Jeff crossed the threshold.
The space beneath the cathedral's portico contracted abruptly.
Patch stopped short.
Its paws struck stone but failed to settle, claws trembling, ears flattened into a single line. Its tail pressed tight against its hind legs, body recoiling by a single inch.
Ayla remained outside.
She did not enter.
Her gaze traced the dome's silhouette before dropping to the seams in the stone floor. The lines stretched deeper than sight should allow.
"Structural proximity to critical," she said.
Her voice was barely above a whisper. Dust stirred in the air as her breath disturbed it—then settled again.
Jeff did not respond.
A sentence cut through his awareness, unmistakably his own voice, distant and flat:
—Too late.
Jeff drew in a sharp breath.
The next second, a dull rupture echoed from within the cathedral.
Space expelled violently.
Stone groaned as fractures propagated through the structure.
Beneath the dome, pressure zones segmented and collapsed inward.
The tourists had no idea what was happening.
Several stopped at once—looked up, then sharply down—as their bodies swayed.
An older man reached for a column. His hand met stone half a foot lower than expected. He pitched forward, knees striking the ground with a heavy thud.
Rubble fell. Walls shifted out of alignment.
Then the screams began.
A section of load-bearing wall beneath an arch tilted. Stones did not drop straight down—they slid sideways, skimming through the air before striking the floor, releasing a choking burst of limestone dust.
The ground bulged into a shallow arc. Some who stepped onto it sank unnaturally into the raised earth.
People fell to their knees. Others were shoved aside. Some remained standing but lost their center of gravity, colliding into strangers—cries delayed by half a beat.
Jeff moved.
Not toward the center.
He ran against the flow, toward a side corridor—severely tilted, not yet collapsed. There was still time.
Enough time to pull people out.
Patch was ahead of him.
It leapt onto a fractured edge, paws landing on a protruding stone that should not have existed. Its body snapped taut, tail vertical.
A child was knocked airborne—caught in Jeff's arms just in time.
The protruding stone vanished.
Ayla worked the perimeter.
She did not assess the whole—only what her skin could feel. Where the ground responded, there was a path.
She seized a woman's arm and hurled her toward the exit.
As she turned, the corner of her eye caught movement along the dome's inner shadow.
Something writhed there.
Its edge briefly aligned with the curve of the arch—like fingers pressed into wet clay and withdrawn, the indentation sealing itself behind.
Each movement distorted the echo. Sound arrived from all directions at once, scrambling perception.
A Failed Construct had manifested.
Occupying space. Compressing an already unstable structure.
Emilia was grazed by a sliding stone slab and thrown against the wall.
Her back struck hard—dull impact threaded with fine cracking sounds. A breathless grunt forced its way from her throat as she held.
She regained her footing seconds later. Red bloomed across her shoulder. Her fingers clenched into a fist—while her other hand lifted, just half an inch, toward Jeff.
Jeff caught the motion in the corner of his eye.
His step faltered. Numbness surged into his fingers. His chest felt suddenly weighted with lead.
But he did not turn back.
Another section was folding. A single second meant another death.
He chose the corridor with the fewest bodies.
The Construct slid along the arch, briefly conforming to the building's curvature. Stone shed wherever it passed.
Patch cut in again—slamming into a displaced load-bearing line. Its body was thrown back half a foot, but the collapse angle shifted by a few degrees.
The stones fell wide.
No one was hit.
The air thickened into something heavy, metallic. Breathing became labor.
Someone screamed, trapped beneath rubble—the sound smothered in the dense pressure. Others never made it out in time. Falling stone finally caught up, landing in a succession of blunt impacts.
Jeff shoved the last person through the exit.
The voice returned:
—Not finished.
He looked up.
The dome continued to tilt. The core had not yet collapsed—but it would not hold much longer.
Limestone and blood mingled in the air, clinging and thick.
Screams overlapped, stretched by distorted echoes into an indistinct roar that burrowed into the ears.
Jeff stood at the threshold, chest heaving.
This time—
he didn't know where to save first.