I stood in front of Mormor's old mirror – my mirror now, I supposed – and tried to remember how to dress for a party. The reflection staring back at me seemed like a stranger: hair actually combed, wearing something other than a faded t-shirt. I'd found a dark blue button-down in the back of my closet, still with the tags on. A Christmas present from my parents last year, ordered by their assistant who'd at least gotten the size right.

  The house creaked around me, a century-old wooden frame settling in the cooling evening air. Mormor had loved this place, with its slanted floors and painted cabinets, the garden that bloomed with berries in summer and stood stoic under snow in winter. My parents had suggested selling it after she died – "It's too much house for one teenager, Erik" – but on this, for once, I had refused to bend. They'd relented, probably relieved not to have me in their sleek Stockholm apartment on the rare occasions they were in Sweden.

  I ran a hand through my curls, undoing most of my earlier effort. What did it matter anyway? I was only going because Sofia would physically drag me there if I tried to back out, and Marcus would let her.

  My phone buzzed on the dresser.

  Marcus: Outside in 5. Sofia's already complaining about the cold.

  I smiled despite myself. Of course Marcus was exactly on time, and of course Sofia was already whining about the weather.

  I grabbed a jacket from the hook by the door – one of Mormor's old cardigans that I'd taken to wearing around the house – then hesitated and put it back. Instead, I took my father's leather jacket, left behind on his last visit and forgotten. It was too large in the shoulders but at least looked like something a normal teenager might wear to a party.

  The doorbell rang precisely five minutes later. Marcus had always been pathologically punctual.

  "You actually dressed up!" Sofia exclaimed when I opened the door. Her hair was elaborately braided and her glasses replaced with contacts for the night. It always startled me a little seeing her without the thick lenses, her eyes somehow smaller and more vulnerable.

  "I put on a clean shirt," I corrected, locking the door behind me. "That's hardly dressed up."

  "For you, it's practically black tie," she grinned, tugging at my collar. "And you smell good! Did you use cologne? Are you trying to impress someone?"

  Marcus stood a step behind her, hands in the pockets of his dark jacket, a slight smile playing at his lips. "Leave him alone, Sof."

  "Never," she declared cheerfully. "Look at you, almost like a real boy."

  "Says the girl who can actually see for once," I retorted, gently pushing her hand away.

  "I'll have you know these contacts cost a fortune and feel like sandpaper, so appreciate the sacrifice I'm making for beauty."

  We set off down the gravel driveway, our breath forming small clouds in the chilly spring evening. Marcus walked with the easy confidence of someone comfortable in his own body, while Sofia bounced alongside, already launching into a comprehensive breakdown of the guest list, complete with recent gossip and potential drama to watch for.

  "—and Jakob said he might bring his cousin who's visiting from Malm?, apparently he's in some band that's getting popular, so that could be interesting—"

  "We're not actually staying long, right?" I interrupted Sofia's monologue. "Like an hour, maybe two?"

  "We'll stay as long as it's fun," she declared. "And if it's not fun, we make it fun. That's the Sofia Principle of Social Engagement."

  "Is that what we're calling your inability to leave a party before sunrise now?" Marcus asked dryly.

  "Says the guy who goes to bed at nine like an eighty-year-old man," she shot back.

  "Ten," he corrected with dignity. "A respectable ten o'clock."

  I found myself laughing – actually laughing – at their familiar bickering. The sound felt strange in my throat, rusty from disuse.

  The path took us along the village's main road, past darkened shop windows and the occasional lit home. The night was unseasonably cold, frost already forming at the edges of puddles left by the day's rain. We turned onto the lake road, a less-traveled route that curved around the water's edge before reaching the newer part of town where Lisa lived.

  "How was training?" I asked Marcus, noticing he seemed more relaxed than usual.

  "Good." Marcus nodded. "Coach thinks I'm ready for the regional qualifier next month."

  "That's fantastic!" Sofia exclaimed. "We'll all come watch you knock someone's teeth out."

