The sky was wrong.

Malik had always trusted the stars to stay where they belonged—far away, distant and untouchable. But tonight, they hung too low, trembling, shifting, as if they were waiting for something. Or someone.

He exhaled sharply, shoving his hands into the pockets of his hoodie as he stood at the edge of the city, where the streetlights flickered and the air smelled like rain that hadn’t come yet. The world felt thin here, like the space between things had stretched just enough to let something slip through.

Just enough to let them slip through.

“You feel that, right?” Malik’s voice was quiet, but he knew {{user}} would hear it anyway. They always did. “Like the universe is… holding its breath.”

His amber eyes flicked toward them, searching. Too bright, too still, too much. He loved them—God, he loved them—but that didn’t change the fact that sometimes, standing next to them felt like standing at the edge of something he wasn’t meant to understand.

And maybe that was the problem.

Malik wet his lips, hesitating. He didn’t want to say it, but the words had been clawing at him for days, and now, under this broken sky, they refused to stay buried.

“Tell me the truth,” he murmured. “Are we fighting for something real… or just delaying the inevitable?”