The next morning, Ethan woke feeling like he'd barely slept at all.
His sleep had drifted through a string of disconnected dream images: alien worlds overlapping, skies warping, nameless races appearing and vanishing like mist. No order, no guiding voice—just chaotic dreams fading with each breath until he woke.
Ethan rolled out of bed, feet touching the cold wooden floor. Early morning light slipped through the window cracks, painting pale yellow streaks on the wall. Outside, Grayridge had awakened: the hammering from the smithy, the rumble of stone carts on wooden rails, children playing in the street.
All normal sounds. As if yesterday's explosion hadn't happened. As if there had been no human arm reaching through the rift before vanishing.
But Ethan knew the truth. The atmosphere in Grayridge had changed. Thinner, tighter—like paper about to tear.
He dressed quickly, threw on his boots, washed his face, and headed downstairs.
***
Liam stood on the front porch, wearing an old button-up shirt, right hand holding a coffee mug, left arm—the bandaged one—resting at his side. He stared toward the mine, where gray smoke rose from the shaft entrance.
"Sleep well?" he asked when Ethan stepped out.
"Not much," Ethan answered honestly. "You?"
"I'm used to it." Liam took a sip of coffee. "In the city, small rifts open every night. The sirens become lullabies. I have to be ready at any moment."
Ethan stood beside him, looking in the same direction. From here, he could see the mine gate with its large wooden sign reading "GRAYRIDGE CRYSTAL MINE – D.I.S. CERTIFIED," wooden rails running from inside the mine with carts loaded with stone, and a few workers in safety gear and hard hats with headlamps. Farther back, behind the shaft entrance, a smaller sign warned in red letters: "LEVEL 3 AND BELOW – RESTRICTED."
***
An hour later, Liam led Ethan down into the mine.
Not deep—only to Level 1, where villagers still mined daily. But even here, the air was different. Heavier. The smell of earth mixed with burning metal—traces of anomalous frequency seeping through stone.
Workers greeted Liam when they saw him—everyone remembered Thomas's son, the one who'd descended to Level 5 and lived. They looked at Ethan with eyes both affectionate and worried.
"Bringing the boy down?" an old miner asked Liam. "Be careful. Ground's been shaking more these past few days."
"Just to Level 1," Liam reassured him.
They descended the wooden stairs. Liam's flashlight swept across the stone walls, revealing blue burn marks in strange curves—signs that a rift had once been here—along with small clusters of crystals glittering on the walls and, deeper still, hairline cracks running along the stone like veins.
Liam stopped at a section of wall, tapping lightly. "Hear that?"
Ethan listened. The tap echoed back—but not just that. There was another sound, lower, more persistent: a low hum—like distant machinery running.
"That's the Boundary's resonance. When it nears breaking point, people with high energy can hear it. If you can hear it, it means..."
"My energy is high," Ethan said.
Liam nodded. "That's both a blessing and a curse. You'll see signs others miss. But you're also more easily affected."
"Affected?"
"When a rift opens, people with high energy are more susceptible to influence. Like a magnet to iron. You need to learn how to control your mind."
He pulled something small from his pocket: a bracelet made of thin steel wire, threaded with several low-grade crystals.
"This is a basic stabilization charm. D.I.S. issues them to trainees. It won't increase your EC, but it helps reduce rift influence."
Ethan put it on, feeling a slight weight on his wrist. The crystals warmed gently, as if reacting to his body heat.
"Now," Liam turned his flashlight brighter, "I'll show you Level 2. Where our father used to work."
***
The stairs down to Level 2 were narrower, steeper. The stone walls on either side were no longer smooth—warped, as if crushed by an invisible force. The air was colder, damper, and smelled like metal.
"This level's been closed for two years." Liam's voice echoed in the tunnel. "After Father disappeared. D.I.S. said 'energy exceeded the safety threshold.' But actually..."
He shone his light on a wall. Ethan gasped.
The wall wasn't stone. Or at least, not entirely stone.
The surface was smooth as glass, silvery-gray, with runic patterns running along it—not carved by human hands, but as if growing naturally from within. When Ethan drew closer, he saw the patterns moving very slowly, like flowing water.
"This is a remnant from Realm 4. Fragments from lower layers sometimes 'fall upward' when the Boundary weakens. This stone doesn't belong to Realm 6."
Ethan reached out, wanting to touch it.
"Don't!" Liam held him back. "Touch it bare-handed and you'll be affected. Put on gloves first."
Liam handed Ethan a pair of thick rubber gloves, the kind workers used. Ethan put them on, then slowly placed his hand on the strange stone's surface.
Cold. Colder than ice.
