HAIRLINE FRACTURES

The city didn’t notice the first collapse.

That was the cruellest part.

No alarms. No screaming crowds. No cinematic rupture in the sky. Just a minor transit delay, a flicker of streetlights, and a single pedestrian loudly complaining that their coffee “tasted wrong.” People around him shuffled past, oblivious, wrapped in their own routines, entirely unaware that the threads holding reality together were fraying beneath their feet.

Akiro felt it anyway.

He was halfway across the crosswalk when the pressure hit—sharp, immediate, like gravity briefly forgot what it was doing. His knees buckled. He caught himself on a lamppost, breathing shallow, the metal cold against his palms. His chest tightened. His heartbeat rattled in his ears.

A car horn blared, scraping across the morning haze. “Move!” someone shouted, frustrated at the pedestrian who hadn’t cleared the lane fast enough.

What a drag, he thought. Reality bends, and I’m the inconvenience.

Rin was at his side before he could process more than a fragment of thought. “Talk to me,” she said, her voice steady, calm, but threaded with tension he could feel like an undertow.

“Something’s tearing,” he managed, words clipped. “Not here… close. Under the street. Or… under the city.” His voice faltered. “I don’t know exactly how to describe it.”

She closed her eyes, scanning with her practised awareness. The pause stretched, unbearably long. “I don’t feel it,” she admitted finally, and Akiro could hear the note of worry beneath her words. That scared him more than if she’d screamed.

“What?” he asked, voice tight.

“Not here,” she said. “Not in this space. But I don’t feel the pressure you do. That means…” She trailed off, brow furrowing. “It’s fast. Public. Small. But sharp. And it’s moving.”

Akiro swallowed. His stomach churned. “So… it’s bad?”

Rin opened her eyes. “Maybe.”

They moved. Down stairwells marked with peeling paint and rusted railings. Corridors abandoned decades ago stretched out, narrow, claustrophobic, lined with old signage and the tang of oil, dust, and concrete.

Akiro’s senses shifted. Something in the air made him nauseous. Faint metallic taste. A subtle vibration under his feet. Blood-memory flickered—images, sensations he didn’t recognise as his own. He shook his head hard. “Nope. Not today. Not happening.”

“What?” Rin asked sharply.

“Nothing. Or… something..Ugh! Hard to tell now.” He rubbed at his temples, trying to shake off the dizzying perception of threads tugging at his mind.

Rin’s eyes narrowed. “What am I supposed to do with such vague responses?”

“Join the club,” Akiro muttered, voice bitterly amused despite the tremor in his knees.

The corridor widened into a chamber used decades ago for flood control. Rusted valves and metal grates lined the walls. Old water stains had turned the ceiling brown. Dampness lingered. The smell was sharp and sour, a mix of iron and old decay. The suppression seal here had been maintained better than most areas nearby. Now, it was thinned, stretched, translucent like glass under stress, as though it had been pulled to its limits without anyone noticing.

And someone was already there.

He stood near the gate, hands shoved into the pockets of a long coat. Calm. Too calm. His posture relaxed to the point of mockery. Tall, lean. Hair pulled back loosely. A scar traced his jawline—not ritual, not magical. Old, human, indifferent to the years.

“Ah,” he said pleasantly, voice smooth, almost melodic. “You’re late.”

Rin’s stance snapped rigid. Her hands flexed at her sides, ready. “Ilya.”

Akiro blinked. “Ilya?”

Ilya smiled faintly. “You must be the Anchor.”

Akiro felt the word settle uncomfortably in his chest. Cold sweat faintly appeared as he tried to adjust his stance. “…Anchor?”

Rin’s jaw tightened. “You’re destabilising a major seal. Step away.”

Ilya tilted his head slightly, eyes calm but penetrating. “It’s destabilising itself.”

“That’s a lie,” Rin snapped. “The lattice is holding. But just barely.”

“Is it?” Ilya’s smile widened faintly, almost teasing. “Or is the system simply over-exerted? Perhaps strained by repeated fragment losses. Perhaps… stretched too thin to recognise failure until it’s too late.”

Akiro’s vision warped slightly. Pressure rose, subtle at first, then sharp and insistent, as though the world itself pressed against him. He tasted copper. His stomach was clenched.

