The official name was The Ministry of Civic Stability — which was funny, because no one in Duskport felt stable anymore.
The Ministry had offices high above the harbor, in a tower of glass that never reflected quite right. Inside, people in gray suits and tired eyes talked about "containment" and "public trust" while pretending the world hadn't just coughed up a new apocalypse.
Dr. Mara Thane sat in one of those offices, staring at a series of monitors that wouldn't stop flickering. Each showed the same feed: the site of last night's collapse — a warehouse gone, a sand crater in its place.
The feed stuttered, then froze. The sand pulsed once.
She frowned. "Run that again."
An assistant leaned over the controls. "Already did. Every time we loop it, it skips three frames."
Mara rubbed her temples. "What's missing?"
"Reality, apparently."
That got her attention. "Cute. Don't quit your day job."
He didn't smile. "Ma'am, the data log shows negative distance readings. Whatever happened there — it didn't explode. It inverted."
"Spatial Substitution." She said it under her breath. The words tasted metallic. "Another one."
⸻
Down in the docks, Nora Vale had no idea who Dr. Thane was, but she'd learned that when official voices started using words like containment and temporary, it meant someone was lying.
The air had been strange all morning — heavy, like someone was pressing a hand over the sky. Her wrist burned under her sleeve, faint and rhythmic. Like the mark was keeping time with something she couldn't hear.
She dropped off her last parcel at the fish market. The man at the stall looked too long at her sleeve. "You're glowing," he said quietly.
Nora tugged it down. "Fashion statement."
"Doesn't suit you."
"Neither does unsolicited advice."
She walked off before he could answer.
⸻
At the Ministry tower, Mara was still trying to explain impossible math to people who thought funding cuts were scarier than the end of the world.
Commander Eryx Varran, head of the Rift Initiative, leaned against the window with his arms crossed, his reflection splitting in the warped glass. "So," he said, "you're telling me a building imploded, the laws of physics left the chat, and we should file this under routine geological event?"
"I'm telling you," Mara said, "that the pattern matches the last two Whispers we suppressed. Minor pulses. But this one's growing. We're looking at a potential Surge."
Varran turned. "And the Riftbound?"
"Rising numbers. More marks reported every hour."
He smiled without warmth. "Excellent. Maybe this time they'll finally be useful."
"Useful?" she repeated.
"We study them, Doctor. Maybe even fix them, if you're feeling humanitarian. But make no mistake — if we can harness whatever keeps them alive, we win. If we can't, we bury the evidence."
He left before she could answer. The lights in the hallway flickered as he went.
⸻
Nora's delivery route took her past a cordoned street — Ministry officers, yellow tape, a lot of guns for people claiming it was a "gas leak."
She kept walking.
A man leaning against the wall fell into step beside her. Torn coat, faint scar at his jawline — and that same silver sheen in one eye.
"Hey, Courier," he said.
She sighed. "You again. Do I have a sign that says Followed by cryptic weirdos?"
He grinned. "You could make it a business. There's a market."
"Pretty sure that market's called therapy."
"Therapy doesn't work on the Riftbound."
"Good thing I'm not one of them."
He didn't argue. "You saw it, didn't you? The warehouse."
Nora's pulse jumped. "Saw what?"
He smirked. "Cute. You've got the shine. You can't lie to people like me."
She glanced at him sideways. "What's your name?"
"Names are for when the world makes sense."
"Then what should I call you?"
He shrugged. "Most people call me dead. You can call me Orren."
She slowed. "You enjoy being dramatic, Orren?"
"It's the only thing left that pays."
⸻
Back at the Ministry, Dr. Thane pulled up a map of Duskport. A ring of red markers blinked along the coast — sites of small anomalies. Whispers. She noticed something new: the gaps between them were shrinking.
The city wasn't breaking randomly. It was being drawn in.
She opened a live satellite feed. The image pixelated, corrected, and pixelated again. For a heartbeat, she saw something beneath the harbor — circular, faintly glowing, like an eye opening under the water.
The feed cut to black.
Her reflection stared back from the screen.
"Oh," she whispered. "We're out of time."
⸻
Nora walked with Orren through the empty alleys. He moved like a man who'd already survived too many endings.
"Ever wonder why some get marked and others don't?" he asked.
"I was hoping it was bad luck."
"It's worse. It's interest." He tapped his temple. "The rift remembers who touched it before."
"And you?"
He smiled without humor. "Let's just say I have a long-distance relationship with hell."
Lightning flashed far off, silent and blue. The wind smelled like metal and salt.
"You said the next one's coming," she said. "How soon?"
Orren looked up at the clouds. They pulsed faintly violet. "You hear that hum?"
"I don't hear anything."
"You will. That's how you know it's a Surge. Whispers whisper. Surges scream."
He stepped back into the shadow. "When it starts, don't look up."
"Why not?"
"Because the sky lies when it breaks."
Then he was gone again, leaving her alone with rain and dread.
⸻
At the tower, alarms blared. The Rift Initiative control room filled with shouting. One of the techs turned white.
"Ma'am, the sensors just spiked—there's energy output off the charts!"
Mara leaned over the console. The readings blurred. "That's not a Whisper," she said. "That's the beginning of a—"
The room flickered. For a second, the lights dimmed and every shadow tilted the wrong way. The floor rippled underfoot.
"Get the word out," she said. "Shut down the docks. Pull the containment grid—"
Varran's voice cut through the chaos: "Too late for that."
Through the tower's glass wall, they saw it: a shimmer rising from the harbor, huge, luminous, wrong. The water bent upward in a spiral. Inside it, pieces of buildings rotated, slow and graceful, like debris caught in a dream.
"God," someone whispered.
"Not this time," Mara said.
———
Nora ran. The street trembled like it was breathing. A low hum filled the air — not sound, more pressure, vibrating in her bones. People stopped. Looked around. Their expressions went blank, like the world had paused to consider them.
Then the hum became a roar.
Lamps burst. Pavement cracked. And from the direction of the harbor came light — impossible light — violet and white, threading through the mist like veins.
Her mark blazed under her sleeve, searing hot. She pulled it back and saw it shining bright as a moon.
The hum stopped. Everything did.
For one impossible heartbeat, the city went still.
Then the sky fractured.
⸻
At the Ministry, the glass wall shattered outward. Dr. Thane hit the floor. Varran braced himself against the railing, staring at the expanding whirlpool below.
"We triggered it," she said, voice shaking.
He smiled. "No, Doctor. We woke it."
⸻
Nora staggered as the street folded inward. The air went thin. Gravity tilted. A ship rose from the harbor like it was falling in reverse.
She tried to run but her feet barely obeyed. The pull came again — stronger now, tearing her toward the water. She grabbed a railing. Her mark burned so bright she could see her bones through her skin.
Someone screamed behind her. She turned just in time to see a woman dissolve mid-step, her body unraveling into light.
The roar hit again. Louder. Endless.
The sky tore open above the harbor — violet, gold, and black. Nora clung to the railing and laughed, half-hysterical.
"Great," she muttered. "Another Tuesday."
The railing snapped.
The world inverted.
⸻
Silence.
Weightlessness.
The taste of salt.
And a voice — not in her head, but all around.
The tide remembers.
Then she fell.
⸻