The Day the Skies Broke
On the morning of the Veilbreak, life on Earth moved as it always had. The sun rose over sprawling cities, commuters rushed into subways, and the hum of machinery echoed in office buildings.
Aravind Mehta, a thirty-two year old software developer, rubbed sleep from his eyes as he stared at his laptop screen. Lines of code flickered like half-written sentences, waiting for him to complete them. His deadline for a new banking app loomed over his head like an axe, but Aarav worked slowly, sipping black coffee to fight the heaviness in his body.
He lived alone in a small apartment, his desk cluttered with half-empty notebooks, an overworked router and an unopened packet of instant noodles. The world outside felt far away, yet on this morning, something in the air was different—charged, like a static hum before a storm.
Thousands of miles away, Dr. Elena Cruz was already on her third surgery of the day in a crowded Manila hospital. She had been awake for almost 20 hours, yet her hands were steady, her mind focused. "Scalpel", she murmured and the nurse handed it over. The boy on the table had minutes to live without intervention.
Meanwhile, in Tokyo, Ryo Tanaka stood on a construction site, watching cranes lift steel beams into the sky. His helmet gleamed under the sunlight as his sketched modifications in his notebook. He was a civil engineer with dreams of building entire cities, not just bridges. His colleagues teased him for being too ambitious, but Ryo believed in creating structures that would outlast lifetimes.
Fatima Al-Sayed, across the seas in Cairo, stud in front of a small classroom filled with restless children. She tapped her chowk against the board, scolding a boy who wouldn't stop passing notes. Teaching wasn't glamorous, but it was her calling. She believed every child could shine, if given knowledge and kindness.
And in New York, Marcus Hale, a chef with a failing restaurant, chopped onions with a speed that betrayed his frustration. Rent was overdue, critics had been harsh and the dream he had once nurtured was slipping away, but he still cooked with passion, pouring his soul into every dish.
They left separate lives can separate worlds— until the skies broke.
It began with silence.
Across the planet, power grid's flickered, cell towers went dark and the hum of human civilization faltered. The sky shifted colours feeding from Blue to Violet, then into a shimmering curtain of light that pulsed like a living thing.
Aarav look up from his code.When has apartment lights dimmed his computer screen glitches, not with error messages but with symbols— runs that crawled across the monitor as though alive. He blinked rubbed his eyes but the symbols kept multiplying. Then his laptop burst into white light , swallowing the room whole.
In the hospital, Elena dropped her Scalpel as the fluorescent lamps above her flickered out. For a heartbeat, the operating room was plunged into darkness.The boy on the table convulsed, monitors flat lined, and then light exploded from his chest.
At the construction site, Ryo gasped as the cranes halted midair, the steel beams suspended, like they were caught in invisible threads. Workers screamed, but no sound came out. A wave of silence pressed down on the site, and then the ground rippled like liquid.
In the classroom, Fatima clutched her chalk as the blackboard behind her split open—not cracked, but split into a window of swirling stars. Her students cried out in terror, yet their voices seemed distant, muffled as though they were underwater.
Marcus, in his kitchen, froze as the onions he chopped burst into sparks of green flame. The knife in his hand melted into a blade of light and the vegetables on the cutting board twisted into strange glowing fruits he had never seen before.
All across earth, ordinary people experienced extraordinary ruptures. Some screamed, some fainted, and then all at once "The world dissolved."
The fall felt endless.
Aarav tumbled through a tunnel of light clutching at air as if it could save him. He wasn't alone—shape of people surrounded him falling, reaching, crying. Throw the blur, he glimpsed Ryo's helmet glinting, Marcus apron fluttering, Fatima holding the hands of two children, Elena cradling the boy she had been operating on.
The tunnel ended in a violent crash. Aarav hit the ground, breath ripped from his chest. He rolled onto his back , coughing and stared upward.
Above him stretched , not the sky of earth , but a vast dome of golden clouds pierced by two suns. A forest of colossal trees surrounded him, their trunks glowing faintly with veins of light. The air smelled of earth and ozone, alive in a way Earth never was.
He pushed himself up disoriented, and saw others sprawled across a grassy plane. Hundreds of people— men, woman, children— blinking in confusion, calling out for family, clutching whatever belonging they had.
"Where....where are we?" someone whispered.
