Nova Reyes walked through Solace Ridge as if she were in an unfinished dream.
The dawn light cut across the dirt like a blade, bright and raw. It was already too hot. Her sneakers kicked up fine red dust with every step, which stuck to her ankles and the backs of her calves, working its way into the cuffs of her jeans. She didn't wipe it off. It would settle back in moments.
The whole town had a way of sinking into you like that, coating you until you stopped noticing the weight.
Her hoodie felt too heavy for July, its sleeves long past frayed. The fabric was soft in the way old things are soft, as if they remember being held. She pulled it tighter around herself, pretending the heat wasn't rising and that she wasn't already sweating through the back.
The streets were almost empty, as they always were before seven. A lone pickup truck rumbled past, its bumper rattling like loose teeth. The driver didn't wave. She didn't look up. The hum of the tires faded, and silence returned.
Above her, the sky stretched wide and faded, like someone had turned the color down. There were no clouds, no planes, not even birds.
That was new.
There were always birds here—mostly ravens and those odd little brown ones that nested in the heat vents behind the school gym. But this morning, the sky looked scrubbed clean. It twisted her stomach. It felt like she'd missed something.
She adjusted her earbuds and pressed the volume button twice.
Static.
Then, the local news station flickered in:
"Thirty days from now, Solace Ridge will have its first total solar eclipse in over seventeen..."
A screech of interference cut off the rest.
Nova rolled her eyes and yanked the cord free, the audio hissing off. That report had played three times in the last hour, as if it were stuck on repeat. Perhaps the whole town was. Maybe no one here even noticed.
She passed Maya's Tires & Smoke Shop, where a hand-painted flamingo skeleton stretched across the side wall. Its ribcage slowly peeled away from years of sun and dust. The bones had once been neon-pink, but now they were dull and cracking. Someone had spray-painted a name in cursive across its spine weeks ago—Ricky, maybe, or Ruin—and no one had covered it up.
Farther up the road, the neon OPEN sign flickered behind the grimy window of Mrs. Tso's diner. The old woman herself was visible behind the counter, wiping the same mug she always did. She looked up when Nova passed. Not surprised. Just watching.
Mrs. Tso always watched her like that, as if Nova might vanish if she blinked too slowly.
Nova didn't wave. She never did.
She adjusted her backpack and kept going.
By the time she reached the edge of the school lot, the heat was real. It wasn't just on her skin but in the air too, making everything warp and shimmer. The sidewalk bent in soft waves. Her shadow stretched out ahead like it didn't belong to her.
The high school sat low and harsh against the dirt—sun-bleached concrete, three buildings shaped like a broken horseshoe around a courtyard that had once been a garden but now hosted only rusted benches and sand-drifted gravel. One of the windows in the math wing was still boarded up from last year's fire alarm incident. No one talked about what really happened.
Two vultures perched on the roof above the gym.
Just sitting there.
Watching her.
Nova slowed her pace and tilted her head, squinting up through the heat.
They didn't move. They didn't blink. They didn't preen.
Just stared.
The feeling struck her again—a twist of cold in her gut, not quite fear but something older. It felt like knowing a thunderstorm was coming even when the sky was clear, or waking up from a dream where your name wasn't your own.
The bell rang.
But it rang wrong.
Not late. Not early. Just off. Too long. Too loud. Like someone had leaned on the switch and forgotten to let go.
Nova stood at the edge of the courtyard, her breath catching.
Something was wrong with the light.
It hit the ground strangely. It didn't cast the right shadows. The sun was shining clearly, but the trees didn't flicker, the windows didn't glare, and her shadow looked sluggish and disconnected.
She looked up again.
The vultures were gone.
Nova blinked.
Dust curled past her face like a gentle hand brushing her cheek.
She walked toward the school without looking back.