At Dawn
Dawn crept in slowly, hesitant and pale, as if even the sun was unsure whether it should rise.
Alvin stood by the window, barefoot on the cold floor, watching the horizon bleed from deep indigo into bruised violet. The city below was quiet in that fragile way it only ever was before disaster—streets empty, buildings still, humanity collectively unaware that the ground beneath them was about to scream.
He hadn't slept.
The night's conversation clung to him like a second skin.
Ten hours.
He felt it before the voice returned.
A pressure—not hostile, not gentle—settling over the world like a held breath.
Alvin.
He sighed. "You really don't believe in easing people into things, do you?"
The World Will did not respond to the sarcasm immediately. Instead, the air around him shimmered, reality thinning until the faint outline of vast, invisible structures stretched across the sky—threads of power converging far above the clouds.
