The compass should have stopped.
That thought came to Ethan before fear did, before grief, before the questions that kept clawing at his chest. It arrived quietly, fully formed, like a rule that had always existed and was only now being remembered. Some rules were written down. Others were never spoken aloud, but people believed in them anyway because believing made things easier to survive.
Broken things stopped working.
Lost people stayed lost.
Stories ended when the path collapsed.
That was how the world made sense.
That was how it stayed manageable.
The rule was simple: a broken compass meant a broken story.
Except the compass hadn’t stopped.
It rested in Ethan’s palm, heavier than it should have been, the metal cool at first touch and then slowly warming, as if responding to
