The Before stop waiting. There is no warning. No signal spike. No emotional lure. No single point of focus. The attack begins everywhere at once. Deborah feels it as a deep, collective shudder like the ground remembering how to break.“Multiple void activations,” she says, already reaching outward. “Wide arc. They’re not testing anymore.”Chris is moving before the sentence ends. “Positions!” he shouts. “Everyone to assigned rings now!”The valley responds not with panic, but motion. People scatter along practiced paths, hands finding ropes, anchors, markers embedded over weeks of preparation. This is what all the arguing, all the waiting, all the restraint was for.The wall groans. Not in one place everywhere. The Before push with coordination this time, their voids overlapping just enough to stress the boundary without tearing it outright.They aren’t trying to break through. They’re trying to overwhelm response. Deborah feels the lattice stretch thin. “Too many fronts,” she mutters

The signal is deliberate. No distortion. No urgency.No fear. Just presence. Deborah feels it like a hand resting not pushing against the lattice. “They’re here,” she says quietly.Chris looks up from the marker line. “Attacking?”“No,” she replies. “Talking.”The wall does not react. No reinforcement. No alarm. That alone is unsettling. The presence resolves slowly, coherently, like a thought assembling itself rather than being forced into shape.A voice follows not sound, but structure. “YOU ARE TIRED,” it says.Not accusation. Observation. Several people flinch anyway.Deborah steps forward. “What do you want?” she asks.The answer comes without delay. “TO OFFER STABILITY.”A ripple of unease spreads through the valley. Chris laughs once, sharp and humorless. “That’s rich.”The presence does not respond to tone. “YOU HAVE DEMONSTRATED RESILIENCE,” it continues. “YOU HAVE ALSO DEMONSTRATED COST.”Deborah feels the weight of that word. Cost. “Yes,” she says carefully. “We have.”The

The signal arrives without pressure. No strain on the wall. No disturbance in the voids. Just a statement. Deborah feels it settle into the lattice like a conclusion that has already been reached.“THIS CONFIGURATION WILL NOT LAST,” the presence says.Not a threat. Not a warning. A declaration. Chris stiffens beside the boundary. “You’re back early,” he says flatly.The presence does not acknowledge tone. “TIME IS A FINITE RESOURCE,”it continues. “YOU ARE EXPENDING IT FASTER THAN YOU CAN REGENERATE IT.”Deborah closes her eyes. This is different. They are no longer offering help. They are offering certainty.“What do you want?” Deborah asks.“ALIGNMENT,” the presence replies. “WITH THE FUTURE THAT WILL OCCUR REGARDLESS OF YOUR PREFERENCE.”A murmur ripples through the valley. Someone whispers, “That’s not a choice.”The presence responds not to the whisper, but to the truth beneath it.“CORRECT.”Chris lets out a slow breath.“So this is inevitability,” he says. “You telling us resist

The children call it the ring. Not the wall. Not the boundary. Just the ring like a road, or a river, or something that was always there.Deborah hears the word for the first time while walking past the school, and it stops her cold.“Stay inside the ring,” a teacher says gently. “Don’t cross the markers.”A child raises a hand. “Why?”The teacher hesitates just for a breath too long. “Because it’s not safe,” she says finally.The answer works. For now. The generation growing up inside the valley does not remember the first voids.They don’t remember the nights when the wall screamed instead of hummed. They don’t remember the arguments about sacrifice, or the day Eli was carried back across a bending corridor that should not have existed.They remember gardens. They remember lessons. They remember a world with edges but not why those edges matter.Deborah feels it like a thinning thread. Chris notices it too, later that evening. “They’re asking different questions,” he says.“Such as?

The wall still holds. That is what makes everything else harder. If it were failing cracking, screaming, demanding immediate action unity would be simple. Fear compresses difference. Survival erases debate.But the wall hums steadily, indifferent to the arguments unfolding inside it. And so the fracture arrives quietly. It begins with a proposal. Not shouted. Not demanded. Written.A group of younger adults those who grew up after the first breaches circulate a document through the valley. No accusations. No ultimatums.Just questions. Should the wall be permanent? Should contact with the Before be restricted by age? Should opting out of the lattice be a protected right?Deborah reads it three times. Not because it’s radical.Because it’s careful. “That’s worse,” Chris mutters after she hands it to him.“Yes,” she agrees. “Careful means it will spread.”Meetings form. Circles instead of crowds. People choose where to sit. Some near the boundary. Some far from it.Some with elders. Som