No one announced the threshold.
There were no sirens, no broadcasts, no sudden shift dramatic enough to point at and say this is where it changed. Instead, the world crossed it quietly, the way water slips from one side of a line to another without breaking its surface.
Ethan noticed it in the small things first.
People paused more often before speaking. Conversations slowed, as if words now carried a weight they hadn’t before. At school, debates that once spiraled into certainty ended with unanswered questions instead. Teachers lingered after class, not to lecture, but to listen.
The compass stayed still.
Not inactive—attentive.
In the lighthouse, Luna felt the same restraint ripple outward. The system had entered a state she had never encountered in the archives or simulations. It
