The glowing wound in the sky kept expanding,
its edges rippling like torn metal heated beyond melting. A ring of white fire spiraled outward, shredding clouds into drifting ribbons. It wasn't an explosion anymore—whatever had begun was something else entirely.
Below, the city vibrated as if pinned under the pressure of something pushing through from above.
A gust of wind burst outward from the rupture, carrying strange metallic flecks that shimmered like dust made of broken light. The air smelled scorched and chemical, wrong in a way that prickled the skin.
Then the sound hit.
A deep, concussive roar rolled across Pangia, flattening the breath from everyone's lungs. Holographic billboards snapped into lines of static. Street conduits flickered violently; their soft white glow spasmed into harsh, uneven bursts.
Far above, at the heart of the expanding rupture, the two nuclear detonations fed into each other—an impossible collision of forces that should have annihilated everything but instead twisted, warped, folded inward.
The rupture pulsed again, each beat like a heartbeat amplified across the sky.
Lines of lightning laced around the wound, spiraling inward, drawn into the center as though gravity had reversed itself. The clouds were being sucked upward, spiraling like water down a drain.
People screamed and clung to whatever structures they could reach as a pressure spike hammered the city. The streetlights bent toward the sky, pulled at impossible angles before snapping back with a shriek of metal.
The rupture widened further—
not in a circle now, but in jagged patterns, like the cracked shell of an egg under strain.
A sound vibrated from deep within the tear—
not thunder,
not metal,
something layered, shifting, almost… rhythmic.
A man stumbled backward, eyes wide, whispering, "That's not a natural frequency—"
The rupture bulged outward.
A sphere of distorted air pushed through, warping everything behind it like heat haze in a glass dome.
And then—
Reality buckled.
The sphere burst, sending ripples through the sky like waves in water. The atmosphere itself seemed to slosh, dragging buildings into warped reflections for a moment before snapping back.
The rupture tore itself fully open.
A gaping void, lined with a swirling mixture of white fire and blackened fractures of space, spread from horizon to horizon. It was neither solid nor liquid—something in-between, moving with intent, as though feeling its way across the air.
A low, thrumming vibration emanated from the void, sinking into the bones of everyone below.
The ground cracked.
Energy conduits ruptured.
Street tiles lifted and twisted as if gravity no longer understood its job.
Then a smaller pop—sharp, fast.
Another tear appeared.
Then a third.
A fourth.
In the span of seconds, the sky became a spiderweb of expanding holes, each connected by snapping lines of white fire.
Inside each tear, something shimmered—dark silhouettes shifting behind the glow, as if pacing just beyond the threshold.
The plaza erupted in panicked cries as people scattered, tripping over each other, scrambling for doorways and shelter hatches. The city's emergency sirens faltered, flickered, and died in a choked burst of static.
For a moment, everything went unnaturally quiet.
The rupture flickered once.
Twice.
Brightened—
—and from deep within its impossible depths, something moved closer, displacing the swirling light with a tall, distorted shadow.
It stepped nearer to the threshold—
the first hint of form pressing against the inside of the tear—
as the atmosphere strained, stretched—
ready to give way.