**Kelly Thompson's POV** The new structure doesn't blot out the sky-it *unmakes* it. Where the previous Architects' spire dissected the horizon with clinical precision, this one *fractures* it. The sky splinters into prismatic shards, each reflecting a different timeline: a world drowned in floods
**Kelly Thompson's POV** The white sky isn't a sky-it's a *cage*. The alien structure looms, its surface shimmering with a light that doesn't illuminate but *dissects*. The air hums with a frequency that makes my teeth ache, and the ground vibrates underfoot, as if the earth itself is recoiling. T
**Kelly Thompson's POV** The golden leaf isn't a relic-it's a *bridge*. It grows quietly at first, a fragile curl of light in the ashes of Nexa's sapling. By dawn, it's taller than I am, its stem a lattice of crystalline fibers humming with a sound like distant wind chimes. The survivors circle it
**Kelly Thompson's POV** The reflections lie. The glass shards scattered across the wasteland show Ravel and I as we *were*-bloodied, broken, but human. But the air tastes metallic, and our shadows ripple with gold, as if something beneath our skin is restless. Alive. Ravel kicks the glass, her s
**Kelly Thompson's POV** The sprout's golden leaves aren't leaves-they're *eyes*. Talin doesn't notice at first. He tends to the plant with a devotion that borders on obsession, whispering to it like a child to a wounded bird. The others keep their distance, even Ravel, her storm-wolf pup's death
**Kelly Thompson's POV** The sprout isn't a sprout anymore-it's a *cage*. Its once-delicate stem has thickened into a lattice of thorns and starlight, ensnaring the field of wildflowers in a grotesque parody of a garden. The fragile blue sky is now veined with luminous green cracks, bleeding light