Aren liked mornings because nothing expected anything from him.
The street outside his window was narrow and familiar, the kind that looked the same whether you remembered it or not. Stone buildings leaned inward just enough to block the sun until late morning, and when the light finally reached the ground it did so gently, as if afraid of startling anyone.
He woke before the bells, as he always did.
There was no reason for it. His work did not demand early hours, nor did anyone wait for him anywhere. Still, his body rose from sleep with practiced ease, as though it had learned long ago that staying still too long invited something unpleasant.
He dressed, washed his face, and stood for a moment by the window.
Nothing moved.
That was not unusual. The Still Vale had a habit of pausing like this, suspended between moments. People would emerge soon enough. Shops would open. Voices would fill the space. But for a few breaths each morning, the world held itself together without sound.
Aren found comfort in that.
He stepped outside, locking the door behind him. The air was cool, untouched by wind. A single leaf lay in the centre of the street, unmoving. He noticed it and then looked away, annoyed with himself for noticing at all.
He walked.
The bakery on the corner greeted him with warmth and the smell of bread. The baker nodded, not bothering with words. Aren returned the gesture, exchanged a few coins, and took the loaf wrapped in thin paper.
No conversation. No questions.
Exactly as he preferred.
As he continued down the street, Aren became aware of a familiar thought settling at the back of his mind, quiet but persistent.
Nothing ever happens here.
He did not think it with relief or disappointment. It was simply a fact, like the weight of the bread in his hands or the sound of his footsteps against stone.
Nothing ever happens here.
The square opened before him, wide and empty. At its centre stood the old clock tower, its face cracked but its hands reliable. Aren glanced up just in time to see the minute hand tick forward.
For a moment, he felt watched.
The sensation passed quickly, leaving behind a faint tightness in his chest. He slowed, then stopped entirely, standing alone in the middle of the square.
Something was wrong.
Not visibly. The sky was clear. The stone beneath his feet was solid. But the air felt… thin. As if the world had inhaled and forgotten how to exhale.
Aren frowned.
He took a step forward—and froze.
Sound dimmed.
Not vanished, not cut away, but stretched. The distant clatter of shutters opening dragged into a low hum. His own breath sounded too loud, too close.
Ahead of him, on the far side of the square, a carriage had broken loose.
Its horses were gone, traces of panic scattered in hoofprints and torn leather. The carriage itself rolled freely down the sloped street, wheels rattling faster and faster as it gained momentum. At the bottom of that slope stood the market road.
Stalls. People. Children.
Aren's mind went empty.
He knew, with sudden and absolute certainty, that there was no time.
No one else had noticed yet. The sound had not returned to normal. The world still lingered in that stretched, waiting state.
The carriage was coming too fast.
There was nothing he could do.
That thought barely finished forming before another took its place—smaller, quieter, and far more dangerous.
Not like this.
The world hesitated.
Aren did not raise his hands. He did not shout. He did not even fully understand what he was thinking. There was no wish, no command, no shape to the impulse that rose from somewhere deep inside him.
There was only refusal.
The stone beneath the carriage cracked—not shattered, but folded inward, sinking just enough to catch the wheels. The axle bent at an impossible angle. The carriage lurched, slowed, and toppled harmlessly onto its side, momentum bleeding away as though it had never existed.
The noise returned all at once.
Shouts echoed. Feet ran. Someone screamed, more from surprise than fear.
Aren stood where he was, heart pounding, bread forgotten at his side.
No one was hurt.
Not a single stall was damaged. The carriage lay tilted, intact, as if it had always been meant to stop there.
People gathered quickly, voices overlapping in confusion and relief. Someone laughed shakily. Someone else clapped a hand over their mouth.
Aren stared at the cracked stone, at the way it had given way so cleanly, so precisely.
That shouldn't have worked.
The thought struck him with unsettling clarity.
He stepped back, blending into the edge of the crowd as others took over—lifting the carriage, speculating loudly, already reshaping the moment into something manageable and ordinary.
Within minutes, the square began to settle.
Too quickly.
No one lingered on the danger. No one asked how close it had been. The stalls reopened. Conversations resumed. A child chased a rolling apple across the stone, laughing.
Aren stood very still.
For a moment, Aren felt relieved that nothing had to change.
The feeling surprised him.
He pushed it away immediately, ashamed of its presence. Of course he was relieved. Anyone would be. The day had nearly turned into something else—something sharp and irreversible.
It hadn't.
That was all.
He told himself it had been luck. Poor construction. A fortunate angle. The sort of thing that happened sometimes, even if no one could explain it properly.
The explanations piled neatly in his mind, one on top of another, until there was no space left for questions.
He turned and walked home.
The street looked exactly as it had that morning. The leaf was gone. The light had shifted. Everything fit.
That night, sleep came slowly.
When it did, Aren dreamed of a horizon without colour.
There was no ground beneath his feet and no sky above him—only white, stretching endlessly in all directions. The space felt vast, but not empty. It felt held.
Someone stood ahead of him.
The figure was familiar in a way Aren could not name. Not older, not younger—just knowing. They did not speak or move, only watched him with an expression that was neither judgment nor kindness.
Aren tried to ask a question, but the words would not form.
The figure turned away instead, stepping forward into the white.
For a brief, terrifying instant, Aren considered calling out. Asking it to stop. Asking it to wait.
He didn't.
He woke before the bells, heart steady, the memory already fading at the edges.
Outside, the Still Vale held its breath—content, for now, to remain exactly as it was.