Morning didn't bring relief.
It brought headlines.
Aria sat on the edge of a narrow couch in the safe house, the fabric rough against her bare legs. The room smelled like stale coffee, antiseptic, and iron. Somewhere down the hall, a generator coughed and steadied itself, feeding power into a building that was trying to pretend it wasn't afraid of the dark.
On the small TV mounted above the counter, a news anchor spoke with the kind of calm that only existed when fear was already winning.
"—officials say the 'time distortion events' remain localized, but residents are urged to avoid coastal zones and report any visual anomalies…"
The screen split into shaky phone footage. A streetlight stuttering. A car horn repeating the same note like a record stuck. A woman's voice screaming, "My baby just—she was right there—" before the video cut.
Aria's fingers tightened around the paper cup in her hand. The coffee inside had gone cold hours ago. She hadn't noticed.
