Snow fell heavier by the time Rian reached the bus stop.
His hands were buried deep in his jacket pockets, shoulders hunched against the wind. He waited under the flickering streetlight, breath fogging the air in slow bursts, eyes drifting across the quiet Ontario street.
His fingers brushed fabric.
He paused.
Checked again.
Empty.
Rian blinked, then exhaled sharply. "Seriously…?"
His phone. Left behind on the counter. Probably next to the lottery tickets.
He glanced down the road toward the store, its fluorescent glow dim through the snowfall. The bus schedule ticked in his head. Late already. Turning back meant waiting longer. Maybe tomorrow.
He hesitated.
The streetlight above him flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Rian looked up.
A low pressure pressed against his skull—not pain, just wrong. Like standing too close to heavy machinery you couldn't see. The air felt thicker. Harder to breathe.
A dog barked somewhere nearby. High. Panicked. It didn't stop.
Then the snow changed.
It didn't fall anymore.
Each flake slowed, drifting as if caught in hesitation, hanging just a fraction longer in the air before touching the ground. Some never did. They hovered, trembling, rotating on invisible axes.
Rian swallowed.
His breath came out uneven.
The barking stopped.
Not faded—cut. As if something had pressed mute on the sound itself.
A faint hum filled the street. Low. Continuous. Not coming from any one direction, but from everywhere at once. It crawled under his skin, vibrating in his teeth.
A parked car's radio snapped on by itself.
Static burst out—then warped, stretching into a distorted whine before dying completely. The headlights followed, blinking out one by one down the street like candles in wind.
A sharp beep cut through the hum.
Then another.
Car alarms began triggering down the street, not all at once, but in a staggered rhythm—one after another, overlapping, desynced.
BEEP—BEEP—BEEEEEP.
Some blared and died immediately. Others wailed continuously, their lights flashing weakly before cutting out mid-pulse. One car's horn stuck, releasing a long, broken cry before choking into silence.
People stepped out of doorways.
A man in a heavy coat stared at his dead phone, tapping the screen harder each time. A woman dragged her child closer, eyes fixed on the frozen snow, whispering something Rian couldn't hear over the alarms.
"Mom?" a small voice asked.
A boy stood near the bus shelter, no older than eight, mittened hands raised as he tried to catch a snowflake that refused to fall. His fingers passed straight through it.
"It's not real," someone muttered. "This isn't real."
A teenager laughed once—sharp and panicked—before the sound cracked and died in his throat.
A stroller rolled forward on its own, nudged by nothing Rian could see, until its wheel caught on the curb. The baby inside began to cry, the sound thin and distorted, like it was coming from underwater.
Rian moved before he thought.
The stroller was already tipping as the wheel jammed against the curb, the front lifting just enough to make his chest tighten. He broke into a run, boots slipping on ice, breath tearing out of him in a sharp gasp.
"Hey—!"
He caught the handle just in time.
The stroller rocked once, hard, then settled. The crying spiked, then steadied, small hands flailing under a blanket dusted with unmoving snow.
Rian held it there for a second longer than necessary, fingers locked tight, heart hammering so hard it drowned out the alarms.
A woman rushed toward him.
She looked pale. Younger than he'd expected. Her eyes flicked from the stroller to his face and back again, wide and glassy.
"Oh—oh my god," she said, grabbing the handle. "Thank you. Thank you— I looked away for one second."
"It—it just rolled," Rian managed. His voice sounded distant to his own ears. "I think the ground—"
She didn't let him finish. She pulled the stroller back, turning it sideways, one arm wrapped protectively around it as if the world might lurch again at any moment.
"Thank you," she said again, quieter this time.
Then she was gone, retreating toward the nearest building, boots crunching too loudly against the snow that still refused to fall.
Rian stayed where he was.
His hands shook.
He lowered them slowly, flexing his fingers, trying to ground himself in the sting of cold, the ache in his palms—anything normal.
The alarms continued their broken chorus.
Rian turned in a slow circle, eyes darting from face to face, window to window, street to street, searching for something that explained what he was seeing.
Nothing did.
People were shouting now. Crying. Praying. Arguing. Some stood frozen, staring upward at the suspended snow like it might suddenly decide to crush them.
Rian swallowed hard.
What is happening…?
The hum deepened.
Rian's breath fogged in short, uneven bursts.
The street felt wrong.
Not just quiet. Not just frozen. It was the kind of wrong that sat under the skin, a pressure that made his shoulders tense without permission. Like being watched—not by eyes, but by weight.
His gaze drifted back toward the convenience store.
The thought wasn't conscious at first. It didn't arrive as logic. It pulled at him instead, a tightness in his chest, a faint twist in his gut.
There.
The glass storefront glowed faintly through the snowfall, fluorescent lights buzzing steadily, stubbornly alive while everything else failed. The contrast made his teeth ache.
Rian frowned.
His feet shifted without him telling them to. One step. Then another—angled toward the store, away from the bus stop. The farther he turned from it, the worse the pressure felt, like walking against a current that didn't want to let him go.
His head throbbed.
Why there?
He swallowed hard, trying to steady himself. Tried to tell himself it was nothing. Stress. Cold. Adrenaline from stopping the stroller.
But his eyes wouldn't leave the building.
The hum deepened—not louder, but closer. More personal. It vibrated behind his eyes, crawled along his spine.
Rian's fingers curled into fists.
Something was about to happen.
Not here.
Not in the street.
From the place he had just walked out of.
The automatic doors slid open with a soft chime as someone exited the store—and for a split second, the pressure spiked so hard Rian nearly staggered.
His vision blurred.
The snow trembled.
Rian sucked in a sharp breath.
"…No," he whispered, though he didn't know why.
Whatever was coming—
—it was coming through there.
And Rian stood frozen between running away and running back toward it.