CHAPTER 192 — WHEN THE FIRST CRACK BECAME VISIBLE TO EVERYONE
The city did not wake the same way the next morning.
Something subtle but undeniable had changed overnight, and even though most people could not explain it, they felt it in the strange tension woven beneath ordinary moments. Elena noticed it the second she stepped outside. People were moving with more awareness now, their expressions slightly sharper, their reactions less automatic. It was not fear. Fear would have been easier to understand. This was something quieter, something closer to instinct, like the city itself had begun sensing that something hidden underneath its perfect rhythm no longer fit as cleanly as it once had.
