The sky tore open.
Not with rain. Not with wind. Not with anything the mortal world had words for.
It ripped like a wound reopened—slow, agonizing, inevitable. Light bled out, white and electric, searing itself across the heavens as if the sky itself were being branded by a forgotten god.
A single, blinding line of lightning carved down from the clouds like a divine spear hurled at the earth's beating heart.
The air screamed as it was split apart, a raw sound—metal scraped against metal, bone grinding against stone. Wind fled in every direction, as though terrified to remain near the descending fury.
Clouds rolled back in concentric waves, scattering like prey before a hunter.
Then came the second bolt—smaller, faster, wild, jittering through the air like a thought too violent to be contained.
Where they struck, the world convulsed.
