By morning, the town had learned how to pretend again.
Ethan could feel it in the way people stood a little farther apart at the bus stop, in the way conversations broke off the moment he got close, as if everyone had collectively agreed that yesterday’s glitches—flickering lights, frozen clocks, the strange hush that had rolled through the streets—were best treated as a shared misunderstanding. The official explanation came early: a cascading power anomaly tied to outdated infrastructure near the harbor. Repairs were underway. Everything was fine.
Nothing felt fine.
The compass lay heavy against Ethan’s chest, tucked beneath his hoodie, its steady pulse calmer than the night before but more alert than it had ever been. It wasn’t pointing anywhere specific. It was listening.
At school,