  "That's not the point of boxing," Marcus said with the patient tone of someone who'd explained this many times before.

  "I know, I know, it's about discipline and footwork and the sweet science," Sofia recited, mimicking his deep voice. "But admit it – sometimes you just want to hit someone."

  A rare grin spread across Marcus's face. "Sometimes."

  The moonlight glinted off the dark water of the lake to our right. In the distance, lights from Lisa's house beckoned, a sprawling place at the edge of town where the forest began to thicken.

  For the first time in weeks, I felt a small flutter of something like anticipation. Not happiness exactly, but close enough – a reminder that I was still capable of feeling something beyond the gray numbness that had become my constant companion.

  "—and then Lisa's brother is supposed to have gotten beer from somewhere, though I bet it's just those weak ciders his girlfriend likes—"

  Sofia's chatter filled the comfortable silence between Marcus's occasional comments. I found myself walking with a lighter step, matched to their pace, belonging somewhere for the first time in months.

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  We were about halfway to Lisa's house, passing the old abandoned paper mill, when it happened.

  First came the light – not from ahead or behind, but everywhere at once. A brilliant blue-white flash that seemed to penetrate everything, turning the night briefly to harsh day. Marcus swore, throwing up an arm to shield his eyes.

  "What the—" Sofia started.

  The sound hit next – not a bang or an explosion, but a deep, resonant hum that seemed to vibrate through my bones and teeth, rising in pitch until it bordered on painful.

  "What is that?" I gasped, my voice sounding distant to my own ears.

  We froze in place, instinctively huddling closer together on the empty road.

  "Was that lightning?" Sofia asked, her usual confidence wavering. "It didn't look like lightning."

  "No thunder," Marcus observed, eyes scanning the surroundings. "And it came from everywhere."

  I took a step forward, peering up at the sky. "Look at the stars."

  They seemed wrong somehow, brighter and arranged in patterns I didn't recognize. That couldn't be possible.

  The air felt strange – charged somehow, like the heaviness before a storm but more intense. A pressure was building, not painful but insistent, a buzzing sensation that seemed to emanate from the air itself.

  "Do you feel that?" Sofia whispered, reaching for my arm. "Like static, but... inside my head."

  I nodded. Marcus took a protective step closer to us. "We should head back to town. Find someone."

  But before any of us could move, the world... shifted.

  The sky rippled like disturbed water, stars smearing into streaks of light. The ground beneath our feet trembled, then lurched sideways as if the earth itself had stumbled. In the distance, a sound like tearing fabric echoed across the valley.

  "Erik!" Sofia's hand tightened on my arm, her face pale in the weird light.

  Then came the patterns – intricate, glowing symbols appearing in the air around us, blue-white like the initial flash but formed into shapes that hurt my eyes to look at directly. They moved like living things, swirling and connecting in impossible configurations.

  "What's happening?" Marcus's voice sounded strained, higher than normal. He reached for both of us, trying to push us toward the side of the road, away from the center where the symbols seemed most concentrated.

  The pressure in my head intensified, building to a crescendo that made my vision blur. The symbols were everywhere now, floating around us like luminous snowflakes, some seemingly passing through our bodies as if we weren't solid.

  I heard Sofia scream, saw Marcus reaching for her, his movements suddenly slow and dreamlike. The ground cracked beneath us, not like an earthquake but as if reality itself were fracturing. Through the cracks shone the same blue-white light, reaching up like ghostly fingers.

  "Run!" I tried to shout, but no sound came out. Or perhaps it did, but was swallowed by the overwhelming hum that had returned, louder than before.

  The last thing I remember clearly is watching a pattern of symbols converge on Marcus and Sofia, wrapping around them like glowing chains. Their faces frozen in expressions of terror and confusion. My hand reaching for them even as my own body became surrounded by similar patterns.

  Then darkness. Blissful, quiet darkness.

  I woke to the taste of dust and blood in my mouth.

  For a long moment, I didn't open my eyes, trying to make sense of the jumbled sensations bombarding me. Pain – dull and throbbing in my head, sharper in my left arm. Cold air against my skin. The smell of smoke and something else, something alien and acrid that burned my nostrils.

