The clocks did not stop.
That was the detail most people would remember later—not the screaming, not the footage of crumbling districts or the lists of missing names, but the fact that the world itself refused to wait even after what had happened.
In Solvar's capital, the morning broadcast resumed six minutes late.
The anchor's voice was steady enough to pass inspection, though the skin beneath her eyes was swollen in a way makeup could not hide. The banner beneath her image no longer scrolled headlines. It listed instructions.
IDENTITY CONFIRMATION REQUIRED AT ALL CHECKPOINTS.
REFUGEES REPORT TO DESIGNATED HUBS.
CONTRACT ACTIVATION IS A CIVILIAN CHOICE.
The last line had been added after debate.
Everyone could tell.
Behind her, the studio screen split into four live feeds. A government spokesperson. A military logistics officer. A map marked with red-shaded zones that refused to stay still as it recalibrated. And, in the smallest frame, a footage loop from the western edge of the Mid-Nations coastline—waves breaking against a shore that no longer had a port.
"This administration acknowledged," the spokesperson said, pausing just long enough for legal teams across the country to stop breathing, "that a significant portion of the prisoners, and a portion of general populace has departed voluntarily under the Trade Contract framework."
Voluntarily. The word landed poorly.
Since Social feeds had long been overloaded before the day even began, platforms like Glowstreem and Feedisel had long been packed with clipped segments, short videos, posts.
On Glowstreem, the recommendation refreshed every few seconds, the algorithm clearly haywire. Nothing stayed pinned for long. Titles contradicted each other.
Thumbnails screamed certainty while the comments below tore them apart.
A shaky vertical video played automatically.
"—I'm telling you, it burned," a man said, breathing hard, face too close to the camera. "I didn't do anything! I just… I just tried to trade. I didn't even finish saying it—"
The clip cut mid-sentence. A system message replaced it: Video removed for verification.
Below it, another autoplayed.
A guy sat cross-legged on his bed, contract hovering faintly in front of his eyes. He kept glancing at it, then back at the camera.
"Okay, this is awesome, but I need someone to tell me if this is happening to them too," he said. "It was at one hundred yesterday, and it seemed like system, you know, travelling to different worlds, and trade powers , so I tried to open inventory and guess what it is a system"
he tapped the air.
"—see this little… cube ?" he said as a glowing cube type structure appeared " now, I am gonna put this pen inside it but before it, see I have 70% on the contract's top left corner ... and now ..*poof* it's gone "
" as you can see , my percentage had decreased by 5 and if I will it, *poof* it's back the percentage dropped by another 5" he said as the pen that once got sucked in the glowing cube came back.
The comments flooded faster than the video buffered.
—Fake.
—Mine didn't have it.
—Show it again.
—Why would you touch it??
On Feedisel, the chaos felt quieter but sharper. Stories instead of posts. Fifteen seconds at a time.
A mirrored elevator selfie: three teenagers, laughing too loudly.
"Bro look," one of them said, holding his hand out. The faint interface flickered. "It's real. It's actually real."
The next story, posted an hour later, wasn't laughing.
Just text on a black screen.
Don't try trading. please. it doesn't explain. it just fails.
In the screen, 20% was visible in the corner.
Somewhere else, someone streamed live without meaning to.
The angle was wrong—camera pointed at a desk, not a face. Voices drifted in and out.
"—no, I didn't threaten him," a man said, sharp and defensive.
"You didn't have to," another voice replied. "You're his boss."
Silence. Then a third voice, lower.
"It didn't work. And my number dropped. I don't know why."
The stream ended abruptly. The clip spread anyway.
On Glowstreem Shorts, a creator stitched three videos together.
"Okay, so I could be wrong but," she said, talking fast, eyes darting to the side like she was afraid someone would interrupt. "Every successful-looking clip? Two people. Same age range. Same… vibe."
The comments tore her apart.
—fake it till you make it.
—My cousin traded and it worked.