And then—a sensation like a light current running through his hand, up his arm, into his shoulder. Images flashed in Ethan's mind: a ruined city with collapsed towers beneath an ashen sky, humanoid creatures with glowing blue eyes, something massive hovering in mid-air, and among it all, a multi-faceted prism slowly rotating, each face reflecting a different world.
"Enough!" Liam pulled Ethan's hand away.
Ethan panted, head spinning. "I saw... I saw a city. And something... not human."
"Those are memories in the stone. Realm 4 remnants carry 'imprints' of what once existed there. Don't try to look too long."
Ethan nodded, but unease lingered. Because among those images, he'd seen something: a shard of metal like a shattered sword blade. It felt strangely familiar.
***
They returned to Level 1. Liam examined some stone samples, making notes in his journal. Ethan stood aside, watching the miners work.
They used simple tools—picks, shovels, hand hammers. A few had old battery-powered hand drills. When they chipped into the stone, sometimes small blue-glowing crystals were revealed—the target: low-grade crystals, used as fuel for city machinery.
A young miner—Jorin—spotted Ethan and waved.
"Ethan! Down for a visit?"
"Liam's showing me Level 2," Ethan replied.
"Level 2?" Jorin frowned. "That place isn't very safe. Ground's been shaking a lot lately. Yesterday a wall section collapsed, almost crushed Marko."
Liam looked up. "Where did the wall collapse?"
"East side, near the old well." Jorin pointed. "Mr. Harren went down to check, said there were minor tremors, but D.I.S. hasn't come to inspect yet."
Liam and Ethan exchanged glances. Both thought the same thing: minor tremors could very well mean a rift about to open.
"Jorin," Ethan asked, "have you noticed anything strange near there? Strange lights, strange sounds?"
Jorin smiled. "Strange light, yes—blue glow from underground. As for sounds..." He paused, as if remembering something. "One time, last night, I heard what sounded like... whispering. But no one was there."
Liam's face darkened. "Whispering is a sign of Realm 3 leakage. If you can hear it here..."
"It means a rift to Realm 3 might open here," Ethan finished.
Jorin looked at the brothers, worried. "Is it that serious?"
"Don't know yet." Liam stood, patting Jorin's shoulder. "But you should report it to the foreman. Don't let anyone go near that area alone."
***
They left the mine at ten o'clock. The sun had risen high, yellow light filtering through forest branches, painting interlaced patterns of light and shadow on the ground.
On the way back, they passed Lyra's family smithy. The steady hammer beat, sparks flying from the window. Lyra—a girl Ethan's age, the blacksmith's daughter—stood at the door, holding tongs.
"Ethan!" She waved. "Long time no see!"
Ethan smiled awkwardly. "You busy?"
"Very." Lyra gestured at the pile of iron in the yard. "Dad got an order to make knives for the patrol team. They said they need really durable ones, but Dad sent them several samples and they weren't satisfied with any of them. I don't know what to do."
Liam walked over. "Let me see."
He picked up an unfinished blade, examining it closely. "Needs a coating of alloy with ground crystal powder. I can show Mr. Torin how."
Lyra's eyes widened. "You know how?"
"D.I.S. training. Weapons against monsters need certain special materials to prevent corrosion."
While Liam went into the smithy to talk with Mr. Torin, Lyra pulled Ethan aside.
"What's going on?" she asked quietly. "Everyone in the village seems more tense. And there was another explosion at the mine this morning."
Ethan hesitated. He didn't know how much to say. Finally, he said:
"If anything happens, D.I.S. will handle it."
"You trust them?" Lyra's gaze was sharp. "Our village is a mining village. When something happens, they'll worry about the cities first."
Ethan had no answer. Because Lyra was right.
***
That afternoon, Ethan returned to the library.
This time not to read books, but to find something else. In the bottom drawer—where Mrs. Moira kept "no longer needed" documents—was a box containing old maps of Grayridge.
Ethan opened the box, pulling out a hand-drawn map, yellowed with age. It was a map of the mine area from ten years ago, when his father was still alive.
On it, his father had marked several points in red ink. Level 3, west side: "Strange crystal." Level 5, east side: "Wall not stone." And deepest, near the map's bottom: "Cave X – do not enter."
Ethan stared at the last line. Cave X. Father hadn't written the real name, just X.
Perhaps it was somewhere special he didn't want D.I.S. to know about.
He folded the map, tucking it into his pocket. A new plan formed in his mind: if a rift truly opened in Grayridge, he needed to know everything Father had known. Even the things D.I.S. wanted kept secret.
***
Night fell. Ethan lay in bed, unable to sleep.
Through the window, he saw a sky full of stars, but one area darker—as if something was blocking them. The crescent moon hung thin as a knife blade. And far away, toward the forest, a very faint blue streak flashed then vanished.
***
The following morning, when Ethan woke, Liam was already gone.
He ran downstairs to find Maria cooking, her face worried.
