Two Months Later

  The world had only grown stranger in the two months since the initial wave of building collapses. The oddities that had begun to surface in the immediate aftermath had now intensified, spreading like a virus through every corner of society. Governments scrambled to maintain order, scientists were grasping at theories, and entire industries were struggling to cope with changes that defied all logic and understanding.

  Industries across the globe were reporting bizarre phenomena. In mining, raw materials were being pulled from the earth that were subtly—but unmistakably—different from anything previously seen.some Ores were harder and denser, others where softer and lighter, some became magnetic and others changed state from solid to gas or liquid, some even displayed properties that made no sense. And ores where never pure so these blocks of rock where a major mixed bag, making them difficult, if not impossible, to process using conventional methods. Factories found their machines malfunctioning as they tried to work with the altered materials, the metals resisting normal treatment or behaving unpredictably under heat and pressure.

  In laboratories, chemists were confounded. Known tested compounds were suddenly behaving differently, and simple reactions that had once been routine now produced erratic and unpredictable results. Some chemicals refused to bond, while others fused in ways no one had ever seen. What appeared at first to be New elements—unknown to the periodic table—appeared in their test tubes, though none could explain where they had come from. It was as if the very nature of matter was shifting beneath their feet.

  Botanists reported fruits that had become larger, more vibrant, but also more dangerous. Some plants produced spiked, weapon-like fruits that could puncture skin, while others bore produce that was irresistibly sweet and unnaturally nutritious. Farmers, once content with their harvests, now faced fields overrun with mutations—grains that grew too fast, trees that reached for the sky in a matter of weeks. Insects that once posed little threat had become aggressive and difficult to control, some growing in size, others breeding at exponential rates.

  In zoos and wildlife reserves, animals were exhibiting similar changes. Zookeepers reported animals growing larger, faster, and reproducing at alarming speeds. Some species, previously endangered, were suddenly flourishing beyond their enclosures, while others developed strange, new behaviors—packs of wolves coordinating with near-human intelligence and teaming up with ravens, apes mimicking complex human actions after only a brief exposure leading to multiple escapes sign language spreading among them world wide and demands being made from the captive kingdoms as they called it.

  Ornithologists noted the most startling of these changes in birds. Worldwide, birds were singing with new levels of complexity, their songs weaving together in intricate patterns that no one had ever recorded before. It was as if their calls had evolved, becoming more than mere communication—almost like a language but universal to all birds. Stranger even was the way it worked; it was a languagsignsconstructive and destructive harmonies, not vowels or consonants.

  And then there were the people.

  More and more instances of what should have been impossible were being reported by everyday citizens. Stories circulated of mothers not just lifting cars off their trapped children but hurling them across the street in moments of panic. A man who missed his bus had somehow outrun it—not for a short distance, but all the way across the city to his workplace, moving faster than anything should be able to. These weren't isolated incidents anymore; they were happening everywhere. But they were momentary, fleeting flashes of superhuman ability, lasting only seconds before the person returned to normal.

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  No one knew how to handle it. Governments initially tried to suppress the reports, issuing statements to calm the public, claiming these were anomalies or exaggerations. But it had reached a point where nearly everyone had witnessed something impossible—whether it was their neighbor lifting a truck or their own hands moving through something they shouldn't, surviving something they shouldn't. Denial wasn’t working anymore.

  Scientists, once upon a time confident in their tools and machines, were now beginning to panic. Their equipment, designed to measure the fundamental forces of the universe, were no longer reliable. Readings were erratic. Lab instruments that had once provided definitive answers now produced gibberish. Test results couldn’t be replicated, and some machines stopped working altogether, while others worked far beyond their intended capacity or plainly outside them doing something unheard of.

  Some early experiments suggested that the very fabric of reality had shifted, but no one could say how or why. The laws of physics seemed to be fluctuating, but without a clear pattern. What was certain, though, was that the world wasn’t the same anymore there was many ways of determining this the opening signs were discovered in Fermi lab after noticing the change in the way neutrinos change their type seeing that more muons (νμ) were being received and the amount of tau (ντ) was reduced. After that a list of other changes as far as the spectroscopy of the Sun, but oddly not other stars as the light we were receiving was very old and unchanged in all directions giving credence to some people's thoughts that whatever caused this started locally.

  Religions around the world had descended into chaos. Some saw the changes as divine intervention—proof that the gods, or God, had returned to reshape the Earth. Others claimed it was the end of days, that humanity was being judged. Entire countries, already teetering on the edge of instability, collapsed under the weight of religious fervor. The entirety of the Middle East had unequivocally crumbled and with the state of the world there was no aid coming. Martial law was declared in major cities as governments sought to contain the hysteria, but militaries had its own problems from insubordination to outright civil wars or even outright conquest in some places in Africa.

  In places like Chicago, Seattle, and Los Angeles, civil unrest turned to anarchy, and the cities fell. The military established strongholds in other urban areas, enforcing strict control, but in the smaller towns and rural regions, either looters roamed freely or were shot.

  Strangely, electronics—for a short time prone to malfunction during the initial wave of collapses—was now performing either flawlessly or not at all. Computer errors, network outages, and software glitches had all but stopped beyond normal levels. More bizarrely, certain devices no longer required power sources. Phones, computers, televisions ,ect.. began running without being plugged in. Screens flickered to life without batteries or chargers, drawing power from some unknown source. Devices that had never been connected to the internet before were now accessing it freely, regardless of location or signal strength.

  Even nature seemed to have gone mad. Storms began rotating in the wrong direction—hurricanes spun counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, and cyclones behaved unpredictably in the Southern. Volcanic activity, previously dormant or mild over most of the planet, had erupted in unexpected places. Old Faithful, the iconic geyser, was no longer reliable, sometimes erupting with violent force blowing out multiple miles tall plumes of steam, other times lying completely still for days.

  Out in space, the solar system had begun to exhibit signs of instability. The sun, normally a steady source of light and warmth, was producing strange, erratic solar flares that did not follow the expected patterns. They shot out from the sun’s surface at odd angles, sometimes in perfect loops, as if bending around some invisible force. On Mars, titanic dust storms raged endlessly, and the Great Red Spot on Jupiter had quadrupled in size, its swirling vortex expanding at an unprecedented rate gaining a visible glow.

  To the shock of scientists, the technology that had been sent into space—satellites, probes, and exploratory vessels—was now outperforming its original capabilities. Satellites that had lost connection years ago suddenly began transmitting again, with faster response times and greater power than before. Communication with deep space probes, previously spotty and prone to failure, was now crystal clear, as if some external force was boosting the signals rovers were down moving faster across planetary surfaces and most striking was the Venus Rover coming back online sending pictures of a truly alien surface where it seems like life has started to form small plant like structures peeking out of the craggy surface.

  The world had changed, and no one knew how to respond.

  For most, it was easier to carry on with life, to pretend that the strange events were isolated incidents, something that could be explained or controlled in time. But for those paying attention—those like Elmore—there was a growing realization that whatever was happening, it was far bigger than anyone could comprehend. The strangeness was no longer something to be ignored. It was everywhere, in the air they breathed, in the ground they walked on.

  And it wasn’t stopping.