The rain is not a sound; it is a percussion of cold, rhythmic needles against the skin. At sixteen, Audiam's world is defined by these tactile boundaries. She stands on the back porch of their suburban home, her palms pressed flat against the wooden railing. The wood is saturated, swollen with moisture, and through it, she feels the distant, muffled thrum of a localized thunderstorm. But there is a secondary rhythm—a sharp, erratic staccato that doesn't belong to the weather.
It is the house. The structure is vibrating at a frequency that makes the hair on her arms stand up. It feels like the air is being stripped of its weight, becoming thin and ionized.
Inside, the kitchen is a stage of frantic, silent motion. Her mother is at the counter, her hands moving in a blurred sequence of signs as she argues with the television. The screen is a chaos of digital artifacts—jagged horizontal lines and neon-green flares that obscure the news anchor's face. The ticker-tape at the bottom is the only reliable source of information, though it reads like a fever dream of atmospheric jargon.
...COSMIC RAY FLUX DETECTED... IONOSPHERIC COLLAPSE OBSERVED OVER SEVERAL LATITUDES... ANOMALOUS STATIC DISCHARGES REPORTED IN RESIDENTIAL AREAS...
Audiam's father is by the window, his fingers white-knuckled around the handle of a mug. He isn't looking at the screen. He is looking at the sky. Above the treeline, the "scratch" she saw earlier has widened. It is no longer a shimmering line; it is a refractive distortion, a bruise in the atmosphere that bends the sunlight into impossible colours. It looks like oil on water, a swirling, iridescent fracture that seems to suck the light out of the surrounding clouds.
He turns to Audiam, his signs slow and heavy, as if the air itself has become viscous.
"The radio is dead. The car won't start. It's the EMI—the electromagnetic interference. Everything with a circuit is fried."
Audiam moves back into the kitchen, her bare feet sensitive to the microscopic tremors in the linoleum. She approaches the younger Buddy, who is pacing a tight circle near the refrigerator. The Golden Retriever's hackles are raised, and his eyes are wide, showing the whites. He isn't barking—he is whining, a high-frequency vibration that Audiam feels as a sharp prickling in her teeth.
She drops to her knees and pulls him close. His heart is a frantic drum against her ribs. Beside them, the puppy Paw-paw is under the table, his small body curled into a ball of shivering fur. He is too young to understand the fear, but he is a biological sensor, his ears twitching at frequencies that are beginning to warp the very physics of the room.
Audiam reaches for her hearing aids, sitting on the charging dock near the toaster. She hasn't worn them all morning; she hates the way they turn the world into a cacophony of distorted hums. But now, she feels a desperate need for a data point. She fits the mould into her ear and clicks the switch.
A scream of feedback hits her like a physical blow.
It isn't the usual whistle of a poorly fitted mood. It is a roar of static—white, searing, and jagged. It sounds like a million voices whispering at once, overlaid with the crackle of a forest fire. She rips the device out of her ear, her eyes watering. The electronic "voice" of the world has gone mad.
"Don't touch them," her mother signs, her face pale. "The static is everywhere. Even the phones are hot to the touch."
Her mother moves to the sink to splash water on her face, but as she turns the handle, she freezes. The water doesn't flow in a steady stream. It comes out in disjointed globs, as if gravity is struggling to hold it together. The droplets hover for a fraction of a second before splashing into the basin.
The elixir is already beginning to act strangely.
"We need to go," her father signs, his movements becoming more urgent. "If the electronics are failing, the infrastructure is next. The pumps, the grid, the water mains—it's all going to lock up."
Audiam watches his hands, but her attention is pulled back to the window. The sky is no longer blue. It is a deep, bruised violet, and the fracture is beginning to pulse. It radiates a low-frequency hum that she can feel in her marrow—a piezoelectric pressure that makes her bones ache.
Outside, a neighbour's car alarm begins to go off, though the sound is distorted, a warbling, mournful cry that dies as quickly as it started. People are emerging from their houses, their bodies silhouetted against the strange, shimmering light. They are looking up; their mouths open in silent questions.
A car at the end of the driveway suddenly lurches forward, its headlights flashing in a rapid, erratic strobe. There is no one behind the wheel. The vehicle's computer has succumbed to the atmospheric static, its logic gates firing at random. It crashes into a mailbox with a dull, heavy vibration that Audiam feels through the floorboards.
