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Chapter One: The Silent Sky
The world was quiet.
Not the peaceful kind of quiet that comes after rain, or the calm of a city asleep at dawn.
It was a silence that felt wrong—as if the sky itself was holding its breath.
At exactly 9:17 a.m., above the western coastline of the United States, the clouds began to twist.
At first, no one noticed.
Airplanes continued their routes. Cars moved along highways. Children sat in classrooms, half-listening to teachers who were unaware that history was about to change.
Then the sky split.
It wasn't an explosion. There was no sound, no shockwave, no blinding light.
Just a distortion—like reality being stretched too far.
A circular void formed among the clouds, perfectly still, perfectly black. It did not absorb light, nor reflect it. It simply existed, as if it had always been there and the world had only just realized it.
Satellites were the first to react.
Within seconds, systems malfunctioned. Images blurred. Signals distorted. Some satellites went completely dark, as if something had brushed against them—something invisible and massive.
Radar stations across the globe began reporting the same anomaly.
An object.
No—a hole.
News channels cut their programs mid-sentence.
> "We are receiving reports of a strange atmospheric phenomenon—"
> "—scientists are calling it unprecedented—"
> "—the government has yet to release an official statement—"
Social media exploded.
Some called it a natural phenomenon.
Others called it an experiment gone wrong.
A few whispered a word humanity had not dared to use seriously in centuries.
Portal.
Within an hour, the area beneath the anomaly was evacuated. Military aircraft circled at a safe distance, weapons armed but useless against something they could not lock onto.
Inside the Pentagon, a meeting was already underway.
Screens displayed live feeds of the sky anomaly from every possible angle. Scientists argued. Generals demanded answers. Politicians asked the same question over and over.
"What is it?"
No one had a real answer.
Dr. Evelyn Carter stood silently near the back of the room, eyes fixed on the screen. Unlike the others, she wasn't afraid.
She was terrified.
Because the readings didn't make sense.
The energy fluctuations around the hole were unstable—spiking, collapsing, reforming. Not random. Intentional.
As if something on the other side was testing the boundaries.
She finally spoke.
"This is not permanent."
The room fell silent.
Dr. Carter continued, choosing her words carefully.
"Whatever this phenomenon is… it's temporary. Short-term."
Relief spread across a few faces.
Until she added:
"And that's the worst part."
They looked at her.
"If it were stable, we could study it. Prepare for it. Contain it."
She swallowed.
"But something that appears briefly, interacts with our world, and then disappears…"
She pointed at the screen.
"…is scouting."
No alarms sounded when the first object emerged.
It was small. No larger than a human hand.
It slipped out of the black void like a drop of ink falling into water, descending slowly before stopping mid-air.
Then it moved.
Not falling.
Not flying.
Observing.
Drones were deployed. Cameras zoomed in.
The object had no clear shape. It shifted constantly, as if refusing to be defined by human perception. Every attempt to focus on it caused sensors to glitch.
And then—
It vanished.
The sky returned to normal. Clouds drifted peacefully. The sun shone as if nothing had happened.
The hole was gone.
The world exhaled.
Governments declared the situation under control. Scientists urged calm. News channels moved on, calling it a "temporary unexplained event."
But Dr. Carter knew the truth.
This was not an invasion.
This was not an accident.
It was a warning.
Something was coming.
Something far greater than a single opening in the sky.
Something that would not stay long—
—but would leave the world in fear long after it was gone.
And humanity wouldn't even realize it had already begun.
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