There was a myth once.
That the ocean, long ago, had a voice.
When it vanished, people said it took something with it.
But in class, even that sounded boring.
Raku slouched against the window, cheek pressed to the cool glass, watching light smear across the gray city outside. Behind him, the teacher's voice droned on at the front of the room, flat and slow.
"The Lost Ocean," she said, tapping her tablet, "disappeared approximately three hundred years ago. What remained is what we now call the Hole Sector, a restricted and unstable region—"
The tablet sent the next slide to the projector screen above her head.
Raku's eyes slipped from the city to the image: a huge circular crater, ringed by ruins and warning symbols. Old photos. Old diagrams. Same lecture as last week, and the week before that.
He sighed through his nose.
Lost Ocean, Hole Sector, historical consequences, blah blah blah.
He'd heard it so many times that the words had stopped meaning anything.
Something poked his side.
Osio, at the desk next to him, leaned in with a conspiratorial grin, twirling a pen between his fingers.
"Bro," he whispered, "my brain is dying."
Raku didn't look at him. "Let it rest in peace."
"I'm serious, this woman's voice is a sleep spell."
"You survived math. You'll survive this."
Osio tilted his head toward the projector screen. "We should go see it."
Raku blinked. "What, the Hole?"
"No, the café under it," Osio hissed. "Yes, the Hole."
"Why?"
"Because we're literally learning about it and I'm still bored. That's a crime." He tapped his chest with the pen. "And you know the motto."
Raku rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitched. "If it's boring…"
"Break it," Osio finished, grinning. "Exactly."
Up front, the teacher kept talking about "economic impacts" and "restricted zones". No one was listening. Half the class was on their phones under the desks. The other half had their eyes open but their souls were gone.
Raku stared at the picture of the Hole.
A giant wound where an ocean used to be.
He tried to imagine real water there, waves and storms and all the stuff from old vids. It felt fake, like concept art from a game.
"Come on," Osio murmured. "We fake a bathroom break, you look like you're about to barf from all this knowledge. I'll be the supportive best friend and escort you."
"That's not how that works."
"It is now."
Raku hesitated. He wasn't actually a ditching kind of kid. His grades weren't amazing, but he didn't usually go looking for trouble. He glanced at the clock. Twenty-eight more minutes of the Lost Ocean.
His head throbbed.
"Fine," he muttered. "But if we get expelled, I'm haunting you."
Osio lit up like someone turned his brightness to max. "Love you too."
They raised their hands in perfect sync.
"Bathroom," they said.
The teacher barely looked up from her tablet. "Be quick."
They were not quick.
The hallway was a tunnel of flickering lights and half-dead posters. As soon as the classroom door closed behind them, Osio let out a long, dramatic gasp and threw an arm around Raku's shoulders.
"Freedom," he whispered. "I missed you."
"You act like we escaped prison, not history class."
"Same vibe."
They walked. Their footsteps echoed in the empty corridor. Outside, past the dirty stairwell windows, the city waited: stacked blocks of concrete housing, hanging cables like vines, transit rails threading between towers.
"Where exactly are we going?" Raku asked as they hit the stairwell.
Osio hopped down two steps at a time. "Field trip."
"That's not an answer."
"To the edge of the Hole Sector. Just to look. From far away. Respectfully. Like responsible idiots."
Raku snorted despite himself. "You know it's restricted, right?"
"Outer perimeter isn't that restricted. People walk near it all the time."
"Those people aren't us."
"Wow. Deep."
They pushed through the school's side door into cold air. The city smell hit them: metal, exhaust, too many people in too little space. Raku shoved his hands into his hoodie pockets and hunched his shoulders against the wind.
They cut through narrow alleys, weaving between delivery drones buzzing overhead and laundry lines sagging under the weight of gray shirts.
Osio talked the entire time.
"Okay, hear me out. If we fall in, maybe it's like a secret level. We wake up in a hidden area. Loot everywhere."
"Or we die," Raku said.
"See, that's the boring option."
Raku shook his head but didn't tell him to shut up. The noise felt familiar, grounding. Osio's energy always filled in the empty spaces where Raku's thoughts got too loud.
They moved deeper into the older districts. New glass and steel gave way to cracked concrete and sun-faded murals from decades ago. The closer they got to the Hole Sector, the more the city felt… unfinished. Like someone had started rebuilding and then given up halfway through.
Graffiti covered the walls: stylized waves, broken circles, crossed-out warning signs.
NO ENTRY.
NO DRONES.
NO HEROES.
"Cheerful," Osio muttered, reading a rusted sign that said: HOLE SECTOR – PERIMETER CHECKPOINT – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
There was no checkpoint now. Just an old frame where a gate used to be, and a line spray-painted on the ground in peeling yellow.
"This is it?" Raku asked. "Just… a line?"
"You expected, what, laser fences?"
"Kind of."
They stepped over the line.
Nothing happened.
No alarms, no drones swooping down, no guards shouting at them. Just the same wind, a little colder. The buildings thinned out ahead, giving way to a distant curve in the land.
