In Liora's world, the sky never cracked.
It bent—softly, like glass warmed by breath—but it did not break. Until the morning it did.
Liora was standing on the balcony of her apartment, fingers wrapped around a chipped mug of star-tea, watching the twin suns rise out of sync as they always had. One pale gold. One bruised violet. The city of Aurelion hummed below her, floating railways gliding like patient fish through the air.
Then the sky tore.
Not with thunder. Not with light.
With silence.
A seam opened above the horizon, a thin, trembling line of darkness, as if someone had taken a blade to reality itself. The suns froze. The air stilled. Liora felt it before she understood it—a pressure behind her eyes, a pull in her chest, like being remembered by something that had never met her.
She dropped the mug. It shattered, star-tea bleeding across the tiles.
Across the tear, she saw another sky.
Only one sun.
Blue, not violet-gold.
And falling—she was sure of it—someone was falling toward her.
Kade had been running when the world ended.
That part felt important, though he wouldn't understand why until much later.
In his world, there were no floating cities or twin suns—just concrete, rusted fire escapes, and a sky permanently stained the color of old storms. He was cutting through an alley, breath burning, boots slapping puddles, when gravity betrayed him.
The ground vanished.
The alley stretched, warped, and folded inward like a bad memory. Kade reached out, fingers grasping at nothing, and then he was falling—not down, but through.
He saw her.
A woman framed by impossible light, dark hair whipped by wind that didn't exist on his side. Her eyes were wide, not afraid exactly—more like she was recognizing something she'd been waiting for without knowing it.
Their worlds collided.
The tear screamed open.
Kade slammed onto solid ground that wasn't concrete, air knocked from his lungs. Liora stumbled backward as a shockwave rippled through the balcony, alarms erupting across the city below.
For a heartbeat, they just stared at each other.
Two strangers.
Two worlds.
One impossible moment.
"What," Kade rasped, pushing himself up on one elbow, "the hell… is this place?"
Liora swallowed, her pulse roaring in her ears.
"You fell out of the sky," she said softly.
"And in my world," she added, meeting his gaze,
"that means everything is about to change."
Above them, the seam in the sky began to close—slowly, reluctantly—as if the universe itself was trying to undo a mistake it had already committed.
Neither of them noticed.
Not yet.
Liora's hands were trembling.
Not from fear—but from recognition.
Her whole life, she'd heard stories whispered by the old scholars in Aurelion's libraries. "When the veil between worlds shivers," they'd say, "a soul will fall from the other side. A mirror to your fate."
She'd always thought it was just folklore. A bedtime myth to keep children dreaming.
But now, a man was lying on her balcony—real, human, utterly wrong for this world.
Kade coughed, dragging in a breath that sounded like gravel. His clothes were soaked from the fall, black fabric clinging to his arms, strange symbols etched faintly into the leather straps of his jacket. He looked up at the two suns overhead and blinked hard.
"Either I hit my head harder than I thought," he muttered, "or I'm on a completely different planet."
Liora didn't answer right away.
Instead, she crouched beside him, eyes flicking over his face. He was older than her by a few years, maybe mid-twenties. A thin scar cut across his left eyebrow—something that didn't belong to the polished, sterile people of Aurelion. He looked… real. Rough around the edges, alive in a way no one here seemed to be anymore.
"You shouldn't be here," she said finally, her voice low.
"No one crosses the Rift."
"The what now?" Kade pushed himself up, wobbling slightly. "You mean that—hole in the sky thing?"
"The Rift," she said again, gaze darting upward. The seam was already shrinking, flickering like dying light. "It connects parallel worlds—but it's never supposed to open. And if it does, it never stays long."
Kade gave a short, humorless laugh. "Yeah, well, it stayed just long enough to ruin my morning jog."
That almost made her smile. Almost.
But before she could respond, a low hum rippled through the air—like thunder trying to remember how to roar. The balcony rails vibrated. Down below, the floating city's power channels flickered, and somewhere in the distance, sirens began to wail.
Liora's stomach dropped. "The Council will detect this anomaly."
"Council?" Kade frowned. "You mean like… the government?"
"Worse," she said, grabbing his wrist. "They study breaches. They don't ask questions before they erase the evidence."
"Erase—wait, erase me?"
