The news was humming on the wall-mounted TV above the café counter—just a background drone of white noise that usually nobody bothered to track. Today though, the room was eerily focused.
"—reports of unusual electromagnetic interference across multiple major cities—"
Mira stopped with a sandwich halfway to her mouth, her eyes glued to the screen. "Well, that's a new one."
Lucien didn't look up from his coffee immediately, but his shoulders lock. "Solar flare?"
"Solar flares don't make traffic lights reverse their cycles, Lucien," Kaida countered. She wasn't eating; she was just staring at the graininess of the smartphone clips scrolling across the broadcast.
On-screen, the world was fraying. Cars were stalled dead at green lights, streetlamps were blinking in some kind of rhythmic, panicked pulse, and a subway train sat like a ghost ship in the middle of a dark tunnel. The news anchor was wearing that forced, practiced smile that never quite makes it to the eyes.
"Authorities assure the public there is no immediate cause for alarm—"
"Whenever they say that," Garrick muttered into his mug, "there's a damn good reason to start worrying."
Seris leaned in, her arms folded tight across her chest. "My sister's at the hospital. She said their equipment started glitching out at two this morning. Everything needs recalibrating, and the readings are all over the place."
Orion stayed quiet, but he wasn't watching the TV. He was watching Nox.
Nox was staring at the screen, but he was miles away. In the corner of the broadcast, the date was burned into the digital feed: February 18. Twenty-eight days. It was nearly a month earlier than it was supposed to be. In his first life, it had taken weeks for the public to even notice the fringes of the collapse. Now, the world was already unzipping.
"You look like you expected this," Lucien said. He'd dropped his voice into that lower, private register he used when he was actually being serious.
Nox didn't flinch. "I've been reading the journals," he said, keeping his voice flat. "The patterns were there if you looked for them."
"That's not what I meant, and you know it."
Before Nox could find a way to deflect, the café lights gave a sharp, violent flicker. The hum of the refrigerators died, groaned, and then kicked back to life a second later. Everyone in the shop just froze, holding their breath until the overhead LEDs steadied.
Mira slowly lowered her sandwich back to her plate, her appetite clearly gone. "Okay... that was a bit much."
Kaida's eyes narrowed as she looked toward the window. "The sky's been acting weird since dawn. Did you guys see the clouds this morning? They looked like bruised copper."
"You saw that?" Nox asked. The words slipped out before he could stop them.
Lucien's head snapped toward him instantly. "You saw it first, didn't you?"
Nox took a slow breath, trying to pull the conversation back to something boring. "Probably just atmospheric distortion. High-altitude particles or something."
"That's not a real explanation," Mira said, looking unconvinced.
"It is if you say it with enough confidence," Kaida replied, though the usual bite in her voice was missing.
Outside, a massive flock of birds erupted from the trees in the courtyard. They didn't scatter; they moved as a single, panicked wave, wheeling away from the city center in a desperate rush. Lucien stood up abruptly, his chair scraping loudly against the floor.
"I'm going out there."
"Why?" Seris asked.
"Because if the world is actually ending, I'd rather see it with my own eyes than watch it on a screen."
Nox followed him out without a second thought. He couldn't help it; the gravity of the moment was pulling them all toward whatever was coming next.
The air outside felt heavy, charged with a static that made the hair on Nox's arms stand up. Lucien scanned the horizon, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. "Looks normal enough from here."
"It won't for long," Nox whispered.
Lucien turned, his expression unreadable. "What?"
Nox's mind was racing. If the anomalies were hitting this early, the Awakening wouldn't wait for March 18. The entire timeline was collapsing.
Lucien stepped into his space, his gaze piercing. "You keep doing that, Nox."
"Doing what?"
"Looking like you're counting down to something."
Nox almost smiled; a bitter, private little thing. He was counting. "You're imagining things, Lucien."
Lucien held his gaze for a long, heavy second. "...Am I?"
Before Nox could answer, a chorus of digital pings erupted. Every phone in the courtyard buzzed in unison; a frantic, disharmonious ripple of sound. All around them, students were pulling out their screens.
"Well, that's dramatic," Mira said, leaning over to see the notification.
Nox looked at his own phone. An Emergency Broadcast Alert filled the display: Unusual atmospheric readings detected globally. Citizens are advised to remain calm. Further information forthcoming.
Lucien read it over his shoulder. "Atmospheric? That's vague even for a government alert."
Orion joined them, his face pale. "The magnetic field is fluctuating. I just checked the live sensors at the university lab on my phone. The needle is jumping like it's possessed."
"Of course you checked," Mira muttered, but she looked genuinely scared now.
The sky above them seemed to shimmer, a subtle, oily ripple that made the blue look thin, as if it were a curtain about to be pulled back.
Lucien exhaled slowly, a plume of white in the cooling air. "It feels like something's coming. Something big."
Nox didn't respond. He couldn't. He looked down at his right hand, and for a fraction of a second, the air around his fingers distorted. It was barely visible; just a slight blur, like heat rising off a summer road. He clenched his fist until the sensation vanished.
"Bathroom," he said abruptly, turning away from the group.
"You don't look sick," Mira called after him, her brow furrowed in concern.
"I'm fine. Just need a minute."
He walked quickly, ignoring their stares. Once inside the empty hallway of the humanities building, the fluorescent lights hummed with a frantic, dying energy. He locked himself in a stall, leaned his forehead against the cold metal door, and forced his pulse to slow down.
In his first life, his power had erupted in a violent surge during the moment of his death. It had been raw, desperate, and terrifying. Now, it was a dormant weight in his chest, waiting for a spark. He held his palm out, focusing on the memory of that last moment; the refusal to let go, the sense that fate was a thread he could grasp and pull.
For a heartbeat, reality folded.
The sound of the hallway went dead silent. The hum of the building's electricity dropped an octave, and his phone screen flickered to life on the floor. Across the black display, a single word appeared in stark, white text. It wasn't a text message or an alert.
...Early.
Nox's breath caught in his throat. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the word vanished, leaving the screen blank.
"Early," he whispered to the empty stall.
The Awakening wasn't just happening; it was shifting. If the timeline was no longer a perfect circle, then the ending wasn't a certainty anymore. He could change it. He had to change it.
Outside, he could hear Lucien calling his name. Nox closed his eyes, took one final breath to steady his nerves, and pushed the door open. By the time he stepped back into the courtyard, his face was a mask of perfect, detached calm. But beneath the surface, his heart was a drum.
Twenty-eight days. Or less.