Osio whistled. "Look at that. The world didn't explode."
"Yet," Raku said.
They kept walking, the city gradually fading behind them.
Ahead, the ground sloped down toward something vast and empty. Even from here, Raku could feel how wrong the horizon looked. Where there should have been more buildings, more streets, more life… there was just absence.
"You really wanna go all the way?" Raku asked.
"We came this far," Osio said. "Might as well collect the achievement."
"Life isn't a game."
"Spoken like someone who's never beaten a secret boss."
Raku rolled his eyes. "You cried when you lost that one speedrun."
"That was emotional growth."
They didn't make it to the edge.
He appeared before that.
A uniform stepped out from behind a rusted street pole, blocking their path.
Raku's heart jolted.
Police.
The man was tall, pale, buzzcut sharp enough to cut glass. His uniform was clean, too clean for this part of town. No dirt, no scuffs, like he'd just walked out of a catalog. His eyes were wrong — not tired, not bored, but restless. Looking for something to land on.
They landed on them.
"You two," he said. "IDs."
Osio froze. Raku felt his mouth go dry. They both knew they shouldn't be here. This district wasn't exactly friendly to kids in school uniforms.
Raku swallowed and fumbled his ID card out of his pocket. Osio did the same, slower.
The cop snatched them, glanced once, then stared a little too long at Osio.
"Skipping school?" he asked.
"Bathroom break," Osio said weakly.
The cop didn't smile.
He handed the cards back, then stepped closer. The air felt heavier all of a sudden. Raku caught the faint smell of coffee and gun oil.
"Arms out," the man said. "Bag check. Routine."
Raku complied, trying to breathe normally. His heart was beating too loud in his ears. Osio lifted his arms, jaw clenched, eyes flicking between Raku and the cop.
The cop patted Raku down first. Rough, but not brutal. Fingers along his sides, into his pockets, across his hoodie.
Nothing.
He moved to Osio.
Raku watched the man's hand. The way his fingers curled. The way his shoulders relaxed, just a bit, like he'd found what he'd been looking for.
The cop's hand slid inside Osio's coat.
Something small and wrapped in plastic glinted between his fingers for half a second.
Raku's stomach dropped.
No.
He saw the motion clearly: not taking something out, but pushing something in.
"Yo—" Raku started.
The cop straightened and yanked his hand back out of the pocket. A little bag sat in his palm now, full of white powder.
He dangled it in front of Osio's face.
"Interesting," the man said calmly. "You kids think you're clever."
Osio stared at the bag, color draining from his face. "That's not— I don't—"
Raku couldn't breathe.
He saw Osio's life folding in on itself. Arrest. Charges. Records. Futures slammed shut over something he didn't do. All because some bored cop needed a villain today.
The man's other hand dropped to his holster, fingers resting on the gun like it was a natural gesture.
"Resisting arrest is another charge," he said, tone almost bored. "So if you move—"
The world tilted.
Raku didn't think.
Something raw and bright tore through his chest, like a cable snapping. His vision narrowed until there was only the cop's jaw, the smirk starting at the corner of his mouth, the smug weight of his hand on the gun.
His body moved first.
His fist flew.
CRACK.
The sound wasn't like in the movies. It was wetter. The cop's jaw went sideways in a way jaws weren't supposed to move. Teeth flashed white, then red. His head snapped back, body spinning half around before he toppled.
Silence.
The bag flew from his hand and landed in the dust.
Raku stood there, fist still out, knuckles throbbing. His whole arm buzzed with pain and something else — like electricity burrowing under his skin. His chest heaved. The world had gone strangely distant, as if he was watching himself from just behind his own eyes.
Osio didn't say anything at first. He just stared at the cop on the ground, then at Raku's hand.
"Bro," he whispered. "You… you just—"
Raku dragged his arm back to his side. His hand was shaking. His brain finally caught up with what he'd done.
He hit a cop.
Hard. Too hard.
"What if he's dead?" The thought slammed into him like another punch. If he dies, I go to prison. If he dies, Mom—
He swallowed bile.
"He planted it on you," Raku said, voice hoarse. "I saw him."
"I know, but—" Osio's eyes flicked to the gun lying near the man's hand. "Raku. Raku, we have to go."
The cop made a faint, wet sound.
He was alive.
For now.
Raku's legs suddenly felt like they were made of air.
Osio grabbed his wrist. "Run."
Raku hesitated for one heartbeat, staring at the twisted jaw, the thin line of blood sliding from the man's mouth.
Then he turned.
They ran.
Back through the ghost district, past the warning signs and old graffiti, shoes slamming against cracked concrete. Osio's breath came in ragged bursts beside him.
"Dude," Osio panted, half-hysterical, "you just— you broke a cop's face."
Raku's lungs burned. "He planted drugs on you."
"Still!"
Sirens hadn't started yet. Maybe no one had seen. Maybe no one would believe them anyway.
The city blurred around them as they sprinted, hearts racing so fast it hurt. Somewhere behind them, the Hole waited at the edge of the world.
Neither of them knew yet how close they'd just come.
Or how far they were about to fall.