For a while, I just stood there not moving, not believing.
The city burned in pockets, fire snaking up the sides of towers, smoke bleeding into the violet sky. From up here, Nairobi looked like a dying heartbeat, pulsing with bursts of light and silence. I couldn't tell if the screaming had stopped or if I'd just grown used to it.
Something in the air had changed. The wind felt heavier, humming with static. When I touched the balcony rail, a faint blue spark jumped from my skin to the metal.
"Right," I muttered to no one. "Either I'm high, or magic's real or I'm officially crazy."
The System didn't answer. Not that I expected it to.
A sudden explosion echoed from what looked like downtown, maybe a gas station, sounded like a bomb. Flames bloomed near what I assumed was Kenyatta Avenue, lighting up the streets like sunrise through hellfire. Another tremor rolled through the building, rattling the windows and shaking a fine layer of dust from the ceiling.
I stumbled back inside. My phone still lay where I'd dropped it, its screen warped and broken.
"Come on," I muttered, pressing the power button. "Work. Please."
Of course, like everything else in my life, it didn't.
I threw the useless phone onto the couch. "Hello? Blue thing? You still there?" I called, half desperate, half joking. " thingie mabob?" oh right "System?"
The air shimmered. Then the blue text flickered back into existence in front of me.
[Territory Boundary Established – 0.12 km²]
[Mana Sync Active]
Blue lines crawled outward from the apartment walls, sliding through the floor and across the street below like glowing roots. I grabbed the countertop for balance as the whole world seemed to tilt toward me, the air itself thick and aware like it could see me.
[Domain Integration Incomplete – Claim Required to Stabilize Structure]
"What does that even mean?" I whispered.
No response. Just a low hum of energy beneath my skin.
I stepped closer to the window. The view was… wrong. Different. The skyline looked alive with thin threads of light connected buildings, tracing the outlines of streets. My home sat in the middle of it all, glowing faintly like the heart of an invisible web.
And at the edges of that light, things were moving.
People or what had once been people. Dozens of them. Running. Collapsing.
Their bones shifted under their skin, arms twisting at unnatural angles.
At first, I thought it was the smoke playing tricks on me until one of them grabbed onto a streetlamp and I watched as it melted
The person's skin shimmered with fractures of crystal, veins pulsing with liquid fire.
"Oh, hell no," I breathed.
Another figure lunged at a car sending it swerving into a store before, smashing through the windshield as it dragged the driver out; he didn't even have time to scream before it tore him apart. As his family stared in open mouthed shock.
The System chimed again, soft and almost polite.
[Warning: Rift Energy Detected – 400m Proximity]
[Advise Immediate Evacuation or Domain Expansion]
"Domain expansion?" I repeated. "I don't even know what that means! Can you, I don't know, explain anything?"
My voice broke into laughter halfway through the sound sharp and panicked the kind that always came right before I lost control. Before I could spiral, the floor trembled again. Another shockwave hit, cracking the walls and knocking a picture frame from the shelf.
Instinct took over. I ran to the front door and yanked it open only to freeze.
The hallway outside warped like bent steel. The air rippled, distorting reality. For a moment, I saw something inside that distortion a dark, vaguely humanoid shape crawling on the ceiling that left deep claw marks wherever it touched.
I slammed the door shut. "Nope. Absolutely not."
Another tremor shook the building. My apartment lights flickered, sparked, and died.
"Talk about a horror movie," I muttered, backing toward my bedroom as blue light danced across the floor.
The System's text reappeared, pulsing faster this time.
[Territory Stability: 32%]
[Collapse Imminent]
[Sovereign Directive: Defend or Expand Your Claim]
"Defend? or expand?" I said aloud. "Sure. Because I'm totally qualified to wage a metaphysical magical messed up war in my own living room."
I forced myself to breathe. "Okay, Mercy. Think. You're losing your mind, but if the world's really ending, you might as well lose it productively."
I closed my eyes and focused on that strange pulse I'd felt earlier, that deep connection that carved itself into my bones and felt it connect me and the ground. It wasn't just in me anymore. It was around me, humming under the tiles, threading through the concrete like veins.
If I could feel it… maybe I could control it.
I pictured the apartment. The kitchen I barely used. The bathroom I spent hours soaking in. The bedroom, the cracks on the walls, the stubborn potted plant on the balcony.
I focused on that image of my home. The one constant I'd ever had.
"Hold together," I whispered. "Please."
The System answered instantly.
[Claim Accepted]
[Domain Expanded: 0.12 → 0.24 km²]
[Mana Flow Stabilized]
A surge of energy shot up through my feet, burning cold and clean. The floor glowed. The walls pulsed. The cracks in the ceiling sealed themselves with blue light, smooth and perfect just as they had been when I first moved in.
The windows shimmered with a faint blue hue, then cleared. Outside, something slammed against an invisible wall. I saw one of those crystalline things pressing a misshapen hand against the barrier before it burst into ash and light.
I collapsed to my knees, trembling. My breath came in sharp, ragged bursts.
The voice returned smooth, steady, and utterly uncaring.
[Domain Secured]
[Sovereign Level: 1]
[Primary Objective: Survive the First Night]
A shaky laugh escaped me. "Oh, that's all? Just survive the night? Easy."
Outside, the city burned brighter. Sirens faded one by one. Helicopters vanished from the sky. Their place was taken by a new sound: deep, distant, alien howls rising from somewhere beyond the Rift.
My barrier flickered, blue and fragile, but it held.
I sank against the wall, staring out the window. In just a few hours, half of Nairobi was gone. And somehow, my home was still standing.
Maybe that made me lucky.
Maybe it made me cursed.
Either way, I wasn't in danger tonight.
The world had changed.
And it had noticed me.
As exhaustion finally set in, I stumbled back to my bed the only place that still felt safe. I wondered if my family was alive. If they'd awakened powers of their own. If they were safe.
Those thoughts blurred as sleep took me.
For the first time in forever, I didn't dream of failing.
I dreamed of roots glowing, deep, and alive spreading through the city, claiming it piece by piece.
And at the heart of it all, pulsing like a heartbeat, was me.