The first thing Ethan noticed was how quickly the world tried to organize what it didn’t understand.
By morning, the mystery had been sliced into headlines, boxed into panels, and flattened into talking points. News anchors spoke with practiced calm about “the Lighthouse Event,” as if naming it reduced its power. Experts debated terminology—phenomenon, anomaly, technological breach—while carefully avoiding the word that hovered just beneath every sentence: change.
Ethan watched none of it directly. He felt it instead, like pressure building in the air, like a weather system forming around him. The compass no longer pulsed sharply; it maintained a steady warmth, constant and alert, as if listening to the world listen back.
Outside, unfamiliar cars parked along the street. Not official en
