Over the soft rumbling of debris hitting the floor, Maddie was shouting over it.

“FUCK! MY EYE! I GOT SOME OF THAT FUCKING WALL IN MY EYE!”

Jackie needed a precious moment, to find herself as her mind buzzed. She slowly picked herself up from the ground, hearing Aiko rushing towards them at her side, and yet she didn’t turn to face her.

“Guys!” Aiko shouted. “What happened, what did we do, and/or how can I do it--?”

“This ain’t—” Maddie either wiped her eye aggressively or swiped at Aiko, Jackie didn’t pay any attention and just used context. “—The time for your cheap-ass masochism right now, Kobayashi!”

“I didn’t—don’t see anyone throwing things or perched somewhere,” River reported, from behind Jackie, possibly searching around. “That—that came from the impact—”

“I was so shocked, I couldn’t say anything until now…” Tracy whimpered out, huddled barely out of Jackie’s sight on her other side.

Jackie was only looking towards the ruined wall, trying to use her enhanced eyes to pierce through the cloud of dust.

It got to the point that she squinted, something that she felt she would only do normally, not someone with special sight.

And it caused her already pumping heart to go into overdrive.

Her time with siVis may be short, it may be botched, far and way from the typical experience…

But if she, and by extension the other, and further extension even a Trend, cannot piece together what happened… Then everyone else was screwed.

“C’mon—”

She dragged her fingers down her cheeks, letting her ringed eyes go wide and blue veins form at their corners.

“Fucking c’mon—give me something, anything right now!”

She instantly get go of her face, her arms buckled at her sides. It was because her expression melted into pure, confused fear.

It wasn’t just a statue. And it didn’t just burst from the wall.

The fossilized remains of a human long gone, was craved into the side of the building. It was just a normal, small office space. And now there were skeletal limbs forcefully merged out of the side, the chest caved in as it was burrowed on the spot, a jaw dragged across the surface from right to left, and yet the skull was mutilated enough to convey pure agony.

“W…” Maddie was speechless in that one moment, and it made Jackie’s heart drop further. “What kind of snuff film shit is this, Jackson…?”

She tried to respond, but Jackie found her heart shooting up into her throat, as her stomach filled with knots and nearly burst with butterflies. She couldn’t talk, she couldn’t stand up as she usually does.

“Anything can and well happen, ladies,” River reminded them all, trying to snap them out of their fight/flight/freeze.

Jackie turned around, seeing her and Tracy back up into the streets, along with the other passerby that looked on in fear.

“It doesn’t seem to be N’atural or Mayhem-based,” Aiko said, still having her laidback tone despite backing away as well, shooting looks from side to side before focusing forward again. “Unless they got a friend or this is someone who just got something—”

“siVis shit’s the only explanation!” Maddie yelled. “This doesn’t fit with the other cosmic fuckery!”

Tracy screamed out, hunching over, causing the others to dart their gaze at her.

“TRACY!” River shouted, kneeling towards her, reaching out but stopping, only to maintain her space.

“SWEET—HELLISH NOISE COMING FROM SATAN HIMSELF--!”

Jackie knew that once Tracy exaggerated, combining words and phrases and idioms and adages—it was bad.

She looked up at the girls with teary, melting doughy eyes with a chill shaking her voice.

“Do you guys hear tha--?!”

Getting cut off the noise, that was emitting itself from the sky itself. All around them, hitting everywhere.

It was low, warped. Skipping with sharp whistles, irregular and repetitive rhythm, so low that it was felt vibrating through bone.

Only to transfer, right into rumbling under their feet.

Something slammed into a parked car, and they couldn’t see it until after.

Something grazed a building a bit further up the street on their left, and still, they could only react.

“Oh no—” River said, barely audible. “No no no—”

“What the fuck--?” Maddie sounded fearful.

“GUYS!” Aiko screamed out, as she pointed. “THE SKY! THE SKYYY!”

Jackie looked up.

And watched as the skies themselves began to crumble into smaller pieces. Flying down with the force of and speed of race cars.

“WHAT DO WE DO,” Tracy huffed out, never mind scream it. “WHAT DO WE DO?!”

Jackie stood there, only breathing, taking in the parts of sky raining down and destroying structures and ramming into objects with such ease, that the impacts caused debris to sprinkle into the air, creating a murky atmosphere where it was hard to see any more coming, even if one could track the trajectory.

But everything reconnected, came online, once the screams of people and the blaring of sirens, and the rumbling of ruins flooded into her enhanced senses all at once.

The crowd of people that were around them already sprinted away, for their collective lives, even as the sky was starting to rain down around every path they could’ve taken.

“Too much, here,” she grabbed her CAST, stammering as she began to back away. “It’s too much, we have to go--!”

“We gotta get the FUCK outta here!” Tracy readily agreed.

“WHERE THOUGH?!” Maddie questioned at the top of her lungs, looking around and getting startled at sky slamming into the streets.

Jackie was rubbing her CAST, until the words, “P-per-Perspective Flip!” fumbled out of her mouth. “Tracy, we need you!”