Then, the first "Shadow" appears.
It isn't a Watcher—not yet. It is a localized vitrification of the air itself. Near the neighbour's fence, a patch of atmosphere suddenly hardens. It looks like a ripple of glass, a three-dimensional distortion that catches the violet light. For a heartbeat, it is there—a shimmering, crystalline ghost—and then it shatters into a cloud of fine, grey ash that vanishes before it hits the ground.
Buddy sees it. He lunges toward the window, his body a tense arc of aggression. He lets out a single, sharp bark—a vibration that Audiam feels in the air around her head.
"Did you see that?" she signs to her mother, her fingers trembling.
Her mother doesn't answer. She is staring at the television. The screen has finally stabilized, but the image is a nightmare. It is a live feed from a city—New York or Chicago, it doesn't matter. The sky there is a jagged hole of pure white light. And standing in the streets, motionless as statues, are the grey silhouettes.
They are the Watchers, and they have arrived in the millions.
"They aren't moving," her father signs, his eyes fixed on the screen. "The news says they're like stone. They're just... standing there."
But Audiam knows better. She can feel the frequency they are emitting. It is a hunger. It is a predatory stillness. She looks at the dogs—the young, vibrant Buddy and the tiny, terrified Paw-paw. They are her only true connection to the world now. The hearing people are distracted by the sights and the sounds, but Audiam is tuned into the vibration of the threat.
The house shudders. A window in the living room cracks, a single, long fracture snaking across the glass. The air in the kitchen suddenly smells of ozone and wet stone—the scent of the "Other Side" bleeding through the Gate.
"Pack the bags," her father signs, his expression hardening. "No electronics. Just the essentials. Water. Food. Blankets."
Audiam moves to her room, her mind a whirlwind of static and fear. She grabs her backpack, her movements mechanical. She doesn't take her books or her laptop. She takes a heavy flashlight, a multi-tool, and a thick, wool sweater.
She stops by her mirror. She looks at herself—sixteen, scared, and living in a world that has just broken its own rules. She catches her reflection's eyes and makes a single sign to herself, a fist pressed against her forehead.
Strength.
As she heads back to the kitchen, the lights in the house flicker one last time and then die, plunging the room into a deep, violet gloom. The only light comes from the sky, where Hell's Gate is wide open, casting long, distorted shadows across the floor.
The "Normal World" is officially a memory.
They move to the garage, their footsteps heavy and hollow. Her father tries to open the electric garage door, but it is dead. He has to pull the emergency release cord; the sound of the metal tracks a grinding vibration that Audiam feels in her teeth.
They step out into the driveway. The air is cold now, a sudden, unnatural chill that hasn't been there before. The neighbourhood is a gallery of confusion. People are shouting, though Audiam only sees the frantic movements of their mouths. Some are trying to start their cars; others are simply sitting on their lawns, staring at the sky.
Audiam looks down the street. In the shade of a large oak tree, one of the gray silhouettes is standing. It is perfectly still, its edges blurred and ashen. It looks like a statue made of smoke.
A neighbour, a man Audiam has known her whole life, approaches the silhouette. He is holding a cell phone, trying to take a picture. He gets closer and closer, his hand outstretched to touch the thing.
"Stop!" Audiam tries to scream, but the word is just a breathy rasp in her throat. She signs frantically, but the man isn't looking at her.
He reaches out. His fingers brush the grey surface.
The reaction is instantaneous. The "Watcher" doesn't strike; it simply unfolds. The UV-stasis that held it in place is broken by the physical contact or perhaps the man's shadow falling across it. In a blur of motion that defies the laws of biology, the grey shape expands.
Audiam feels the vibration of the impact—a sickening, heavy thud.
The man is gone. There is only a pile of grey ash where he stood, and the silhouette has returned to its motionless state, now slightly larger, slightly more defined.
The realization hits her like a wave of ice water. They aren't just watching. They are consuming.
"Go! Now!" her father signs, his face a mask of pure terror.
They don't use the car. They can't. They begin to run, their boots hitting the asphalt in a frantic, uneven rhythm. Buddy leads the way, his tail tucked but his head held high, scanning for the shadows. Audiam carries Paw-paw, the puppy's heart beating against her chest like a trapped bird.
As they reach the end of the block, the sun begins to dip behind the horizon. The violet light of the sky deepens into a bruised black.
And all around them, in the growing shadows, the statues begin to stir.