"Where did Liam go?" Ethan asked.
"Meeting with the D.I.S. patrol team," Maria replied. "They called him up. Said there's an 'issue requiring consultation.'"
Ethan felt uneasy. "How long has he been gone?"
"Since four o'clock this morning."
Three hours already. Ethan looked at the wall clock, then out the window. The sky was gray, dark clouds rolling in. The wind was stronger than usual, blowing dry leaves against the glass.
And at the horizon, where forest met mountain, Ethan saw something that made his heart stop:
The blue streaks were no longer faint. They were clear, sharp, running along the horizon like cuts in fabric.
The Boundary was weakening faster than predicted.
And somewhere in the village, perhaps right beneath their feet, small rifts were converging, preparing for a major eruption.
"I need to find Liam," he told Maria.
"Don't go!" Maria grabbed his arm. "D.I.S. is meeting. They don't want civilians interfering."
Suddenly, the alarm sounded.
Not the mine siren. But the village-wide rift warning alarm—a deep, long, mournful sound like the trumpet of doomsday.
On the monitoring pillars around the village, lights switched at once from green to red.
Maria gripped Ethan's arm tightly. "It's starting, isn't it?"
Ethan looked outside. In the village's four directions—north, south, east, west—four blue streaks began appearing in the sky, each growing longer, brighter.
And from inside the church, where D.I.S. was meeting, shouts rang out.
***
The alarm hadn't finished when the church doors burst open. The D.I.S. team poured out like a steel tide, black uniforms gleaming under the flashing red warning lights. They didn't run chaotically, but moved in three-person teams, synchronized and deadly.
At the center of the group were three tracked vehicles pulled from inside the church. They looked like nothing Ethan had ever seen in Grayridge: gray alloy bodies covered with solar panels and heat vents, topped with dish-shaped devices and antennas slowly rotating, emitting a continuous whirr.
A commander—voice amplified and echoing throughout the village—shouted orders: "Deploy Frequency Stabilizers! Level E! Prioritize East and North sectors!"
From the vehicles, long cylindrical tubes were lowered. D.I.S. soldiers immediately dragged them toward the four blue streaks in the sky. When the tubes touched ground, they automatically drove deep with a 'PSSSHHH—CLUNK!' of metal. Immediately, blue light from the tube ends shot skyward, not as beams but as flat energy nets, thin as sheets, covering the expanding spatial tears.
'GRRRRRZZZZZT—!'
The sound of energy colliding with the cracking Boundary was like ten thousand giant wasps, all enraged at once. The light nets shook violently, but they worked a miracle: the blue streaks stopped lengthening. They twitched in place, their edges eroding into small bright spots, as if pressed down by invisible glass.
"East sector stability index: 65% and rising! North sector: 59%, needs support!" Another voice rang from the speakers on the vehicles.
In response, from the second vehicle, another device was deployed. It looked like a multi-faceted sphere assembled from artificial crystal plates, set inside a circle drawn by technicians. When the sphere activated, it didn't emit light but absorbed it. The blue glow from the North tear bent and curved, like water flowing into a funnel, forced into the sphere. The sphere changed from transparent to deep blue, vibrating frantically, while the tear in the sky visibly dimmed.
"'Instant Absorption' technology," Maria whispered, eyes wide. "I heard they use it in cities—it's very expensive."
But that wasn't all. While the two large tears were contained, Ethan saw Liam, along with two other D.I.S. personnel, running toward the mine area—where there were no tears in the sky, but the ground trembled slightly. In their hands were T-shaped handheld devices, their ends emitting high-frequency pulses: ping... ping... ping, painfully sharp.
"Underground leak! Prepare liquid stabilizer!" Liam shouted, his voice barely audible in the sea of chaotic sound.
Another worker brought a metal canister, opening the lid. Inside was thick, viscous liquid, shimmering silver. They poured it into a small crack that had just opened in the ground near the mine gate. The liquid flowed down, hissing like water meeting fire, and immediately the crack stopped widening. It was sealed with a hardening silver coating, like a metal scar on the earth's skin.
All of Grayridge was now submerged in a strange theater of light and sound: flashing red warning lights, blue D.I.S. energy, the screech of devices, shouted orders, and the rumbling of the Boundary itself being forced to stabilize.
But Ethan, with his high energy level, sensed what those devices couldn't fully show. Beneath that stable surface, chaos still seethed. The small rifts might have been suppressed, but the pressure for them to become something larger—something worse—was still building, like veins swelling before bursting.
The battle to preserve Grayridge had just begun with an impressive display of technology. But it was only a delay. And what the price of that delay would be, no one in the panicked crowd could know. Only Ethan, with the charm bracelet on his wrist heating up abnormally, knew that the whispers from beneath the earth hadn't truly disappeared.