Chapter 3

The world did not end with a bang. It ended with a crack.

The bookstore’s windows splintered inward as the air outside shrieked—yes, shrieked, like a thousand voices screaming through torn fabric. The violet rift in the sky widened, jagged edges pulsing as if alive. Arin’s knees buckled as the ground swayed, books crashing down around him in a deafening waterfall of paper and wood.

“Mira—” he gasped, but her grip on his wrist didn’t loosen. She was already dragging him toward the back door.

“Move!” she shouted.

They stumbled through the narrow aisles, their feet crunching over fallen books. A shelf toppled with a groan, blocking the way. Mira swore under her breath, then yanked him down another row. The air buzzed like static against Arin’s skin, raising every hair on his body.

He risked a glance back at the windows.

That’s when he saw it.

Shapes.

Not human, not animal, but jagged silhouettes pouring from the Fracture, like shadows cut loose from reality itself. Their outlines rippled, bending the light around them, their movements twitchy and unnatural. Wherever they landed, the ground darkened, corroded, as though their presence rewrote the rules of the world.

Arin froze. His mind screamed at him to run, but his body wouldn’t obey. The things were spilling in faster now, clawing against gravity as though the air itself was a surface they could crawl on.

Mira yanked him again, her voice sharp. “Don’t look at them—just run!”

He forced his legs into motion. The two burst through the back door into the alley. The sky above was split open, violet light bleeding into the blue. Screams echoed down the street, mingling with the wail of distant sirens.

“Mira—what are those—”

“Later!” she snapped, scanning the alley. Her eyes locked onto the fire escape above. Without hesitation, she jumped, grabbing the ladder, and shoved it down. Metal screeched as it hit the ground. “Climb!”

Arin hesitated, staring up at the rusted rungs. His hands were trembling. His chest burned with panic.

Mira’s voice cut through again, steadier this time. “Trust me, Arin. You said you would.”

That anchored him. He grabbed the ladder and climbed, every rung rattling beneath his weight. Mira was right behind him, moving faster, more sure. By the time they reached the rooftop, his lungs were raw, but the air up there was worse—charged, sharp, like breathing in lightning.

From the height, the destruction stretched endlessly. Cracks webbed across the sky, violet against the pale afternoon. More of those shadow-things crawled out, sliding down buildings, clawing across streets.

The city wasn’t panicking anymore. It was screaming.

Arin dropped to his knees, staring in horror. “This is… this is the end.”

“No.” Mira crouched beside him, her broken watch glinting. Her voice was steel. “It’s the beginning.”

Arin turned to her, disbelief in his eyes. “Beginning of what?”

Her gaze met his, steady, unflinching. “The reason you’re still here.”

Before Arin could even process the words, the rooftop shuddered. One of the shadow creatures had landed. Its limbs bent wrong, like broken glass forced to walk. Its faceless head tilted, fixing on them, and then it lunged—

Mira shoved Arin aside as the thing struck, its claws raking sparks from the concrete.

“Run!” she shouted, drawing something from her coat.

It wasn’t a weapon Arin recognized. It looked like a shard of crystal wrapped in wires, pulsing faintly with violet light—the same light as the Fracture.

Before the creature struck again, she slammed the shard into the rooftop. The air rippled outward, a wave of force throwing the monster back in a distorted blur.

Arin gaped. “What the hell was that?!”

“Insurance,” Mira said, breathless. She grabbed his hand again, pulling him toward the next rooftop. “And I’ve got more. Come on—we’re not safe here.”

Arin stumbled after her, every instinct screaming to stop, to hide, to collapse. But he kept moving. Because her hand was warm around his. Because somehow, even with the sky breaking apart, he believed her.

They jumped the gap between buildings, the wind roaring in their ears, the rift pulsing above like a wounded star.

And for the first time in his life, Arin Kael wasn’t just surviving. He was falling—into chaos, into terror, and, without realizing it yet, into her.

---

The rooftops stretched ahead in uneven steps—some close enough to leap, others separated by alleys too wide for even Mira’s reckless confidence. Arin’s lungs burned as they sprinted, boots slamming against wet concrete. The storm had broken into a furious downpour, and every step felt like running across glass slick with oil.

Behind them, the creature screeched, a sound that wasn’t sound at all—more like nails dragged across the inside of Arin’s skull. He flinched, almost tripping, but Mira’s tug on his arm kept him upright.

“Don’t look back!” she shouted over the wind.

Arin wanted to argue, wanted to scream that they couldn’t just keep running across collapsing rooftops. But then another shriek split the night—this time from the street below. He risked a glance despite her warning.