Rin swore under her breath. “See?” Ilya said softly, voice almost intimate. “He feels it. You don’t. You never will. Not until it’s too late.”

Rin moved between them like a shield. “You don’t get to use him,” she spat, voice low, controlled, dangerous.

“I’m not using him,” Ilya replied smoothly. “I’m acknowledging him. Recognising what the system refuses to admit. You, the Anchor, are already stretched. Already thinning.”

Akiro laughed weakly, a hollow sound. “Wow. First time for everything. Don’t ya think?”

No one laughed. The joke was private, inside his head, and that was worse than silence.

The seal quivered beneath their feet. A hairline crack split the floor, shallow but fast. Dust fell from the ceiling. Water dripped in a distant corner.

Ilya sighed, tilting his head. “We’re out of time.”

He stepped back and vanished, dissolving into raw magic that spilt into the fracture like water leaking through a dam. Akiro’s chest tightened as if it were pulled toward the space Ilya had occupied.

The seal was held. Barely.

But something had changed.

Akiro knew it in his bones. The lattice had missed a step.

“Was that… all of it?” he asked, voice shaky.

“Don’t speak,” Rin said, eyes still scanning. “It’s not gone. It’s… waiting. Watching. Hairline fractures spread silently, not in explosions, but in whispers of instability. Every failure like this compounds.”

“Whispers,” he repeated, thinking of the faint tremor under his feet and the copper taste in his mouth. “…Why does it feel like the city is breathing wrong?”

Rin exhaled slowly, running her hand over a chalked sigil she had drawn moments before. “Because it is. The lattice isn’t perfect. It never was. And now, every misstep—every uncontrolled fragment, every Anchor using magic under strain—accelerates the decay.”

Akiro’s stomach twisted. “So… what? We just watch until it collapses completely?”

“No,” Rin said sharply. “We contain it until a more permanent solution. Until the system corrects itself. But…” Her voice dropped. “…it may already be beyond correction.”

Akiro blinked. “…So, we’re just… patching cracks?”

“Yes,” Rin admitted. “And sometimes the cracks fight back.”

He sighed. “…Great. I’m really enjoying my role as a human Band-Aid.”

She didn’t laugh. “Focus.”

They moved closer to the weakened seal, the metal grates trembling faintly underfoot. Akiro felt every vibration. Every hum. Every subtle thrum of magic pressing against the lattice. He could feel threads of energy brushing past his mark, lingering in ways that made him shiver.

“Rin,” he said quietly. “…Does it hurt them?”

“Who?” she asked.

“Ilya. People manipulate the fractures. The Unbound. The… everyone who pushes magic against the lattice.”

“They’re aware,” Rin said. “They feel strain. But some… they welcome it. Some push for chaos. You, though…” She looked at him, a flicker of sadness passing her eyes. “…you aren’t built for this. Not yet. And yet, here you are.”

Akiro exhaled, trying to process. “I’m… failing, right?”

“No,” Rin said, voice firm. “Not failing. Learning. Surviving. Adapting. Each step is counted. Even when it doesn’t feel like it.”

“And what if it doesn’t hold?” he pressed, voice quiet, almost a whisper.

Rin’s eyes darkened. “Then we fight again. We patch. We seal. We bleed fragments to keep the city intact. You—” She gestured at him, eyes softening despite herself. “…anchor, resist. Don’t let the cracks define you.”

Akiro exhaled. “Resist. Got it. That’s… doable?”

“Doable,” Rin said firmly. “…But it will hurt. Fragments lost, reactions dulled, memories… faded. The system has no mercy. We just do what we can.”

Akiro nodded, jaw tight. “I’m… getting used to that. Not… liking it. But getting used to it.”

A silence fell between them, punctuated only by the distant drip of water and the low hum of the weakening lattice. Akiro flexed his fingers, feeling the subtle pulse beneath his skin, aware of every fragment already gone and the pieces he hadn’t noticed yet.

“The first fracture is always the quietest,” Rin said, almost to herself. “Hairline cracks. Almost invisible. But they spread. And if you ignore them…” She trailed off.

“I won’t ignore it,” Akiro said softly. “…I can’t.”

She glanced at him, a flicker of relief in her eyes. “Good. Then let’s make sure the city doesn’t either.”

And somewhere below, deep in the veins of concrete and magic, the hairline fractures whispered onward, indifferent to the humans racing to contain them.