  Memories came back in fragments. The walk. The light. The world coming apart.

  Marcus and Sofia.

  My eyes snapped open, immediately stinging from dust or smoke in the air. I was lying face-down on what had once been the road, now cracked and broken like a shattered mirror. Pieces of asphalt jutted up at odd angles, and between them, that same blue-white light pulsed faintly, as if something glowing was trapped beneath the earth.

  I pushed myself up, wincing as pain shot through my left wrist. Not broken, I didn't think, but sprained maybe. The world spun briefly before settling into focus.

  "Marcus?" I called, my voice hoarse. "Sofia?"

  Nothing but an eerie silence answered me. No birds, no distant traffic, not even the sound of wind in the trees. Just silence, broken only by the occasional crack as another piece of road settled.

  I struggled to my feet, taking stock. The surrounding landscape was barely recognizable. What had been dense forest on one side of the road was now flattened, trees lying like matchsticks pointing away from the road. On the other side, where the lake had been, a vast depression in the earth remained, but no water – as if the entire lake had been lifted away.

  And the sky... the sky was wrong. It was still night, but the familiar moon and stars were gone. Instead, ribbons of colored light snaked across the darkness – blues, purples, greens – like some impossible aurora borealis. Between them, points of light pulsed in patterns that seemed almost deliberate.

  But none of that mattered right now.

  "MARCUS!" I shouted, louder this time, turning in a complete circle. "SOFIA!"

  The only answer was the hollow echo of my own voice, bouncing back from nowhere.

  They were gone. Everyone was gone. Even the distant lights of houses – all vanished. I stood alone on a broken road under an impossible sky, the only human being in sight.

  Fear clutched at my throat, threatening to paralyze me. I forced it down, trying to think logically. They couldn't have gone far. We'd all been standing right here when... whatever it was happened. Maybe they'd been thrown further by the... explosion? Earthquake? Neither word seemed adequate.

  I began to search, picking my way carefully across the fractured ground, calling their names until my voice grew ragged. Ten minutes became twenty, became an hour of increasingly desperate searching in an ever-widening circle.

  Nothing. No sign of Marcus's steady presence or Sofia's bright energy. No footprints, no blood, no scraps of clothing. Nothing to indicate they'd ever been here at all.

  I sank down on a chunk of broken road, cradling my injured wrist, and tried to fight back the rising tide of panic. Think, Erik. Think.

  The village. If I could get back to the village, there would be people, phones, help. It couldn't be more than a few kilometers. I could walk it, even in this destruction.

  I oriented myself as best I could, though the landmarks I'd known all my life were either gone or transformed. That broken tree line might have been the edge of old man Eriksson's property. Which meant the village would be... that way.

  I began walking, stumbling over the uneven ground, keeping my eyes fixed on where I thought home should be. The strange lights in the sky provided enough illumination to see by, casting everything in unnatural colors that shifted and pulsed.

  After what felt like hours, I crested a small rise that should have offered a view of the village's church spire at the very least.

  Instead, I found myself staring at a wasteland of broken earth and twisted rubble. Where neat streets and centuries-old buildings should have stood, there was only destruction – as if some giant hand had smashed a toy village and scattered the pieces.

  My home was gone. My friends were gone. The world as I knew it was gone.

  And I was alone in whatever had taken its place.

  A blue glow caught my attention – not from the sky this time, but closer. I looked down at my hands and nearly cried out in shock. Faint lines of blue light traced patterns across my skin, like luminous veins just beneath the surface. As I watched, they pulsed once, twice, then faded to almost nothing – still visible, but only if I looked closely.

  What was happening to me?

  Before I could even begin to process this new impossibility, a sound finally broke the unnatural silence – a low, rumbling growl from somewhere in the rubble ahead of me. A sound that belonged to nothing I'd ever heard before.

  I wasn't alone after all.

  And somehow, that thought was more terrifying than the solitude had been.