"Good evening, everyone. We're leading with District Seven, where half the neighborhood thought the world was ending and the other half that didn't is now arguing about it on the local forum.
City Defense is calling it a 'contained structural event.' Translation: something went very wrong and we fixed it before it ate the block. They won't say more. There's shaky phone footage floating around of a red glow hovering inside what looks like an underground lab. The clip gets yanked every thirty minutes, so if you saw it, you saw it.
If you were nearby and suddenly felt dizzy or your ears rang like you stood next to a speaker stack, official advice is: drink water and lie down. Solid plan, guys.
In other news (anchor forces the same smile she uses for cat videos and chemical spills), authorities praise an 'unidentified civilian' who helped evacuate people before first responders arrived. They're not releasing the name.
[cut to the single most viral clip of the night: some dude filming straight up, voice shaking]
"Look, look, the glass is breathing, I swear— and the kid just— he wasn't even holding anything and then it was like the air folded around him and— Mom, I'm not high, I promise—"
[clip ends]
[SAH Unit group chat – #ops-debrief-7 – 2:17 a.m.]
ITO: Quick and dirty: Harrower manifested, then un-manifested when the kid told it to leave. That's the whole miracle.
SATO: Felt it in my teeth. Same drop as the first one on the street.
REY: It literally knelt. Do we get a special NDA for "I saw Cthulhu do a curtsy" or nah?
ITO: You saw it. Don't tweet it. Also hydrate like your clearance depends on it.
KWAN: I need a bigger lab, an extension cord to the sun, and roughly all of the kid's blood. Asking for science.
ITO: No, no and definitely no.
REY: Lieutenant, does he even have a surname anymore?
ITO: He has a name. Stop trying to file him under "asset."
SATO: +1
KWAN: You're all just scared of calling a resonant conduit "he."
REY: You're scared of calling a scared seventeen-year-old "he."
ITO: Thread locked till we're topside. Central wants him upstairs in eight minutes. Look alive.
[Neighborhood forum – "WHAT JUST HAPPENED" – still up because the mods gave up]
LoafOfWar: my wall did the worm and then a lady with scary hair told the street to chill and we all did??
breakfastruin: 6/10 apocalypse. cool copper aftertaste but too short, no encore
puddinglevel: dog still in bathtub. i've stress-eaten an entire family-size bag of cheese puffs. if we die please scatter me with the crumbs
argonautica: saw a dude in a plain black coat sprinting down the fire stairs carrying a metal case like it was radioactive. that's act-two luggage, y'all
mod: this is a safety thread not your wattpad. also stop re-uploading the breathing-window video, we're trying to have a society here
[Audio log – secure line]
HALE: Ito, explain why my inbox says you opened the damn hatch.
ITO: Because keeping it closed got us to 40 % containment. Opening it got us to zero new mouths in my facility.
HALE: You went rogue.
ITO: I went effective.
HALE: He's a civilian.
ITO: He stopped being a civilian the second a harrower looked at him like a long-lost cousin. I just made sure the family reunion stayed polite.
[pause]
HALE: Does it… recognize him?
ITO: Worse. It rhymes with him.
HALE: Can he do it again?
ITO: He'll try if I ask. And I'd rather be the one doing the asking.
HALE: Central's sending a car.
ITO: Tell the car to get stuck in traffic.
[Some glass office thirty floors above the mess]
The man in a perfect suit watches the same three clips on mute: the glass breathing, the boy's mouth shaping a single word you can lip-read if you want it badly enough, the lieutenant staring down three armed escorts like they're unpaid interns.
He rewinds the boy's face four times.
Assistant leans in. "Escort's five minutes out for Subject Ry—"
"Ryo," the man corrects, soft. "Lieutenant Ito still stalling?"
"Very politely, sir."
"Good. Tell Engineering the elevator needs an emergency brake inspection. Tell Legal the paperwork got eaten by a printer. Tell Central I'll handle it personally."
"Tonight?"
"Right now. And tell them we're giving the kid water and a real choice."
