After a short while, everyone was gone.
Cole and Bern sat outside against the concrete wall, a half-burned cigarette passing between them. The cold cement at their backs felt grounding somehow—steady in a world that wasn't steady anymore.
The other three who were supposed to stay?
They left anyway.
They all had families, which was reasonable. Bern still tried to pull rank on them, voice raised, veins popping.
It failed. Miserably.
Now it was just the two of them.
Bern nudged Cole with two fingers, wordlessly asking for the cigarette back. Cole handed it over. He wasn't a smoker—never had been—but something about the moment made him want to pretend. Pretend he belonged here. Pretend this was normal.
Bern took the last long drag, held it in his lungs like it mattered, then flicked the butt across the motor pool. The tiny ember arced through the rain before dying on the wet pavement.
They had no idea what to do now.
Everything was locked. Every truck put away. Every armory door sealed. The job was technically finished. They could leave. Go home.
But neither of them moved.
Cole glanced over at Bern.
The sergeant stared straight ahead, rain dripping off the bill of his patrol cap.
Does he not have a family? Cole wondered.
He must. He's older than me.
But the longer he looked, the more he recognized the expression on Bern's face.
That quiet emptiness.
That nowhere-to-go feeling.
That strange, familiar loneliness.
Deep down, Cole knew they were similar.
Not in personality.
Not in discipline.
But in life.
Both of them had no one waiting for them.
And nowhere left to be except here.
At least that's what he thought.
After another half an hour soaking wet, Bern wiped his hands on his soaked uniform pants and pushed himself upright with a tired groan. The kind of sound that didn't come from age, but from being done. Completely done.
"Well," he muttered, staring out over the empty motor pool. "No point sittin' here and pretending any of this matters."
Cole didn't answer. He just watched as Bern adjusted his belt, brushed rain off his sleeves, and looked around one last time.
"I tried," Bern said, almost to himself. "Tried to keep some structure. Tried to keep people here. But hell… they're right." He gave a humorless laugh. "If the world's ending, who the fuck am I to tell someone they can't go home?"
Cole nodded once.
Bern stepped forward, hesitated, then turned back to Cole.
"You know," he said quietly, "you're a pain in my ass. Been one since day one." His eyes softened just slightly. "But you're not stupid. You keep your head on straight better than most. Don't know how the hell you do it, but… don't lose that."
Cole looked away, unsure how to respond.
Bern took a long breath, the kind people take before walking away from something forever.
"Anyway… I'm heading out. Gonna check on my old man in Helena."
A pause.
"Not that he'll care. But someone's gotta at least knock on the door."
He started walking, boots splashing in shallow puddles. He didn't rush. Didn't look frantic. Just… resigned. Like he'd been waiting for this moment his whole life.
At the far end of the motor pool, he turned back one last time.
"You should go too, Larson."
Cole didn't move.
Bern nodded as if he expected that.
Then he raised a hand in a half-wave and turned away.
Cole wiped the rain from his eyes.
And as he blinked—
Bern's body convulsed inward, crushed from every direction at once. His chest collapsed into a tight geometric knot. His torso folded three separate times into itself, joints cracking like snapped branches. His spine shot straight upward in a rigid line, dragging the rest of him with it in a grotesque marionette yank.
A muted, wet crunch echoed across the motor pool.
Bern didn't scream.
He couldn't.
And Cole couldn't move.
Couldn't think.
He could only watch.
Bern's twisted body floated upward as if someone had let go of a balloon—his spine stretching behind him like a string. He rose slowly, silently, until he was dangling in the air like some broken marionette waiting for a puppeteer who never existed.
Cole wasn't scared.
He wasn't disgusted.
Just… disturbed.
His brain finally caught up, and a single thought pushed through the static:
What the fuck was that?
Bern kept drifting higher.
Then the world lurched.
The ground shook so violently Cole nearly lost his footing. The concrete-reinforced building in front of him began to reshape, the roof lifting off and rising into the air while rotating like some slow, impossible carousel. The walls folded inward, then bulged outward, turning into perfect spheres of concrete.
