There was no sound when the sky changed.
That was the first thing Artor Conan Davil realized, that the greatest changes arrived without thunder. There was no lightning, no blinding light, no proclamation from on high. The sky remained blue. The clouds continued to move. Birds still flew.
Yet the blue felt closer.
Not descending.
Not collapsing.
Only approaching, like a face stared at too long in silence.
Artor stopped walking. He did not know why. His legs decided on their own. As if there were an invisible boundary he did not wish to cross before understanding something, or admitting it.
The people around him kept moving.
No one pointed upward.
No one asked questions.
Yet their steps became slower. Not hesitant, but weighed. Every movement seemed to pass through an unspoken consideration.
He looked up.
The sky did not crack like glass. It did not split. It did not gape open. But there was a line, not a line of light, not a line of darkness, but an absence of color. Thin. Almost polite. As if the sky were asking permission to break.
The line did not move.
It simply existed.
Artor lowered his gaze. His chest felt heavier, not from tightness, but because the air seemed to demand accountability from every breath.
He breathed more shallowly.
An old man sat at the edge of the road. His face was ordinary. Not glowing. Not grim. He stared at his own hands, as if counting something invisible.
"It's close," the man said.
Not to anyone in particular.
Artor turned.
"What?"
The man shrugged slowly. "The conclusion."
There was no panic in his voice. No conviction either. The word was spoken the way one mentions a season that cannot be prevented.
Artor wanted to ask more, but the sentence had already closed itself. There was no opening left to continue.
He walked on.
At the place of worship, the atmosphere changed without changing.
People arrived earlier. They sat longer. There were not many additional prayers. There was no sermon that rose in volume. Only a silence that was fuller.
When the prayer began, Artor stood with them.
He knew the recitations. His tongue moved precisely. His breathing was steady. Yet every word felt as if it passed through a layer he had never touched before. As if those meanings could no longer be passed over casually.
He did not feel more devout.
He felt more exposed.
When he bowed his head, the floor did not feel distant. He knew, without a clear reason, that the distance between himself and the ground had changed, even though the measure had not.
After the prayer ended, there were no long exchanges of greeting. People left with faces that were not searching for answers. They carried something they did not wish to share.
Artor exited last.
The sky now felt lower still.
Not descending in measurement. Descending in intent.
He touched his chest. His heartbeat was normal. Too normal. As if his body refused to hurry, even as the world began tightening its knots.
In the distance, a building collapsed.
Not because of an explosion.
Not because of an earthquake.
It simply no longer stood.
People stopped watching after a few seconds. There were no screams. No mass panic. They turned away like people witnessing something that was meant to happen.
Artor stood longer.
He waited for a great fear. One that was dramatic. One that paralyzed.
What came instead was the opposite, a small awareness that kept accumulating.
He began to realize that this world was not being destroyed to frighten.
This world was being drawn home.
He walked past a shop window mirror. His reflection did not change. The same face. The same eyes. Yet there was something he could no longer find there.
Justification.
He had lived by justifications. Reasons to postpone. Reasons to excuse. Reasons to feel sufficient.
In this world, justifications had not disappeared. They simply no longer worked.
The sky drew his attention again. The line was now slightly clearer. Still thin. Still undramatic. Yet he knew, without knowledge, that the line was not meant to be seen, but to be recognized.
A small child tugged at his mother's hand. "The sky looks different," he said.
The mother did not look up. "Yes," she replied softly.
There was no further explanation. The child did not ask again.
Artor swallowed. His throat was dry, though he was not thirsty. He realized, for the first time, that he was no longer asking what was happening.
The question had changed.
What will happen to me if this continues?
And with that question came a more disturbing awareness.
He did not know whether he wanted time to stop, or wanted everything to simply be finished.
The sky remained silent.
The crack did not widen.
Not today.
But Artor Conan Davil knew, with a certainty he had not asked for, that this world would not return to its old way. Not because great signs would come, but because the absence of signs was now more honest than all promises.
He walked home, if the place could still be called home.
With every step, he carried one new burden.
Not the fear of apocalypse.
But the awareness that he could no longer pretend not to see it.
And that, he knew, was only the beginning.