There was no sky.
Just noise that looked like light.
Nora fell through it, tumbling between worlds that didn't agree on gravity or color.
One moment she was in the harbor — salt water, wind, screaming metal — and the next she was somewhere between, where the air tasted like static and glass.
Her own voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere.
Don't look up.
She did anyway.
Above her, the sky flickered — not blue, not even real — more like shattered mirrors reflecting different worlds. Cities hanging upside down. Forests made of bone. A desert where stars crawled across the sand like insects.
She reached for something solid. Her fingers passed through a wall that wasn't a wall at all — just a ripple between versions of existence.
The mark on her wrist burned like it wanted to crawl out of her skin.
Somewhere behind her, a voice whispered — or maybe remembered itself aloud:
The tide remembers.
Then everything fell silent.
⸻
She woke with a mouthful of dirt.
The world had stopped shaking, but the air hummed like it didn't know what stillness meant anymore.
She pushed herself up. The sky was a dull violet, cracked like old paint. Half the horizon looked like Duskport — or what was left of it. The other half was something else entirely: broken towers, strange trees, and shards of ocean floating midair.
Her lungs stung when she breathed. The ground smelled like rust and salt.
"Okay," she rasped, coughing. "I'm… either dead or in someone's fever dream."
A voice groaned nearby. "If this is a dream, it's a low-budget one."
Nora turned. A man lay half-buried in a patch of glowing moss — younger than the stranger at the pier, older than her, with the haunted look of someone who'd already used up their lifetime's worth of near-death experiences.
He sat up, rubbed his temples, then blinked at her. "You're alive. That's disappointing."
"Trust me, it's mutual."
He grinned, teeth bright against the dirt. "Drifters, huh? You new?"
"Define new."
"You're still asking questions instead of running. That's new."
He hauled himself to his feet and brushed off his coat. "Name's Kael."
"Nora."
He squinted at her mark. "First pull?"
"Yeah. How'd you guess?"
"You still have hope in your eyes."
"Tragic."
"Yeah, it'll fade."
⸻
Around them, the landscape shifted — literally. Distant buildings slid sideways like chess pieces, melting into something else. A lamppost twisted into a tree. The tree blinked, then turned to smoke.
"What the hell is this place?" Nora asked.
Kael smirked. "Welcome to the Riftzone. World's worst collage."
She stared. "You've been here before."
"Once or twice. I don't recommend it." He bent down, picked up a rock that immediately dissolved into sand. "Physics takes coffee breaks here."
"So how do we get out?"
He gave her a look. "You don't. Not until it lets you."
"'It'? The Rift?"
"Call it what you want. Some say it's alive. Some say it's God trying to erase its mistakes."
"And you?"
He shrugged. "I think it's bored."
⸻
They started walking. The ground crackled faintly underfoot. Fragments of street signs jutted from the soil — half Duskport, half something written in a language she didn't know.
Nora tried to focus on the practical. "If others were pulled in, we should find them."
"Sure. If they didn't turn."
She stopped. "Turn?"
Kael's tone softened — just barely. "The Rift doesn't like ordinary humans. Tears them apart. If they're unlucky, it puts them back together wrong."
"So… monsters."
"Yeah. But technically local residents."
Something screeched in the distance — a sound too high and too long to be human. Kael didn't flinch. Nora's grip tightened on her knife.
He noticed. "Silver. Smart girl."
"Don't call me that."
"Fine. Smart idiot."
⸻
They reached what looked like a street. At least, the cobblestones were pretending to be one. The air shimmered. For a second, Nora thought she saw her old apartment, flickering faintly above them like a memory projected onto the clouds.
Kael followed her gaze. "Don't look too long. The sky lies."
It was the same phrase the stranger had said. The same words Orren had warned.
Nora lowered her eyes. "What does it want from us?"
Kael chuckled darkly. "If you ever find out, let me know. I've been asking for years."
⸻
The ground trembled again. This time it didn't stop. Cracks raced across the cobblestones, spilling pale light.
Kael cursed. "Run."
They did.
The street folded behind them like paper. Buildings bent inward, twisting around a hole that shouldn't have existed.
Nora jumped over a collapsing fence, landed hard, rolled. Her knife clattered away. She reached for it, but something grabbed her ankle. Cold. Wrong.
A hand — no, a shape of a hand — reached out of the ground, made of shadow and glass.
Kael lunged, pulling her free. His eyes flashed with faint silver light. The shadow recoiled.
"What was that?" she gasped.
He didn't answer. Instead, he pulled a small glass vial from his coat and smashed it on the ground. Smoke burst upward, forming a shimmering barrier.
"Temporary ward," he said, panting. "We stay inside till the tremor passes."
She glanced around the glowing smoke circle. "This is your plan?"
He smirked. "It's kept me alive this long."
"How long is that?"
"Depends which world's calendar you're using."
⸻
The tremor faded. The light in the cracks dimmed. For a moment, there was silence again.
Nora sat down hard, heartbeat still racing. "So, Kael, what's your deal? Professional apocalypse tourist?"
He chuckled. "Something like that. Used to work for the Ministry before they decided we were expendable."
Her head snapped up. "You were with them?"
"Rift Initiative. The first batch."
"Then you knew this would happen."
"I knew they were lying about stopping it. That's different."
She stared at him. "You sound like you don't care."
"I don't have the luxury." He met her eyes. "Listen, kid. The Rift doesn't care who you were. Only who you become."
"That supposed to be motivational?"
"Not really."
⸻
Something flickered nearby — a light, small and human-shaped. Nora rose carefully.
"Don't," Kael warned.
But she moved closer anyway. Curiosity was her worst habit.
The light resolved into a figure — a woman, pale and thin, wearing what might once have been a Ministry uniform. Her eyes were hollow, her smile too wide.
She raised a hand and whispered, "The sky lies."
Then she shattered into dust.
Nora froze. Kael just sighed. "That's what I meant by turned."
⸻
They found shelter under a half-collapsed archway that looked part cathedral, part subway entrance. The air buzzed faintly.
Nora stared out into the dark. "You think anyone else survived?"
"Maybe. But the Rift isn't random. It pulls the ones it wants."
"Why us?"
Kael didn't answer. He looked up at the violet sky where something vast and luminous moved behind the clouds — watching.
Finally, he said, "Maybe we're the only ones still stupid enough to fight it."
⸻
When Nora finally drifted into uneasy sleep, she dreamed of water whispering her name and the mark on her wrist glowing brighter — as if the tide itself was calling her home.