The future does not ask.
That is what unsettles everyone first.
There is no announcement. No omen. No quiet understanding shared in dreams or prayers. The future does not arrive like Heaven once did, with structure and expectation folded neatly inside it.
It simply… begins.
A bridge is built where no route was approved.
A school opens without charter or blessing.
A settlement relocates overnight, not because it must, but because it wants to.
When questioned, the answer is always the same.
“We didn’t need permission.”
The words ripple outward, not as rebellion, but as fact.
Kael hears it during a routine check-in with border coordinators.
“We’re expanding east,” one of them says casually. “The land’s workable, and people volunteered.”
Kael blinks. “You didn’t submit a proposal.”