“Oh no oh god no oh god no oh god—”

Regardless of her fear, Tracy extended her arms outward, and mimed lifting up the part of sidewalk they were facing.

And nothing happened.

“I’m trying I’m honestly trying you all I can see me trying BUT IT’S NOT HAPPENING!”

Aiko tapped on her own CAST, “This is happening, we can’t go all out right now!”

“Y’all, we’re in the middle of a meteor shower,” Maddie tried to reason and fast. “Which direction are we going, or I’m gonna try find my own!”

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Jackie’s face felt like it’s been twitching and twist for what feels like hours now. Her brain swelling against her skull. Heart pounding against her ears. And the sounds around her still overwhelmed everything.

“J—Run!” Jackie screamed, and then turned her head. “Just run! They’re gonna open the tunnels soon, just stay alive until then-!”

As soon as she started to sprint, a piece slammed into the street, forcing her back. She felt her sneakers heat up from the friction, looking down to see streaks on the road.

She—they—couldn’t keep on like this.

“CRANK EVERYTHING UP, TOO!” Jackie screamed. “DOESN’T MATTER IF YOU CAN’T SEE, YOU CAN REACT!”

She was so tempted to look back, but she knew there wasn’t much time.

Her eyes widened, her ears subtly moved. Her surroundings tightened, the noise around her became refined. As she ran, her sight didn’t become focused into a tunnel, but a cone spray that faded until the edges. She found interesting sounds within the fog of noise.

And still, she was just reacting.

She cut through droves of people in other directions, she flinched every time a boom rocked across the scene, and her enhanced vision caused a dissonance where her movements were super fast while the obstacles in her way were slowed and methodical.

It didn’t matter how fast she can go now, and how quick her reaction time was. She would always barely miss a panicked person. And especially jump when an impact made landfall. Creating this sense that this exercise she’s come up with didn’t change a thing.

She wanted to turn back to the others, but the piece of the sky was heading straight for her.

Begging—pleading for her legs to work, just this once. She poured all her available energy into her leg segments as they slowly defined themselves, racing against seconds, knowing that time always had the advantage.

She tried to bend down, in hopes to launch herself.

Only for her legs to become jagged, and launch herself at an angle, falling onto her side again while tripping up innocents with her blunder.

If they had any more time, they would’ve cursed at her and ran. So they only gave a dirty look as they scrambled upwards, and continued their way.

Picking herself up would’ve been easier, hadn’t other people jumped over or used her as a stomping ground.

She wanted to say something, ease these people from losing their minds.

But there was no time to do other things.

Barely catching a glimpse of the oncoming sky, Jackie activated her siVis on the left side, and launched herself again, spinning in the air before landing hard on her back ways away.

She turned her head over her shoulder, only to see the others experience the same things.

Aiko was trying in vain to correctly jump, but the path was off and she couldn’t do more to control herself in the air, slamming face first. Tracy used to measure her steps, but buckles and trips, going way too fast for her to handle. Maddie tried to pour everything into dodge, and was snapping her body back and forth back and forth back and forth.

And River, who was tired from the running alone, stop every block. Not only to gather breathe, but to activate her ability that would’ve been useful for her, nothing working.

Jackie glanced at her arm in fright, watching her CAST illuminate its lines, that aren’t visible until they come on.

She felt like a foot slowly pressed itself, working down from the inside of her body. Considering she knows what that felt like outside, she was not at all prepared for that difference. She didn’t have the energy to twitch, to scream, to writhe. This was the CAST telling her to stop.

This wouldn’t have happened, had she--they done things correctly. Hell, this wouldn’t have happened had she swallowed her damn pride. And now she’s struggling on the floor.

Raising her head, it was such a strange aspect of siVis. To truly take in everything around her. People, normal people, moved as if they were on a speed slower. Not that they were just in slow motion, but the frames of their running, leaving the buildings, trying to board cars but abandoning them… It was watching another species experiencing gravity on another planet.

But, the benefit of having such a deceptively crippling perspective was seeing the things outside of one’s scope be easier to capture. Turning her head, she saw the entryway for the underground tunnel systems raise out of the ground, with Extant Enforcers being in waiting. White shelled, hunched people in high-tech suits, ready to make the announcement to board.

Jackie fought to get on her hands and knees, and worked up the energy to begin crawling forward.

Only for the part of the sky to slam right into it, blasting dust and causing screams of terror to ring out all at once.

Jackie took the brunt of it, looking away as she wiped her eyes. The dust didn’t remotely phase her, she’s been in so much pain worse than that.

But nothing compared to what she just saw, after doing so.

The piece of the sky not only made an impact crater. It warped everything in its path.

The tunnel entry was rendered into clay, just a plaything. By all accounts, this projectile has melted what it hit and possibly the people inside, in one fell swoop.

It was this piece of information, this possibility she never knew possible, that she needed to click in her head.

What raised this weird, terrible event into absurd horror.

She couldn’t unsee it now, as she looked around.

