, the world around her seemed to change. The air felt heavier, the shadows longer. Sometimes, when she looked into a mirror, she swore she saw something watching her from behind her reflection, just out of focus. She tried to tell herself it was just the exhaustion, the hyperfixation taking its toll. But late at night, when the wind howled and the floorboards creaked, she knew there was more.

The book hinted at a place between worlds. A place where time didn't flow the way it did here. A place where reality could be shaped by will alone.

Anna was convinced it was real.

One evening, after an especially intense session of reading, she noticed something. The diagrams she had been obsessively drawing from the book had started to glow faintly. The lines shimmered with a soft light, and she felt a pull. 

Without thinking, she placed her hand in the center of the largest symbol, feeling a rush of energy surge through her body. The room around her blurred. Her heart pounded as the walls began to warp and twist. She was no longer in her apartment.

### The Other Side

She found herself standing on the shore of the lake from her dreams. The water was still, but the fog swirled around her like a living thing. The air buzzed with anticipation.

"Welcome," a voice said, though no one was there.

Anna’s breath caught in her throat. "Where am I?"

"You’ve crossed over," the voice replied, soft and cold. "This is the realm beyond. The place where your world and others converge."

Her hyperfixation had brought her here, to the place she had read about but never truly believed in. Yet now it felt like she had always known this was her fate.

She stepped forward, her bare feet sinking into the soft, mist-covered ground. The air smelled faintly of lavender, mixed with something metallic. She could hear whispers in the distance, voices calling her name.

"How do I go back?" she asked, her voice trembling.

The mist thickened, and out of the fog, a figure emerged. It was tall and thin, its face obscured by a hood. "There is no going back," it said.

Anna's heart raced. "What do you mean? I didn’t mean to come here!"

The figure tilted its head, as if amused. "You’ve been crossing over for weeks now. Did you not notice? The lines between your world and this one have blurred. You belong here now."

Panic surged in her chest. She turned to run, but her legs felt heavy, as if the ground was pulling her down. She could barely move.

"You were chosen," the voice whispered in her ear, though the figure was still standing several feet away. "The book was your guide, but your desire brought you here."

Anna fell to her knees, the weight of the realm pressing down on her. Her mind raced, grasping for an escape, but the whispers grew louder, drowning out her thoughts.

The Final Revelation

In her final moments of clarity, Anna understood. The book had never been an ordinary book. It had been a key, a doorway to this place. And her hyperfixation—her obsessive need to know more—had been the true catalyst.

As the fog closed in, she realized that she had never been in control. The book had chosen her, just as it had chosen countless others before. It had preyed on her curiosity, her need to unravel the mysteries of the universe.

And now, she was part of that mystery.

The mist enveloped her, and the world around her disappeared, leaving only silence.

Somewhere, back in the real world, Anna’s apartment stood empty, save for the open book lying on her coffee table, its pages blank once more, waiting for the next curious mind to stumble upon it.

The End.