The trucks scattered across the motor pool began sliding—no, pulling—all of them dragged toward Cole as if he were a magnet in the center of a scrapyard.
"What the actual fuck!" Cole shouted, stumbling backward.
Fight or flight didn't kick in.
This was something else entirely.
This was a raw, catastrophic, I need to get the hell out of here reaction.
He turned and sprinted.
Boots pounding against the vibrating pavement.
Trucks sliding past him, some lifting off the ground, some spinning, all of them converging toward the spot he had just been standing.
Concrete fragments floated around him like debris caught in a tornado made of broken physics.
He ducked under a drifting Humvee bumper.
Jumped over a slab of asphalt peeling upward like a sheet being pulled off a bed.
He had to get to his car.
That was the only thought left.
Get to the car.
Get out.
He ran harder than he ever had in his life.
The ground he crossed twisted behind him—concrete curling upward, trucks smashing into each other like toys caught in a toddler's fist.
But everything that flew, floated, or bent seemed to miss him by inches.
Like the world was collapsing around him, not on him.
He didn't have time to question it.
His car—the beat-up '98 Civic—sat at the far end of the lot, its headlights warped by the rain. For a terrifying second, he thought it might already be gone, swallowed by the Fault like Bern. But there it was, somehow untouched, as if the distortion hadn't noticed it either.
"Come on, come on, come on—" he gasped, dodging a spinning chunk of asphalt that zipped past his head like a thrown disc.
A Humvee slammed into the ground beside him, nose-first, then began skidding across the pavement—straight toward him. Cole dove, rolled, scrambled back to his feet, and kept running.
The Civic was only twenty feet away.
Then ten.
Then—
A forklift lifted off the ground behind him, rotating slowly like it was stuck in orbit. The forks pointed at him, spinning with enough force to impale a truck. Concrete dust blew sideways in spirals. The air shimmered in unnatural waves.
Cole didn't look back.
Cole dove into the driver's seat, slammed the door shut, and jammed the key into the ignition with shaking hands.
"Start," he whispered.
He turned the key.
The engine coughed.
Spat.
Shook violently.
Then the dashboard lights flickered—once, twice—and began to bend. Literally bend. The plastic warped inward like something beneath it was pushing up against the frame.
Cole froze.
"What the—"
The steering wheel twisted in his hands, stretching unnaturally long, then snapping back like a rubber band. The vents rippled across the dash like breathing lungs. The glove compartment bulged outward, then caved inward sharply, like the car was gasping.
Then the interior started creaking.
Groaning.
Almost… growling.
As if the Civic itself recognized him—
and was finally taking revenge for every cold start, every pothole, every ignored oil change over the last decade.
"Not now," Cole breathed. "NOT NOW!"
The center console stretched vertically, elongating into a thin pillar before slamming back into shape. The fabric roof sagged into a funnel-shaped dip, forming a perfect circle above his head before slowly retracting like an iris closing.
The radio turned on by itself.
Static hissed.
Then the frequency warped into a low, warped moan that vibrated through the cabin.
The seat underneath him tightened, squeezing his hips as if trying to pin him in place.
"Oh hell no," Cole muttered, slamming both hands against the steering wheel.
Outside, the Fault expanded, tearing the armory into floating slabs of concrete. Trucks lifted off the ground like they were caught in a reverse waterfall.
Inside, the Civic's engine block groaned, pushing forward through the hood like something inside wanted out.
Cole twisted the key again—hard.
"START!"
The engine coughed.
Spun.
Caught.
The car screamed—
not a mechanical noise, something deeper, like metal pain—
and then the engine roared to life.
The warping stopped instantly.
The dashboard snapped back into its original shape.
The ceiling flattened.
The steering wheel settled.
The growling radio cut to silence.
Cole stared at the wheel, chest heaving.
"…Okay," he said quietly. "Don't know what that was. Don't wanna know."
He slammed the car into reverse, tires screeching against the fractured pavement, and tore out of the motor pool as the Fault devoured the armory behind him.
The Civic shuddered once—like a final warning—
and then obeyed.
For now.