Story 1196: Cracks in the World

The first crack was not seen, but heard—a sound like a sob swallowed by thunder, rippling through the spine of Dreadmoor. The gaslamps flickered in response, casting shadows that no longer obeyed the forms that birthed them.

In Madame Grin’s tavern, a glass shattered with no touch. Her mirror warped, splitting her reflection into a dozen mournful versions of herself. She touched the surface—and felt the breath of another world behind it.

"It’s begun," she whispered, to no one, to everyone.

Far below, in the catacombs Jasper Crane once wandered, the walls wept blood.

He ran now—not in fear, but in recognition. The veins across the stone pulsed with a memory he had inherited unwillingly. They whispered old names, godless rituals, and one phrase repeated again and again:

“There is no cage we did not build ourselves.”