— Pre-Fissure Static
The room met them with a kind of silence that felt arranged—too still, too held, like everything inside it was waiting for someone to slip. Calyx stepped through the threshold first, but stopped halfway, shoulders tightening as if the air snagged on him. Sera felt it too. Not danger exactly—just a wrongness so delicate it brushed instead of struck. A single data tile on the central desk sat at an angle that didn’t match the rest. Small. Insignificant. Except the room was the kind that didn’t allow “accidents.” Sera’s breath caught. She reached for Calyx’s sleeve without thinking, her fingers tightening just long enough for him to glance back at her. He crossed to the desk slowly, each step measured, like he didn’t want to startle whatever truth was watching them. When his fingertips to
- Writer