—No he didn't.
—Post proof or shut up.
Under a different video, barely watched, a quiet voice spoke.
A middle-aged man sat at a kitchen table. No edits. No music.
"I thought it was like an app," he said. "Like… you try. If it fails, you try again."
He swallowed.
"I'm at sixty now. I don't know what sixty means."
That one didn't trend.
What trended was the chaos.
Pictures of the 100% from yesterday, side by side with 75%, 60%, 20%, circled in red. Arrows drawn. Theories layered over theories.
Someone commented: nah, it recovers yesterday mine was 80 and today it's 80.1%
Someone else replied: source?
No answer.
By afternoon, compilations appeared.
"10 TIMES PEOPLE MESSED UP THE TRADE"
"WHY YOU SHOULD NOT TRY THIS AT HOME"
"INVENTORY IS SAFE (I THINK)"
That last one showed a hand opening a little glowing cube, The creator laughed nervously.
"Okay, okay, I swear that's all I did," he said. "Five percent. That's it. Five. I'm stopping."
The video ended with him staring at the corner of the screen, smile fading.
In the comments, someone wrote:
so inventory costs less than trading?
Another replied:
delete this before people see it.
By nightfall, the feeds didn't slow.
They fractured.
Warnings. Dares. Regrets. Silence.
And threaded through all of it, in every corner of every clip, a number quietly ticking down — not fast, not slow — just enough to make everyone afraid of touching anything at all.
while this was the state of social media, official media focused on something else.
Refugees. Damage. Departure.
In another studio, a different channel cut away from official statements entirely. Their panelists sat too close together, the desk rearranged to fit an extra chair that hadn't been planned for.
The panel cycled through explanations — sociological, religious, procedural — none of which reached the same conclusion."
Footage replaced the panel.
Not portals. Not monsters.
Refugees.
Long lines at transit hubs. Temporary shelters assembled in stadiums that still bore banners from last games. Volunteers wearing mismatched insignia because no single authority had arrived first.
In the corner of the screen, a counter ticked upward. REGISTERED DISPLACED: ESTIMATED
The number updated twice in ten seconds.
On smaller screens—phones, tablets, short clips looped endlessly.
A soldier handing his rifle to a superior before stepping aside and vanishing.
A prison corridor with too many empty cells.
Everyone knew what those clips meant. That knowledge did not stop people from watching them again.
The emergency chamber beneath Solvar's capital was built for emergencies no one ever wished would come.
It was built for escalation ladders. Nuclear equivalents. Final decisions.
Now, dozens of ministers were speaking at once, voices overlapping, aides running messages by hand because secure lines kept dropping.
"Say it again," the Prime Coordinator demanded.
The woman at the far end of the table didn't look up from her tablet.
"Confirmed loss of contact with twelve districts," she said. "Four are coastal. Two inland. The rest—" she paused, then continued anyway, "—were already marked unstable after the Wave."
"And the portals?"
A different voice answered. Military.
"Still there. No outward movement. Same behavior pattern. The T-4 instances remain within perimeter."
Silence followed that.
On the far wall, a screen showed a live map. Red circles glowed faintly—restricted zones, provisional. Some pulsed where signal interference spiked.
An aide leaned down to whisper into the Coordinator's ear. He stiffened.
"They're still disappearing," he said aloud. "Adults. Civilians. Soldiers. Prisoners."
"Say 'contract travelers,'" another minister snapped. "Words matter."
The Coordinator slammed his palm against the table.
"Words don't stop panic."
Across the room, a legal advisor spoke carefully.
"We cannot criminalize activation," she said.
"Not legally. Not practically. Everyone over sixteen has it. Enforcement would—"
"—turn half the population into fugitives,"
someone finished bitterly.
A second screen flickered on. Not supposed to be live.
Glowstreem footage. Someone had patched it in without permission.
A young man shouting into his camera.
"THIS IS AWESOME GUYS INVENTORY IS REAL...."
