The moment I stepped back into UFO Park, the air felt wrong.
Not just colder.
Not just heavier.
Wrong.
A faint pressure pushed at my ears, like the atmosphere was bending in a direction it shouldn't. The shadows under the UFO structure quivered—not enough to call it movement, but enough to make my eyes strain to confirm it.
Patch paused beside me.
His fur rose.
His tail stiffened into a warning line.
"…You feel it too?" I whispered.
A low vibration rolled across the ground. Not an earthquake. Too localized. Too intentional.
My breath hitched as the air split—
just for an instant—
a thin glitch popping between the two grassy mounds people called the "yin-yang eyes."
The distortion pulsed outward like a ripple in water.
Patch hissed.
A symbol flickered in the air for less than a blink—something between a letter and a wound—before dissolving into static. My vision blurred. The world lagged a fraction of a second behind my movement.
Then everything snapped back.
Patch darted behind my leg, staring at the spot where the glitch had appeared.
Whatever that thing was…
it wasn't finished with me.
And I had the sinking feeling
this was only the beginning.