Elena staggered into view , her hands still stained with blood from surgery. She\nLooked around wildly searching for the boy she had operated on. To her shock, he was breathing steadily. His wound closed as if it had never existed.
Fatima clust , three of her students close shielding them from the strange world.
Ryo stared at the trees with awe, sketching in his mind even as his legs shook. Marcus sat on the ground knife of light still in hand staring at it in disbelief.
And then, Aarav saw it. His laptop shattered, Yes but glowing with faint runes that floated off its surface into the air like fireflies. He reached outinstinctively, and the runes clung to his skin like living code.
The sky trembled.
A sound unlike any human voice echoed across the plane a language and a meaning all at once. Every person heard it in their heart.
You have crossed the Veil. Your professions are your essence. In this world, your work shall shape reality survive and thrive.
The words ended living silence heavy in the air. People exchanged fearful looks..... some prayed, some wept, others simply stared, stunned.
Elena clenched her fists "Professions....out work?" she murmured, still staring at the boy who had been healed by something beyond her Scalpel.
Aarav looked at the runes on his skin. His profession—a coder, a builder of systems. Could it be true?
Marcus touched the glowing knife. Ryo gazed at the land like it was a blueprint waiting for him. Fatima whispered prayers, but inside, she wondered if teaching could matter in such a world.
The silence broke with a scream. From the forest beyond came movement—a beast, massive, scaled with eyes burning red. The first monster of the new world stepped into the clearing, roaring with hunger.
The test of Professions had begun.
The beast that emerged form the treeline was unlike anything Earth had ever known. Its body was that of a lion, but plated in scales like black steel. Two jagged horns curled from its head and fire leaked from it's jaws with every breath. Its roar cracked the air, sending flocks of strange birds scattering into the Violet skies.
Panic swept across the clearing. People screamed and scattered, clutching children, stumbling over each other in desperate flight. The monster's eyes locked onto the crowd, its claws digging trenches into the earth as it prepared to charge.
Aarav's throat tightened. He was not a fighter , he had no weapons , no training only had was the faintly blowing runes still etched into his skin. Instinctively, he raised his hand and the runes flared. Before him appeared a grid of symbols—lines of code, familiar and alien at once.
He didn't think. He typed on the air, as though his fingers remembered what his mind could not. If (threat) [barrier= true;]
The runes rippled and a wall of light erupted between the beast and the nearest cluster of people. The monster's slammed into it, snarling sparks flying as its claws scraped across the glowing barrier.
Aarav stumbled back in shock. He had written code—and it had become reality.
The barrier cracked under the creature's assault and it leapt over the remnants, striking a man who had fallen behind. His screems tore the air as claws raked across his side. Blood gushed, staining the grass.
Elena reactored before she could think. She rushed to his side, pressing her hands to the wound "Stay with me" she shouted though her voice trembled. Her hands glowed— a soft, golden light spreading from her palms into the torn flesh.
The man's ragged breathing steadied. Before their eyes, skin knit together, muscles reformed and the bleeding stopped. Elena gasped, nearly collapsing from the effort but the man sat up, alive.
Gasps echoed around her "A miracle...." someone whispered.
But Elena wasn't listening. She looked at her glowing hands, awe and fear in equal measure "This....this is medicine beyond anything I know."
The beast roared again, charging towards the survivors. Ryo, standing near a cluster of panicked workers, threw down the notebook he had always carried. His pencil moved furiously, sketching a crude wall of stone and earth.
The sketch glowed, tearing itself from the page and the ground rumbled. Before the monster could reach them, a wall erupted from the soil, rising 10 feet high.The beast crashed into it, shaking the earth but failing to break through.
Ryo's eyes widened, sweat dripping down his face "My designs....they are real now". He looked at his hands as though seeing them for the first time.
Near the children, Fatima trembled, but fear didn't hold her for long. Her students cried, clinging to her and something inside her ignited, she stood tall raising her voice.
"Listen to me", she commanded her words ringing louder than the chaos around them. The air shimmered and her students—mere children moments ago—straightened. Their fear dulled, replaced by calm resolve even adults nearby felt their minds sharpen, their panic dimming.
Knowledge flowed from her words into them like water filling a vessel "Stand together, protect one another." Her lesson was no longer metaphorical—It was power.