He closes the clips. The sky outside his window looks bruised-red, the color that doesn't quite wash out of concrete.
[Mara – Recovery Three]
Ryo is asleep sitting up, like his body gave up halfway through lying down. The monitor beeps slow and steady. The cut on my cheek itches like it's trying to remind me I'm still human.
Sato stands outside the glass doing his best statue impression. Rey is on a stool writing the same sentence over and over in his report and then deleting it because feelings aren't regulation.
Kwan tried to sneak in with a syringe. I stared at him until the syringe mysteriously disappeared. He's sulking in the hallway pretending to read sensor data on his phone.
I hit the privacy glass. It fogs. Good. Sometimes you close a door just so someone can finally breathe.
Earpiece crackles. Hale.
"Elevator's delayed. Engineering sends its love."
"Tell Engineering I love them back. What's the real price?"
"Small meeting. No cameras. They want to sell him a future."
"Does the future come with dental?"
"Probably not."
I look at the sleeping kid. He's seventeen maybe, looks fifteen when he's out cold, and just told a nightmare to go home and it listened.
"Tell them he wakes up on my schedule," I say. "And he walks in with me or he doesn't walk in."
Hale sighs like a man who's tired of being right. "Bring him when he's ready."
[Kwan – Lab, 3:07 a.m.]
The pin-thing floats exactly two centimeters off the pad, spinning slow like it's bored. Every sensor I own is screaming, crying, or filing for divorce.
I lean so close my breath fogs the glass.
"C'mon," I whisper to it. "Give me one clean answer."
It brightens a little, like it heard a joke I didn't.
Meeting invite pops up: Room B, now. I groan, grab my tablet, and sprint. Wonder doesn't care about sleep exists.
[Some bathroom floor, 2:47 a.m.]
Girl with ringing ears sits on cracked tile, phone glowing in her lap. The video already got deleted again but she saved it first.
She watches the boy say something with no sound and the red light answers like a dog that's been waiting its whole life to be called a good boy.
She throws up quietly, rinses her mouth, and whispers to the empty apartment, "We're so screwed."
Then she brushes her teeth until the copper taste is gone and goes to bed clutching her phone like a night-light.
[Ryo]
I wake up to Mara holding two paper cups that smell like chemicals trying to be fruit.
"Water," she says. "And lies that taste like cherry."
I drink both. My mouth thanks her.
"How long was I out?"
"Three hours. You drooled a little. It was cute."
"Did you lie to me while I was asleep?"
"Considered it. Decided you'd know."
Something in my chest settles, like a cat that trusts the couch won't move.
"They want to talk upstairs," she says. "People who think budgets are superpowers. I'm your plus-one."
"Do I get a choice?"
"You get me," she says. "Which is basically a choice with bad language and worse coffee."
Rey snorts outside the glass. Sato pretends he didn't hear.
I stand. Legs work. The hum in my chest stretches like it just woke up too.
"Terms," I say while we walk. "I pick when I fight. I pick what memories are on the table. You lie, I'm gone."
"Deal," she says without hesitation.
"And I keep my name."
"That one was never negotiable."
We reach the meeting room. Four people who look like they've never been kids wait inside.
Hale greets me like an uncle I don't have. Kwan looks ready to vibrate through the floor. The suit lady smiles like she's selling timeshares. Watermark guy is already forgetting his own name.
They offer me safety, money, purpose.
I offer them terms.
They blink, shuffle papers, pretend to think.
Mara stands behind my chair like a warning label.
I say yes anyway.
Not because they convinced me.
Because tomorrow they're taking us to an old subway tunnel where something else is waking up, and I want to be there when it opens its eyes.
I want to be the one who tells it no.
Mara leans down as we leave. "Dawn. Sleep first. And Ryo?"
"Yeah?"
"Try not to impress anyone. Especially not yourself."
"I suck at impressing people," I say.
"Good," she answers. "Keep sucking."
I go back to the bed that isn't a cell, lie down, and practice holding my name like a rock in a river.
Under the city, something else practices holding its breath.
We'll see who runs out of air first.