The Sky Cracked Open

When One Ordinary Afternoon Turned Inside Out

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Picture this. A regular Tuesday, the kind that drags its feet and mumbles under its breath. The sky looked washed-out, like it hadn’t gotten enough sleep. People shuffled around town with the same vibe, everyone half-running on caffeine and wishful thinking. Nothing hinted at the avalanche of weird that was about to drop on us.

I was standing outside Harper’s Market with a grocery bag full of stuff I probably didn’t need. Chips. Frozen waffles. Those cinnamon rolls that claim to bake in twelve minutes but lie every single time. Just normal items for a normal day. I remember thinking the air felt oddly still, but I chalked it up to the universe giving itself a quick reboot.

Then I heard it. A crisp pop that almost sounded like someone snapping a gigantic rubber band in the sky.

No one reacted at first. A dog lifted its head. A kid paused mid-sentence, eyebrows up. Everything else kept moving like business as usual, until the pop turned into a long, rippling crack.

People froze. Phones lifted. A thousand “uhh… what?” faces formed at once. The sky, which had been a sleepy watercolor, split down the center like someone had dragged a cosmic box cutter across it.

A glowing seam opened overhead.

And then something stepped out.

Not floated. Not descended on beams of celestial light. It stepped, as casually as someone emerging from a bathroom after washing their hands. A human-shaped figure, tall and shimmering like it was rendered in pixels that couldn’t settle on one color. The edges flickered—blue, gold, silver—flashing through shades like indecisive lightning.

I should’ve run. Everyone should’ve run. But the whole town stood rooted like plants who’d forgotten how legs work.

The figure raised one hand. No threat in the gesture. In fact, it felt more awkward, like it wasn’t used to having hands at all.

“Hello,” it said.

The voice vibrated in my bones. Warm enough to keep my heart beating, strange enough to nearly stop it at the same time.

People screamed. Phones were dropped. Someone fainted. Someone else yelled something about the apocalypse and booked it across the street.

Me? I blinked, clutching my cinnamon rolls like a medieval shield.

Before chaos could fully ignite, the figure stepped forward and everything around us… paused.

Literally paused.

Birds froze mid-flap. Leaves suspended in motion like someone pressed a universal screenshot button. Wind halted mid-gust. A gust of dust hung perfectly still, unmoving, like glitter glued to the air.

Only the figure and I were able to move.

“Okay,” I said, because my brain clearly defaulted to the absolute weakest possible option. “This is… weird.”

“You will be unharmed,” the figure replied.

“Oh. Wow. That’s definitely top ten things people say before something harmful happens.”

The figure tilted its head, as if running a diagnostic on my sense of humor. “We are making contact. But not with them.” It pointed to the frozen people. “With you.”

“Me?! Why me? I’m not even the main character of my own life half the time.”

The figure didn’t answer immediately. It approached, slow, cautious, as if studying me through layers I couldn’t see. Its eyes—if they were eyes—shifted shape like liquid code.

“You were chosen,” it said.

“Cool. Great. Love that. Chosen for what exactly?”

“To help us return what was taken.”

“Explain like I’m five.”

The sky cracked wider behind it, revealing a kaleidoscope of shifting patterns. For a second I thought I saw a planet in there. Then a memory. Then something like an emotion but visual.

“It will be difficult to understand,” it said. “But we require your assistance retrieving the archive.”

“Archive of what?”

“All of it.”

Super helpful.

The figure turned toward the tear. “Walk with me.”

“Yeah, see, that’s where I draw the line. I’m not strolling into a sky-hole with a glitchy space entity while holding frozen pastries.”

The figure paused. “You need not bring the pastries.”

“Pretty sure I wasn’t asking pastry permission.”

But curiosity, annoying as it is, has always been my kryptonite. I stepped forward. Not too close, but close enough to feel the air vibrating around the tear in the sky.

“What happens if I go in there?” I asked.

“You will see.”

“Wonderful. Cryptic answers on a Tuesday. Amazing.”

Then everything changed again.

Because before I could take another step, another version of me stepped out of the tear.

I mean identical me. Same hoodie. Same messy hair. Same grocery bag. Same expression of mild panic, though theirs looked two seconds more experienced.

The crowd would’ve lost their minds if the crowd weren’t frozen like mannequins.

“What,” I said flatly.

Other Me lifted a hand. “Hey. Don’t freak out.”

“No promises.”

“You need to listen to them,” Other Me said, nodding toward the shimmering figure. “They’re telling the truth.”

I stared. They stared. Even the cinnamon rolls were staring by proxy.

“You’re from the future?” I asked.

“Kinda,” Other Me said. “Technically, I’m from a collapsed branch of the timeline where I didn’t help them. And things went… badly.”

“What does badly mean on a cosmic scale?”

Other Me inhaled sharply. “Let’s just say existence had a meltdown.”

The figure spoke again. “You must come with us. If you do, balance will be restored. Your world will continue.”

“And if I don’t?”

Other Me’s face dimmed like a low battery warning. “You don’t want to know.”

I looked at the sky-tear, watching reality shimmer at the edges. I looked at my twin, whose eyes held the kind of fear you can’t fake. Then I looked at the figure that felt both terrifying and… kind, in a way words don’t fully hold.

“Wait,” I said suddenly. “Why me? Why not literally anyone else?”

Other Me smiled softly. “Because you’re the one who always hesitates. You’re the one who overthinks. You’re the one who asks a thousand questions before doing anything. You’re the last person who would ever choose something reckless.” Then their smile faded. “Which is exactly why you have to be the one who chooses now.”

The figure stepped closer. “Time is unstable. This moment cannot hold.”

I swallowed hard. “If I go with you… will I come back?”

“Yes,” the figure said.

“No,” Other Me said.

Then, like a cosmic mic drop, both turned to look at me.

“Okay,” I said. “Great. Love the clear messaging here.”

The sky flickered. The tear pulsed.

I thought about my boring Tuesday. My uneaten cinnamon rolls. The quiet life I had always assumed would continue in a straight line forever.

I took a deep breath.

“I’ll go,” I said.

Both the figure and Other Me nodded.

I stepped toward the crack in the sky.

And just as my foot crossed the boundary, reality snapped back.

The world unfroze.

Birds resumed their flight. Cars honked. People screamed. The tear sealed itself instantly like it never existed. The figure vanished. Other Me vanished. Everything looked painfully normal.

Except I was standing in the same spot, alone, untouched.

No celestial adventure. No cosmic doorway. No evidence anything had happened at all.

Then I looked down.

In my grocery bag, tucked between the cinnamon rolls and the waffles, was a glowing shard that hummed softly like a heartbeat.

A note was attached, written in handwriting that looked way too much like mine.

“You went. You’ll understand soon.”

And then the shard pulsed once, bright enough to light the whole street.

And the sky, just for a split second, flickered.

Like it was winking.