The alarm clock on your nightstand reads 6:47 AM, but that's not what woke you.

It's the sound. Like a radio tuned to static, but deeper—somewhere in your chest, and behind your eyes, and under the floorboards all at once. Your window is still closed. The street outside is quiet. But the sound is real.

Then the air splits.

A jagged tear, brighter than anything in your dim bedroom, hangs in the middle of the room like a piece of reality that forgot how to be solid. It pulses, shedding faint light the color of a cracked television. Through it, you can see shapes—trees, maybe, and something moving.

Your phone buzzes. A severe weather alert. Then another. Then one with no text at all, just a black screen with a white circle spinning.

The voice comes from inside the rift. A hand reaches through, grasping at your floorboards.