The world returned all at once.
Sound crashed back into existence like a wave breaking against stone. Car horns screamed in the distance. A dog barked somewhere below. The wind rushed past Arin's ears as if it had been waiting for permission to move again.
He fell forward onto the rooftop floor, gasping.
His chest burned.
For a moment, he couldn't tell if he was breathing air — or light.
The beam was gone.
The crack in the sky remained.
Wider now.
It stretched across the horizon like a scar carved into reality itself, its edges glowing with faint silver veins that pulsed slowly, steadily… like something alive.
Arin pushed himself up.
His hands were shaking.
He looked down at them—
—and froze.
Thin lines of pale silver ran beneath his skin, glowing faintly before fading away. They spread from his fingertips to his wrists in branching patterns, like fractures in glass.
Like the sky.
"What… was that?" he whispered.
The wind didn't answer.
But something else did.
You felt it, didn't you?
The voice was inside his head.
Not loud.
Not soft.
Just… there.
Arin spun around, searching the empty rooftop.
"Who's there?"
No one.
The city stretched endlessly below him — unaware. People moved along the streets. Lights flickered in apartment windows. Life continued as if the sky above them hadn't been split open like a broken mirror.
They cannot hear me, the voice said calmly.
Only you can.
Arin's throat tightened.
"Why?"
There was a pause.
And then—
Because you were never outside it.
The silver crack pulsed.
A faint ripple moved through the air, distorting the space around him for a split second. The buildings in the distance bent unnaturally before snapping back into place.
Reality was… unstable.
Arin stepped back slowly.
"What do you mean?"
No response.
Instead, an image forced its way into his mind—
A sky.
Cracked.
But not like this one.
Worse.
Completely shattered into floating pieces, each fragment reflecting a different version of the same world. Cities burned in one reflection. Oceans boiled in another. In one—
There was nothing left at all.
Arin dropped to one knee, clutching his head.
"Stop—!"
The image vanished instantly.
The voice returned.
The seal is weakening.
Above him, the crack shimmered violently, as if reacting to the words.
When it breaks completely… they will return.
Arin's breath caught.
"They?"
This time—
Something moved behind the fracture again.
A shadow pressed against the silver light from the other side. Long. Unnatural. Its outline constantly shifting, as if it couldn't decide what shape it wanted to exist in.
Watching.
Waiting.
Arin stumbled backward, his heart racing.
The voice spoke one last time.
You were chosen once.
You will be chosen again.
His phone vibrated in his pocket.
He pulled it out slowly.
The screen was on.
No apps were open.
No signal.
Just a single sentence written across the display in flickering white text—
HOST SYNCHRONIZATION: 12%
And above—
The sky cracked further.