Too recent.
Everything around her looked calm—on the surface, at least. The people inside the building walked with straight backs and even smiles, their voices soft, their movements steady.
Still, the longer she watched, the more it felt wrong in that quiet way most people never catch—like a script being followed too well, like a performance that had rehearsed safety until it forgot what safety even meant.
She didn't step inside.
She didn't need to.
She kept walking, her presence slipping down the street like a cold breath between shadows, until a strange stillness crept in—the kind that makes you pause, not because you see something, but because something feels like it should be there.
A flicker passed over her skin.
Thin, quick.
Like the wind slipping through a seam in the sky.
She looked up, calm as ever.
There was nothing.
But whatever it was—it had passed.
"Something moved above the atmosphere," she said into the silence.