More of them. Crawling along walls, skittering over shattered glass, bending reality with every twitch. The ground itself seemed to rot where their claws touched.

The Fracture wasn’t just leaking. It was spilling.

“Mira!” he gasped. “We can’t—there’s too many—”

She cut him off with a sharp, almost feral grin. “Then we don’t outrun them. We outplay them.”

Before he could ask what that meant, she stopped dead at the edge of the next rooftop. The alley yawning below was far too wide. Arin’s momentum nearly carried him right over the edge before he stumbled back, chest heaving.

“You’re insane,” he choked out. “We can’t make that jump!”

Mira didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she held up another one of those strange crystal shards. This one pulsed brighter, humming faintly in the storm. She pressed it to her palm, muttering something under her breath—a phrase that sounded both foreign and familiar, as if his brain couldn’t decide if it understood or not.

The shard ignited.

Light rippled from her hand, tracing shapes in the air. For a heartbeat, Arin thought he saw symbols—letters? equations?—before they vanished in a rush of heat. The space before them shimmered, folding into itself until a makeshift bridge of light stretched across the gap.

“Go!” she barked.

Arin gawked at the glowing construct. “That’s—that’s impossible.”

Mira shoved him hard enough that he nearly tumbled forward. “So is the sky cracking open. Move!”

His legs obeyed before his mind did. He sprinted across the bridge, every step sending ripples of violet light beneath his feet. His heart clawed at his ribs, expecting it to vanish any second. But somehow, impossibly, it held.

Mira followed right behind, the bridge dissolving into sparks the instant her boots left it.

The moment they landed, the creature leapt after them. It didn’t fall. It clung to the air itself, claws digging into nothing as though reality was just another wall. Its faceless head tilted, fixing on Arin again.

This time, Arin couldn’t move. His legs locked, terror rooting him in place.

The creature lunged.

Mira stepped between them, her hand flashing out. Another shard hit the ground, exploding into a burst of force. The monster screeched as it was flung sideways, slamming into a rooftop unit and crumpling the metal like paper.

But it wasn’t destroyed. Already, its limbs were twitching, reforming, as though reality itself was trying to stitch it back together.

“Why—why aren’t they dying?!” Arin shouted, voice cracking.

Mira’s face tightened. “Because they’re not alive in the way you understand. They’re fractures, same as the sky. Echoes of what shouldn’t exist.”

He blinked at her, rain stinging his eyes. “And you just know this?!”

For the first time, she hesitated. Her hand flexed, the broken watch on her wrist ticking once—an audible click despite its shattered face.

“I know because I’ve seen it before,” she said finally, her voice low.

Arin’s stomach dropped. Questions burned in his throat, but the rooftop shuddered again, cutting him off. More creatures were crawling up the building’s sides, their claws anchoring into nothing.

Mira swore under her breath, then grabbed his hand again. “No more questions. Not here. We need cover.”

They bolted toward the far edge of the rooftop. This gap was smaller, barely a meter wide, but Arin still stumbled on the landing, his legs threatening to give out. Mira yanked him upright, steady as ever.

Somehow, her grip never faltered.

They ducked behind an old billboard frame, crouching as the rain hammered down. From here, they could see the street below—a mess of overturned cars, fleeing civilians, and emergency drones flickering red warnings into the chaos. The creatures swarmed, dozens of them now, turning the city into a nightmare playground.

Arin pressed his back against the billboard, chest heaving. His whole body trembled. “Mira… what are we supposed to do? We can’t fight that. We can’t even run from it.”

Mira’s eyes glowed faintly in the violet light, sharp and unyielding. “We don’t have to fight all of it. We just have to survive the night.”

“And tomorrow?”

She didn’t answer right away. Her hand tightened around another shard, and for the first time since he’d met her, Arin saw the faintest flicker of fear cross her face.

“Tomorrow,” she said softly, “depends on whether you keep trusting me.”

---

The city roared beneath them—sirens blaring, drones buzzing, screams echoing against the storm. Every flash of lightning lit up more fractures crawling across the skyline, some small, some gaping wide enough that the buildings themselves seemed to bend away from them.

Arin’s chest felt hollow, his breaths shallow. He wanted to believe Mira, to trust that she knew what she was doing. But his entire body screamed that this was wrong—wrong in a way the human brain wasn’t meant to process.

Mira peered over the edge of the billboard’s metal frame, eyes scanning the chaos below. “We can’t stay here. They’ll smell us out.”

Arin shuddered. “They… smell us?”

“Not with noses. With existence,” she said. “We’re whole. They’re not. That draws them like moths to fire.”

