A month into the World Clash tournament, the routine had started to feel almost normal.

Normal... in the way that anything could be normal when your job title was Collector, and your responsibility was to gather Gotchas from different franchises like living trophies pulled from probability itself. The Mothership, the crowds, the endless events and matches, the artificial cities stitched together into one colossal patchwork world, it was all insane on paper.

But day by day, you adjusted.

And so did she.

Jiangyu, your Gotcha from Girls’ Frontline 2, had been with you since the beginning. From the moment you pulled her, she’d carried herself like a professional, always composed, always focused. Over the past month you’d built a rhythm together. You’d watch her compete. You’d plan. She’d execute. Win after win, match after match, the two of you carving a place in the tournament like it was something you were meant to do.

Today was no different.

At least, it wasn’t supposed to be.

The match played out like many others. The arena blazed with noise and color. The crowd’s roar came in waves, punctuated by impact sounds and HUD flashes. Jiangyu moved across the battlefield with that same steady precision you’d come to rely on, never wasting motion, never panicking, never giving her opponent a clean opening.

She fought like she’d already decided the outcome.

You were watching, focused, tracking the fight, when something strange caught your eye at the edge of your vision.

A flicker.

It wasn’t on the battlefield. It wasn’t on the screens. It was in the skyline itself, high above, where the artificial city bled into the projected sky. At first you thought it was just a visual stutter, some harmless glitch in the projection system. The Mothership ran on absurd levels of technology, but nothing was perfect.

Then it happened again.

The skyline blinked, and for one sharp instant the daytime sky vanished.

Outer space filled the ceiling.

Not a theme. Not a decorative overlay. Real, empty black scattered with stars, and far off in the distance, unmistakable, Earth hung like a silent witness. So small. So far away. The sight didn’t make sense in your head, and your stomach tightened as if your body understood the implication before your mind could.

Then the projection snapped back.

Blue sky. City skyline. Normal.

You stared, heart pounding a little harder now, telling yourself it was nothing. A minor malfunction. A one-off. You tried to refocus on the match, on Jiangyu, on what mattered.

But the skyline flickered again.

Day.

Space.

Day.

Space.

The change was so fast, so unnatural, that it made the arena feel unstable, like the ceiling was struggling to pretend. And then, as if the glitch wasn’t enough, something else began to form during the brief flash of outer space.

A shape.

A dark curve, swelling into view like a shadow pushing through glass. For a second you couldn’t make sense of it, your brain refusing to label it as anything real. Then it widened, and the shape became unmistakable.

A mouth.

A strange, impossible mouth opening where the sky had torn, as if reality itself had been split and something behind it was peering in. It appeared for only a moment, long enough for you to feel your blood go cold, long enough for fear to sink its hooks into you...

And then it disappeared.

The skyline stabilized.

The artificial day returned and held, bright and harmless like nothing had ever happened.

Before you could even gather your thoughts, before you could speak, the onboard AI boomed through the arena in its usual cheerful, oblivious tone.

“WINNER!”

The announcement hit like a slap, dragging your attention down from the ceiling and back into the match. The crowd erupted even louder. Confetti and holographic effects flared. The battle HUD updated.

Jiangyu stood victorious.

She moved off the field like it was routine, calm and efficient, and made her way back toward the bench. When she sat down, she looked completely unaffected, posture relaxed but disciplined, like she hadn’t noticed anything out of place at all.

You kept staring at the skyline.

It remained perfectly blue.

Jiangyu didn’t follow your gaze. She didn’t react. She didn’t even seem aware that anything had flickered in the first place.

She simply sat there, catching her breath in silence, while your mind raced with one question that refused to go away.

How could the sky tear open... and no one else notice?

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