The rain didn’t fall.

  It came from the horizon.

  Ren adjusted his footing and tilted his body forty-five degrees, gripping a rusted railing bolted into what used to be a rooftop. A few seconds ago, the asphalt below had been “down.”

  Now it was a wall to his left.

  Gravity had changed again.

  He exhaled slowly.

  “Sideways. Of course.”

  Water slammed into him from the west, driven not by wind, but by a rewritten law of physics.

  Above the shattered skyline, a colossal ring pierced the clouds.

  The Ring.

  Since it recalculated the world, gravity had stopped being a rule. It became a suggestion.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Some districts crushed you into the ground.

  Others pulled you into the sky.

  Ren survived because he had something the world didn’t account for.

  A glitch.

  The metal platform beneath him jerked violently.

  Wrong direction.

  The pull snapped upward—toward the sky.

  Ren reacted before fear could catch up.

  He raised his right hand.

  Pain exploded through his nerves.

  “Stage One.”

  Attraction.

  An invisible line locked onto a distant water tank across the broken skyline.

  The force yanked him forward.

  The world blurred.

  He slammed into concrete, breath torn from his lungs.

  His fingers were numb.

  Using it always burned.

  But falling into the sky burned worse.

  Then he saw her.

  She stood in the rain.

  Perfectly vertical.

  Gravity ignored her.

  Silver hair. Pale skin. Thin blue lines glowing faintly beneath it.

  Her eyes focused somewhere beyond him.

  “Target identified.”

  Her voice didn’t travel through air.

  It arrived inside his skull.

  “Subject: Ren. Gravitational deviation beyond acceptable threshold.”

  A translucent interface flickered in his vision.

  Not his ability.

  Something else.

  Something higher.

  【Warning: Unregistered unit detected】

  【Protocol Initiated: Force Link】

  “What did you just—”

  She stepped closer.

  Touched his chest.

  The rain froze.

  No.

  It reversed.

  Thousands of droplets spiraled upward, defying every rewritten law.

  “Wait,” she whispered.

  For the first time, her voice wasn’t mechanical.

  It was desperate.

  “Don’t remember yet.”

  And then—

  The sky cracked open.

  An enormous eye looked down.

  Watching.

  Judging.

  Ren’s vision shattered into white noise.

  Fire.

  The Ring collapsing.

  A younger version of himself screaming someone’s name—

  Darkness.

  When he woke, she was gone.

  The rain fell normally.

  For now.

  In his palm rested a black fragment.

  It refused to fall.

  End of Chapter 1.