The problem with nothing breaking is that you start waiting for it to.
The city eased into night without ceremony. Streetlights warmed from white to amber. Shops closed one by one, metal shutters rattling down like punctuation marks at the ends of sentences no one bothered to reread.
Normal.
Too normal.
Arjun noticed first. He always did when boredom crept close to fear.
"This feels illegal," he said, stretching his arms behind his head."Like we skipped a boss fight."
"There isn't always a fight," the girl replied.
"There is in our life," he shot back.
I didn't disagree.
The river behind us kept moving, indifferent. The bridge vibrated faintly as traffic passed. No ripples of probability. No watchers leaning in.
Nothing broke.
[ System Notice: Environmental stability — sustained ][ Status: No escalation detected ]
That line should have been comforting.
It wasn't.
✦