He wished she would stop explaining things in ways that made his stomach twist. But before he could argue, Mira grabbed his wrist again. “There—service stairs.”

Sure enough, across the rooftop, a rusted metal door rattled in the wind, half torn from its hinges. She sprinted first, shards clinking faintly against each other at her hip, and Arin forced his body to follow. Every muscle screamed against the idea of moving closer to the edges where the creatures lurked, but staying behind felt worse.

They shoved the door open, slamming into a stairwell that smelled of rust and mildew. Water dripped steadily down the concrete steps, echoing like a metronome. Mira didn’t slow until they’d descended several floors, their footsteps splashing in puddles.

Finally, she stopped in the shadow of a broken light fixture, listening.

The storm’s roar was muffled now, replaced by the muffled hum of the building’s emergency generator. Arin slumped against the wall, sliding down until his back hit cold concrete. His body was shaking too hard to care about the dirt soaking into his clothes.

“I can’t—” His voice cracked. He tried again. “Mira, I can’t do this. I’m not—”

Her gaze landed on him, sharp but not unkind. “Not what?”

“Not a fighter. Not… whatever you are. I stock books, I drink too much coffee, I forget to pay my bills on time. I’m not cut out for—” He waved a trembling hand vaguely upward. “—whatever the hell just tried to eat me.”

For a long moment, Mira just looked at him. Then she crouched, lowering herself until they were eye-level. Her violet-tinged eyes caught the faint glow of the emergency light, making them seem almost luminescent.

“You think I’m cut out for this?” she asked softly.

He blinked at her. “You… just conjured a bridge out of thin air.”

“That doesn’t make it easy,” she said. Her voice had lost its hard edges now, quieter, almost tired. “Every time I use a shard, I feel it digging deeper. It’s not strength—it’s a bargain. One that gets heavier each time.”

Arin frowned, trying to process her words. “Then why do you do it?”

“Because if I don’t, people die.”

The simplicity of it silenced him. He wanted to argue, to demand answers, but her expression held no room for debate. She wasn’t bragging. She wasn’t making herself a hero. She was just… stating facts.

Mira reached into her jacket, pulling out another shard. This one was duller than the rest, its light flickering faintly. She rolled it across her knuckles like a coin, then pressed it into his palm.

“Hold onto this,” she said.

Arin looked down at it, the cool surface thrumming faintly against his skin. “Why me?”

“Because you’re still here,” she replied simply. “And because it listens to you differently.”

He wanted to ask what she meant, but before he could, a distant shriek reverberated through the stairwell. The concrete walls rattled faintly, dust raining down from above.

Mira’s head snapped upward. “They’ve caught our trail.”

“Of course they have,” Arin muttered, pushing himself up despite his legs screaming for rest. “We can’t keep running forever.”

Mira gave a small, crooked smile. “No. But we can run smart.”

They descended further, bursting into a lower maintenance level. Pipes hissed overhead, steam curling through the air. The place felt forgotten, like no one had walked here in decades. Perfect, Arin thought grimly, for hiding—or dying.

Mira led him to a heavy steel hatch tucked in the corner. She kicked it open, revealing a crawl space lined with cables and humming power lines. The air was thick with ozone.

“In here,” she said.

Arin stared at the cramped tunnel. “You want us to crawl into a hole in the wall while nightmare spiders hunt us?”

“Do you have a better plan?” she shot back.

He didn’t.

They squeezed inside, the hatch clanging shut behind them. The tunnel was just wide enough for them to shuffle side by side, shoulders brushing. Every few meters, Mira stopped, placing a shard against the wall. The crystal pulsed faintly, and for a few moments, the oppressive weight pressing in on Arin’s chest would ease.

Finally, after what felt like hours, they emerged into a small utility chamber. It was dark, damp, and smelled of copper, but it was hidden. Mira slumped against the wall, pulling her knees to her chest, exhaustion finally etching itself across her features.

Arin collapsed opposite her, clutching the shard she’d given him. Its faint glow painted their faces in a ghostly light.

Silence stretched between them, broken only by the hum of the power lines.

Finally, Arin asked, his voice hoarse: “Who are you really, Mira?”

Her eyes opened slowly, catching the shard’s glow. For a moment, something unguarded flickered across her face—a softness, almost sadness.

“The one trying to make sure tomorrow exists,” she murmured.

And then, before he could push further, her head dropped against her arms, and she slipped into an uneasy sleep.

Arin stared at her in the dim light, questions coiling tighter in his chest. But despite everything, despite the monsters and the fractures and the impossibility of it all… he didn’t feel entirely alone anymore.

For the first time in years, someone had grabbed his hand—and hadn’t let go.

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