The flickering in the sky brightened again,
a thin blade of light vibrating across the horizon as if the atmosphere had cracked.
People in the plaza froze mid-step, faces tilted upward. The humming sky-rail above them stuttered, its magnetic field sputtering with a dry static hiss. The cars jerked, hovering unevenly before stabilizing again—barely.
A low rumble rolled across the continent, not from the sky this time, but from somewhere deep underground, as if the land itself exhaled.
Then every lumin-panel lining the streets blinked simultaneously.
Once.
Twice.
Then steadied.
A man near the plaza muttered, "Grid fluctuation? That shouldn't be possible." His voice carried uneasily in the sudden hush.
Before anyone could respond, a new sound cut across the city—far harsher than the gentle pulses they were used to. A metallic howl rising from the distances of Pangia's fortified districts:
SIRENS.
The kind no one had ever expected to hear outside of historical documentaries. Sharp, oscillating, urgent. The holographic garden collapsed instantly, its shimmering leaves fragmenting into digital dust as emergency protocols took priority.
From the towers above, windows darkened as blast shutters began sliding into place—massive reinforced plates locking over the glass like armored eyelids.
Someone whispered, "No… no, this can't be real—"
A booming voice erupted from the citywide speakers, clipped with static:
> "All citizens: seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill. All citizens: seek immediate shelter—"
The voice cut out mid-sentence.
A violent ripple trembled through the sky.
Not lightning.
Not weather.
Something faster—an impossible streak of white fire arcing across the atmosphere.
Then another.
And another.
People gasped, pointing upward as dozens of trails carved through the air like burning signatures. The sky-rails shut down completely, their cars hanging in place as emergency clamps snapped into position.
A child cried out, clinging to an adult's coat. The air smelled faintly metallic, as though the atmosphere itself had overheated.
A woman near the plaza choked out, "Those… those are missiles—"
She didn't finish.
Her words were drowned by a thunderous, bone-shaking roar as the first nuclear launch arced overhead, ascending from one of Pangia's distant military enclaves. A second followed almost immediately from an opposing territory across the super-continent, streaking upward in a conflicting trajectory.
The plaza pulsed with the brilliance of their ascent—each missile leaving behind a column of burning vapor spiraling like a wound in the sky.
People scattered, running for shelter entrances set into the ground. The polished streets, once calm and ordered, erupted into chaos. Drones dropped from the air like dead insects, short-circuiting as the energy grid fell out of sync.
A fourth missile launched.
A fifth.
The sky became a crossroads of blazing arcs.
The horizon—still flickering with that strange, wrong distortion—shuddered.
Then, high above Pangia, two ascending trails crossed paths.
And the missiles collided.
A flash consumed the upper atmosphere—white, expanding, silent for a heartbeat too long.
Everything paused.
Dust hung motionless in the air.
Shadows froze.
Even sound seemed to retreat.
The light swelled—
—then broke open.
Not like an explosion.
Like a hole being torn through the world.
A circular wound of burning brilliance spread outward, trembling as if something inside it were pushing to escape.
The sky buckled.
Gravity hiccuped.
Every reflection in the city warped at once.
A child screamed.
Someone fell.
And the glowing wound grew wider—
still expanding,
still pulsing,
still tearing,
as the atmosphere strained to hold together—
and began to lose.