The tremor didn't fade. It built, layer after layer of stone groaning under something ancient stretching awake for the first time in longer than history bothered to remember. The mist at the crater's distant center stopped churning and simply parted.
The world folded around them without warning, not violently, but the way a hand closes gently around something it has already decided to keep. One moment they stood in the scorched clearing among caged soldiers and a wary, freed wolf. The next, the clearing was gone.
They stood instead on a plane of dark glass stretching in every direction, reflecting a sky full of stars that belonged to no night John had ever seen, motionless and far too close. No wind moved. No sound existed beyond their own heartbeats, hammering loud enough to feel like a violation of the silence.
"John," Yuna whispered, her voice barely audible even to herself, "what did we just walk into?"