A paused frame where 55% glowed faintly.
"Turn that off," the Coordinator said.
No one moved.
"Turn it off," he repeated.
An intelligence officer finally spoke.
"We've traced over a million videos of trade attempts globally," she said. "Most failed. the percentage, which we are considering as Energy, still deducted."
"from observed videos of attempts from general public and attempts done under observation we confirmed the existence of inventory, a spatial storage around 10 cubic metres"
" in observed cases, supposedly,
-each attempt trade cost 20%
-each use inventory takes 5%
"a few successful trade attempts recorded are casual attempts from civilians, these records have been recovered from Glowstreem videos "
" Further analysis of the trade attempts done under observation has recorded a common occurrence, which we are now treating as rule- both the parties involve in the trade gains and instinctive understanding of the trade clause, what is being traded and the consequences if the trade succeeds"
" Lastly we have observed a recovery of 0.1% in energy percentage after 24hours any more analysis needs more time for confirmation "
A murmur rippled through the room.
The room absorbed that.
On another continent, in a different chamber with different symbols on the walls, the discussion sounded almost the same.
"…if we acknowledge the trades publicly—"
"—we legitimize them."
"—they already are legitimate."
Back in Solvar, the military general cleared his throat.
"There's another problem," he said. "The bombs."
That got everyone's attention.
"We don't have enough," he continued.
No one spoke.
Because everyone had already thought it.
Outside the chamber, past locked doors and armed guards, phones kept buzzing.
Feeds refreshed.
Percentages dropped.
And every decision made behind reinforced walls lagged hours behind a world that had already moved on.
By midday, the phrase temporary measures had lost all meaning.
By afternoon, no one corrected the commentators who began calling it the first separation.
And by evening, as emergency lights replaced streetlamps in half the affected districts, the most shared post across every platform wasn't a warning or a prayer.
It was a single sentence, reposted without attribution:
The world is still here.
We are still here.
Our homes, here.
And in corner of the world
Inside, the room stayed quiet.
The man sat at the small kitchen table, hands folded around a mug he hadn't touched in minutes. The steam had already thinned. Across from him, his daughter leaned back in her chair, one knee drawn up, scrolling through her phone without really looking at it.
Neither of them spoke.
The contract hovered faintly at the edge of his vision. It appeared when he wanted, retreated when ignored. The number in the corner hadn't changed since afternoon.
60.1%
He didn't know what that meant either.
"You don't have to," she said suddenly, eyes still on the screen.
"I know," he replied.
The words landed evenly. No argument followed. They had already exhausted those.
His daughter locked her phone and finally looked at him.
"You have no proof it would work " she said. "Or that you will be able to return."
"I know" he answered again.
She nodded. Not disagreement. Just acknowledgment.
The kitchen clock ticked on, stubborn and loud. Every second felt heavier than the last.
He watched the red hand drag itself forward and wondered—briefly—if this was the part people meant when they talked about last chances.
He stood.
The chair scraped softly against the floor. She didn't stop him.
At the doorway, he hesitated. Not because of fear. Because of memory—how tall she used to be against the doorframe, how he used to measure it every year in pencil marks that were still there, faint and uneven.
He raised his hand.
The contract responded instantly.
Not with sound. Not with light. Just understanding.
No threats. No pressure. No promise that this was the right choice.
Just clarity.
Behind him, his daughter inhaled sharply.
He didn't turn around.
The air folded.
There was no flash. No portal. No wind.
One moment he was there.
The next, the place across from her was empty.
The mug tipped, rolled once, and spilled its cold contents across the table.
She stared at the space he had occupied, breathing shallow, waiting for something—anything—to happen.
Nothing did.
The clock kept ticking.
Outside, the emergency lights hummed.
And somewhere far away, in a place without streets or broadcasts or numbers counting down, a man arrived alone—without applause, without witnesses, without the certainty that he had chosen correctly.