The first meteor didn't roar like expected meteor events
It whispered strange gibberish.
James Cliff would remember that detail for the rest of his life, the strange silence before the sky cracked open.
He'd been half-asleep in the back row of his Grade 11 physics class at North Ridge High, Johannesburg's skyline hazy beyond the classroom windows.
It was 10:17 a.m.
The sky blinked white.
Not lightning. Not explosion.
A pulse.
Every phone in the room flickered dead. The fluorescent lights dimmed like something had inhaled the building's electricity.
Then the sound came.
A low, bone-rattling hum that vibrated through the desks and up James's spine.
"What the hell was that?" someone muttered.
The teacher stepped toward the window to check the issue .
And then the sky tore open.
A streak of burning silver split the clouds, not falling but descending with deliberate slowness, like something choosing its landing spot. It glowed too brightly to look at directly, trailing vapor that shimmered green instead of gray.
The meteor struck somewhere beyond the city.
The shockwave arrived seven seconds later.
The windows shattered inward.
Students screamed.
James hit the floor as glass rained over him like diamond hail.
Outside, the skyline rippled. A dome of emerald mist bloomed outward from the impact point—silent, expanding impossibly fast.
Too fast to be debri smoke.
"Run!" someone yelled.
But the mist swallowed the school before anyone could move.
It smelled like rain.
Fresh. Clean.
Wrong.
The mist seeped into James's lungs like cool water. For a moment, he thought it was harmless, almost calming.
Then the screaming started.
Not from outside.
From inside the classroom.
A boy near the front convulsed, fingers bending backward with audible cracks. His spine arched violently as something shifted beneath his skin.
"Someone Help him!" a girl cried.
But the boy's mouth split wider than it should have as skin was tearing at the corners and a shriek emerged that was not human.
His eyes burst into milky white.
His limbs elongated, bones snapping and reforming. Skin sloughed off in wet strips, revealing dark, sinewy flesh underneath.
Within seconds, the boy was no longer a boy.
He was something hunched and skeletal, jaw unhinged, teeth too many.
It lunged at the closest person and ripped into her neck.
Blood painted the whiteboard and chaos detonated.
Half the class fled. The other half froze.
James scrambled backward, heart pounding against his ribs like it wanted out.
Around him, other students were changing but not all the same way.
A girl's hair ignited into blue flame, her eyes glowing like coals.
A rugby player's muscles bulged grotesquely before stabilizing, brown his skin hardening into something like stone.
Some screamed as they changed and others roared.
Some just… stopped moving as they layed there.
James coughed as the mist thickened.
His chest burned.
Heat flooded his veins, like molten metal replacing his blood.
He fell to his knees.
Something inside him shifted.
Darkness swallowed him.
But it wasn't empty.
It was vast.
James stood in a void where stars pulsed like distant heartbeats. Before him floated a fractured crystal the size of a cathedral window, black veins running through glowing green light.
A voice echoed from nowhere.
"Compatibility detected."
He tried to speak, but no sound came.
Images flashed, meteors splitting apart above oceans, crystals embedding in mountains, cities drowning in mist, creatures crawling from shimmering tears in reality
Portals.
Some of the meteors weren't just rocks.
They were keys.
"Adaptive Trait Selection Initiated."
A cascade of symbols spiraled around him like a game interface stitched from constellations.
Strength. Speed. Perception. Regeneration.
But there were others.
Void Affinity. Rift Sensitivity. Mana Assimilation.
Mana?
His head throbbed.
He reached toward the floating crystal.
It cracked.
A shard shot into his chest.
Agony tore through him as something branded itself into his spine.
Then
He woke up.
The classroom was a slaughterhouse.
Desks overturned. Blood smeared across the tiled floor.
The skeletal creature from before was chewing on something that used to be a leg.
James staggered to his feet.
He felt… different.
Sharper.
The world hummed faintly, like invisible threads stretched through the air.
And he could see them.
Thin green currents flowing through walls. Through people.
Through the creature in front of him.
Mana.
The word appeared in his mind instinctively.
The monster's head snapped toward him after sensing movement .
It charged without hesitation .
James didn't think.
He moved.
Faster than he ever had before.
He sidestepped, instinct guiding him.
His hand lashed out and something dark rippled from his palm.
The air warped.
The monster froze mid-leap.
A fracture split open beside it, a crack in reality itself.
Through it, James glimpsed a different sky.
Black. Twisted. Twin moons hanging above jagged mountains.
Something vast moved in that darkness.
The creature screamed as the fracture expanded and swallowed it whole.
The tear snapped shut.
James stared at his trembling hand.
He hadn't created the rift.
He had pulled it one that already existed.
Outside the classroom, the hallway echoed with inhuman sounds.
Not just mutated humans.
Something else had come through.
Down the corridor, a glowing green crystal jutted from the floor, embedded in cracked tile. Its surface pulsed like a heartbeat.
And behind it
Reality bled open.
A fully formed portal churned there, tall and jagged, its edges dripping black mist.
From within stepped a figure clad in spiked iron armor, horned helm shadowing its face. Its skin was gray. Its eyes burned red.
Behind it marched creatures straight from a nightmare bestiary, goblin-like things with serrated blades, and towering brutes dragging rusted axes.
James had seen fantasy art and played a lot of games before.
But this wasn't fantasy.
This was invasion.
One of the armored beings raised its blade and pointed down the hallway.
More portals flickered open across the school grounds outside.
The crystal wasn't just mutating humans.
It was anchoring doorways.
And something on the other side had noticed Earth.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Above the city, the clouds split again.
Not one meteor this time.
Dozens.
They streaked across the sky like falling stars.
Only they didn't burn away.
They shattered midair.
Fragments rained across continents.
Each one glowing.
Each one carrying a crystal heart.
James felt it the moment they entered the atmosphere.
The mana in the air thickened.
The threads grew brighter.
Stronger.
The invading knight turned toward the sky as well.
And laughed.
A guttural, satisfied sound.
James's vision blurred.
A translucent interface flickered at the edge of his sight.
[Riftborne Trait Unlocked]
Ability: Spatial Fracture (Minor)
Mana Capacity: 12 / 12
Warning: Dimensional Instability Increasing
Nearby Crystal Resonance Detected
The crystal at the end of the hall pulsed violently.
The portal widened.
From within, something massive began to push through.
Clawed hand first.
Then another.
James swallowed.
He had twelve mana.
Whatever was coming through,
It felt like it would take more than twelve to survive.
The creature's head emerged.
Twin horns. Eyes like molten gold. A maw lined with rotating rows of teeth.
The armored knight dropped to one knee before it.
And the interface flickered again.
[High-Tier Entity Detected: Abyssal Vanguard]
Threat Level: Catastrophic, beyond current strength.
The monster's gaze locked onto James.
And smiled.