The world cracked.
Not with sound—but with pressure. A tightening around Nox's skull, a bending of the air, as if reality itself was being squeezed by an invisible fist.
The girl clinging to him trembled violently.Her outline flickered like a candle about to go out.
Nox… choose.
The whisper threaded through his mind again, colder this time.
He gritted his teeth.He didn't know how to hold a collapsing moment together.He didn't even know how he got here.
But he knew one thing:
He couldn't just let her disappear.
"Hold on," he said, pressing a hand to the mark on his palm. "I'll try."
He didn't know what he was trying.He just reached inward—toward the freezing pulse under his skin.
The mark responded instantly.
A surge of force blasted from his palm, not outward, but around him, like a bubble snapping into existence. The trembling slowed. The colors steadied. The air thinned but stopped tearing.
The girl gasped as the world became still for a heartbeat.
"You—You did it," she whispered.
Nox wasn't sure.
The strain on his mind was immediate. A sharp, splitting pressure, like something trying to drill out from inside his skull.
Holding this place together was like holding onto a rope that kept turning into smoke.
"How long do I have to keep doing this?" he forced out.
She shook her head. "Until the second stabilizes enough for you to open a way. My brother… he used the Verge to cut between moments. Can you do that?"
"I don't know," Nox said, breath tight. "I barely know what any of this is."
Another pulse of instability slammed into the barrier he'd created. Nox staggered, nearly losing his grip. The bubble dimmed.
The voice whispered again, sharper.
"You cannot hold it forever. This second is dead. Let it fall."
The girl's grip tightened desperately.
"No! Please, don't listen. If it collapses, I go with it!"
Nox clenched his jaw.
He pushed harder.
Light cracked across the sky like lightning traveling in slow motion. Buildings shuddered. The ground beneath them rippled.
His knees buckled.
The girl caught his shoulders. "Nox—you're burning yourself!"
"I can do this," he said through gritted teeth. "I just need—something—"
The mark flared.
And something tore.
Not in the city—In the air ahead of him.
A thin line of blackness appeared, as if someone had drawn a cut across the empty space. It pulsed, expanding slightly.
The girl gasped."A rift. You opened a rift!"
Nox stared, chest heaving. He didn't fully understand what he had done, but he knew the thing was unstable—shifting like a wound that didn't want to stay open.
"Can you move?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Then go. Now."
She hesitated only a moment before scrambling toward the rift. The world lurched violently, nearly throwing her off her feet.
Nox felt his grip breaking.
The bubble flickered.
The second began to unravel again, faster this time—like something furious that he dared delay it.
"Nox!" she shouted. "Come through with me!"
He reached for her—
But the voice cut in, cold and commanding.
"Not both. The moment cannot support you both. Choose who crosses."
Nox froze.
The girl stared at him, eyes wide, terrified.
"You're coming with me," she insisted. "You have to—! Don't leave me alone here!"
The world began to fall apart completely—Walls folding like paper, sky melting, the ground turning to glimmers of dust.
He had seconds.
One path.One choice.
Only one.