The sky ripped open at noon.
Kaelen was sitting on the porch, watching Ethan play in the garden. Zara was inside, cooking. The sun was warm. The air was sweet.
Then the sky tore.
A crack of white light, jagged as lightning, stretching from horizon to horizon. No thunder. No wind. Just light and silence.
The crack healed within seconds. But Kaelen saw what was behind it.
A world on fire.
---
Zara ran outside. “What was that?”
“I don't know.”
But he did. Deep in his bones. In the remnants of his implant. In the fading echo of the code.
Something went wrong.
Elara arrived within the hour. Her face was pale.
“The rift—it was a temporal fracture. The timeline you created isn't stable. It's collapsing.”
“Collapsing into what?”
“The original timeline. The one with the war. The Harve