She didn't have time to explain.
She pulled him inside.
Her apartment was small, cluttered with half-broken tech and stacks of glowing blue manuscripts. Kade stumbled behind her, nearly tripping on a pile of old data scrolls. The whole place smelled faintly of ozone and ink.
"Stay quiet," she whispered, activating a shimmering barrier across the door—a sound shield. "If they scan for Rift residue, they'll sense you."
He looked at her, chest heaving. "You're awfully calm for someone who just watched a guy fall out of the sky."
"I'm a researcher," she said. "I study impossible things."
He raised a brow. "So… I'm your new science project?"
Liora turned to him then, eyes like stormlight. "No," she said quietly. "You're my proof that the old stories were true."
Outside, the sirens drew closer.
Inside, two souls from opposite realities stared at each other in the dim light of a dying world.
And somewhere high above, the Rift pulsed one last time—like a heartbeat
The sirens were not subtle.
They wailed through Aurelion's air like injured beasts, echoing between floating spires and luminous bridges. Liora froze mid-step, one hand still gripping Kade's sleeve.
"They're closer than I thought," she whispered.
(Author thought: Translation: they are absolutely screwed if they stay put.)
Kade tilted his head, listening. "Those aren't ambulances."
"No," Liora said grimly. "Those are Seeker drones."
"Of course they are," he muttered. "Because every weird world needs creepy flying things."
As if summoned by the complaint, a shadow swept across the window. A metallic shape hovered outside—angular
The glass vibrated as the Seeker drone scanned the apartment.
Liora's breath caught. The barrier she'd thrown up shimmered faintly, struggling to mask the wrongness Kade brought with him—the residual static of another universe clinging to his skin like invisible ash.
(Author thought: If you're screaming "JUST HIDE HIM," congratulations, you are thinking exactly like Liora.)
"Okay," Kade whispered, leaning closer, "I'm guessing that thing isn't here to welcome me."
"It's mapping anomalies," she said, fingers flying over a small control panel embedded in the wall. "If it identifies you as extra-dimensional—"
"—they'll erase me," he finished. "You mentioned that part earlier. Not a fan."
The drone's core flared brighter.
Liora swore under her breath and slammed her palm against the panel. The room lurched as the floor plates shifted, revealing a narrow shaft hidden beneath a rug that definitely did not look like it concealed a secret escape.
"Down. Now."
Kade didn't argue. He dropped into the shaft just as the barrier shattered with a sound like breaking ice. Blue light flooded the apartment, and the drone forced its way through the window, metal limbs scraping glass and steel.
(Author thought: The Council does not knock.)
Liora jumped in after him, slamming the hatch shut. Darkness swallowed them as the shaft sealed and began to descend, humming softly.
For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of their breathing.
Then the shaft stopped.
They were very close.
Too close.
Kade became acutely aware of how little space there was—his back pressed to cold metal, Liora's hands braced on either side of him. Her hair brushed his cheek when she shifted, and the faint glow from her wrist device painted her face in silver-blue light.
"Sorry," she murmured, not moving away.
"No," he said quickly, then hesitated. "I mean—yeah, sure, sorry, but also… not the worst way I've nearly died."
She huffed a quiet laugh.
(Author thought: Forced proximity achieved. Fanfic bingo square unlocked.)
The laughter faded, though, when the hum above them changed pitch.
A sharp ping echoed through the shaft.
Liora's smile vanished. "They're scanning the lower levels."
"So what's the plan?" Kade asked softly. "Because I'm sensing we're improvising."
She looked at him, really looked at him this time—not as an anomaly or a problem, but as a person who'd been ripped from his world and dropped into hers.
"I get you out of the city," she said. "There's a place beyond the sky-rails where the Council's reach is weaker."
"And after that?"
Her jaw tightened. "After that, we figure out why you fell through the Rift."
The shaft began moving again, faster now.
Above them, metal screeched as the Seeker drones tore through the apartment.
Below them, something old stirred—something that hadn't felt a cross-world echo in centuries.
Kade swallowed. "You know," he said, trying for humor and not quite succeeding, "back home I was just trying to survive the day."
Liora met his eyes. "So was I."
(Author thought: Neither of them will ever have a normal day again.)
The shaft opened into darkness.
And they stepped into it