She saw people being hit, turning into mush as their bodies continued to move. No blood, no guts, no gashes or disemboweling, dismemberment. What humanity considered horrible acts of violence was not here. It was inhumane in the strictest sense of the word.

She had all of this sight. All of these other heightened senses and abilities. But she could only sit there, watching people melt into a paste, within motions she saw every single detail, and being fast enough for it to not matter to her.

Her arms flexed and turned into pieces.

Fuck that.

She focused onto a person. Anyone. Fucking anyone.

A middle-aged woman came into frame for her, running for her life, but immediately falling.

Jackie used her arms to slam into the pavement, leaping over the crowds, the mess, the insanity. It still wasn’t calculated. It still wasn’t true. And she slammed herself into the ground after, many steps away from this woman.

But she didn’t care.

The tall girl rose from the ground, and used the little she had left to struggle, to make her way to this woman. This woman sensed something coming from her, while she was crying and her locks of brown hair plastered onto her wet face. Looking to Jackie, she reached out with her wavering hand. Jackie in turn raised hers, despite having siVis activate within it.

Their hands eventually met together, pivotal moments that felt stretched into multiple eternities. Jackie gripped this woman’s hand and used everything to buckle herself back up with the added weight. And managed it.

Without wasting time with any words, she turned on her siVis’d feet and booked it. Not looking back, fighting against the current of chaos before her.

Her muscles were beginning to scream, her siVis kicking back against the machinations of the CAST, inducing periods of an odd, punishing fatigue that is trying to keep her tired when she had the ability to call upon all available energy. None of that mattered right now and barely felt it. All she felt was this woman’s weight and was wanting to keep focusing on it. The weight she wanted to feel right now, more than ever.

And in an instant, it lessened.

Jackie didn’t exactly stop on her own. Plunging right back into that gray area, it was a combination of every exhaustion she’s experiencing pilling all at once and her mind forcing siVis to stop her—because it felt like the world is forcing her to do so.

She looked back.

She only had the hand. At some point, the sky piece landed a direct hit, leaving a gooey trail of once a person she dragged along as she took the hand.

“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!” she erupted all at once, dropping the hand onto the ground.

Falling onto her knees, her pieces flaring and shuttering as she slammed at the pavement until sparks began flying from her ruined hands.

“GIVE US A FUCKING CHANCE!” she yelled up at the falling sky. “GIVE US A CHANCE TO FUCKING BREATHE! THIS IS HELL! WE’RE IN FUCKING HELL!”

“Pull yourself together, Jackson!”

Her head snapped towards Maddie, who was being carried by Aiko, with Tracy helping River with dejected and fearful eyes. “You can’t be doing this right now--!”

“This isn’t some tantrum—A lady just fucking died in front of me!” Jackie screamed. “I COULDN’T DO ANYTHING--!”

“YES AND IF YOU FUCKING LAY THERE, YOU’RE KILLING US AND YOURSELF!” Maddie yelled back. “WE HAVE TO GO, NOW! THAT’S WHAT YOU SAID!”

Something silenced the two arguing young women. Something that managed to suck the air out of everyone who was still around to witness what happened.

A shadow cast itself across the entire city. Not just this affected area, but the entire city of Davenport.

Everyone turned their heads, only to see an amorphous, on-rushing purple… Substance that began to fall out of the gaping hole that the sky held together.

While it was spilling… It was gelatinous enough to bubble in place, leaning out of the sky, growing in volume like a water balloon attached to a hose filling it from the inside. The texture only, it was… Like seeing molten magma flow, but with sketching, black lines surging across the surface within nanoseconds, coursing and changing positions all across.

The space “created” for it wasn’t remotely enough, once it filled and rubbed up against the “sides” of the sky, it broke it further to make more room.

And once it spilled more and more outside of the hole, without seconds between—it became an erect wall that stretched across the land.

Causing a wave of pure destruction to form, and whoosh across the city.

Jackie didn’t have time. No one did.

But her siVis activated anyways, and she shot up. There was no anger, no fear anymore. Just primal instinct that told her that she was in danger and had to go. She could only see the others activate as well, as they turned the corner, parted from their respective person, and ran.

She ran with the girls, they ran together as the poor people were instantly swallowed up in dust, debris, and devastation.

As much and as long as they were able to outrun the wave, they soon stopped simply because they ran out of energy and fell hard onto the ground.

At the very least, siVis along their bodies cushioned the blow and caused them to curl themselves into balls, but there was nothing else that could be done.

The wave came, and despite getting pelted hard, managed to squeeze in key areas of the ruins that made up the “outer” shell of the wave, and was carried along. Granted, the force was still rocking them around within these sharp and uneven holes they found themselves in. Rattling around, getting cut on all sides, and getting whiplash until it all ground to a halt.

Jackie didn’t come out immediately. None of them did. But she crawled out, covered in dirt, grime, and gashes. Didn’t have the energy to even pant.

But she looked up.

She looked up and saw an immense, spectral barrier that hung over the island. Torn through space, too thick to see through, the surface brewing like the Sun's surface.

Boundless in it's design, becoming a new boundary for the people trapped before it.