Chapter 1431: Story 1431: When the Sky Bends

The tower’s upper platform swayed violently, the bolts holding it together groaning in protest. The vast tendril above blotted out the last scrap of moonlight, its shadow smothering the city in a false midnight.

Mira and Elena clung to the rail as the wind turned razor-cold, laced with fragments of ash that felt like needles on exposed skin. The city’s skyline was no longer intact—whole districts hung half-suspended in the void, caught in the grasp of smaller tendrils, their foundations dangling into nothing.

The largest tendril curled closer, its bulk eclipsing the fissures behind it. Up close, its surface wasn’t smooth at all—it was alive with shifting ridges and tiny, worm-like movements beneath the translucent membrane. Shapes pressed against the skin from the inside, as though eager to tear through.

The hinge must turn, the voice said again, but this time it was inside both their heads.

Elena’s grip on Mira’s arm tightened. “It knows you,” she whispered, eyes locked on the tendril. “And it’s not going to stop.”

Below, the Choir’s panic had given way to frenzy. They had stopped running from the tendrils and had begun climbing them, their molten bodies adhering to the alien flesh like ants to a vine. Some vanished into the fissures above, while others melted into the tendrils themselves, becoming part of the writhing surface.

The tendril struck.

It came down on the tower with a force that felt like the sky itself collapsing. Metal screamed. The top section buckled, flinging Mira and Elena to the floor. Mira’s fingers scraped against frost-covered steel as she tried to hold on. The railing beside her tore free and sailed into the void.

“Mira, move!” Elena shouted, half-crawling toward the emergency ladder bolted to the tower’s spine.

The tendril’s tip hovered above them now, and something about its movement was deliberate—curious. A seam split along its length, revealing a circular mouth lined with black, glassy teeth that clicked softly, almost rhythmically.

Mira’s breath came in short, jagged bursts. The cold was inside her bones now. And beneath the fear was something worse—recognition. She knew that mouth. She had seen it in the visions forced into her mind back at the console, opening above her in a city of bone.

The tower shuddered again as another tendril wrapped around its base. The supports were giving way.

Elena yanked Mira toward the ladder. “We have to get down before—”

The tendril’s mouth snapped shut, then plunged toward them. Instinct took over. Mira grabbed the nearest loose cable, swung herself over the edge, and slid down hard enough to tear skin from her palms. Elena followed, gritting her teeth against the friction burns.

Above, the tendril’s tip slammed into the platform they had just vacated, splitting it apart like rotting wood. Shards of steel spiraled into the air before vanishing into the void above.

When they hit the plaza, the ground wasn’t still—it heaved, shifting underfoot like something alive. Cracks spiderwebbed across the stone, black mist curling out of them.

The tendril wasn’t retreating.

It was following.

And as it bent lower, the fissures in the sky widened further, spilling more of the impossible darkness into their world.