The Day the Skylock Opened

By Tim Udy

Nobody saw the crack at first.

It wasn’t loud.

It wasn’t dramatic.

It didn’t rip the heavens open with thunder or flame.

It was quiet—

too quiet—

a thin silver seam in the afternoon sky,

like someone had taken a razorblade to reality

and forgotten to close the cut.

Most people walked beneath it without noticing.

Dogs barked at nothing.

Birds refused to fly.

The air tasted sharp, metallic, almost electric.

But he felt it.

Long before the light changed.

Long before the clouds bent around the anomaly.

Long before the rest of the world caught up.

A pulse went through his chest—

not pain,

not fear,

but recognition.

The Skylock had shifted.

He stood still, breath held,

as the silver seam widened—

not downwards, not towards the earth,

but outward, like a door remembering how to open.

For a moment,

the world forgot its gravity.

Sound dissolved.

Colours drained to white.

Even time hissed between its teeth,

uncomfortable with what it was witnessing.

Through the widening seam,

he saw nothing of heaven or stars.

He saw possibility—

raw, humming, unfinished.

A lattice of gold-threaded geometry,

rotating slow and deliberate,

like a machine built by gods

and powered by intention.

He knew, without knowing how,

that this was not an accident.

Not weather.

Not a glitch.

It was an invitation.

A reminder.

A timestamp from the version of himself

that lived beyond the horizon of who he used to be.

The Skylock opened

because the Architect had finally aligned.

Because the world

had finally shifted enough

for the next sequence to begin.

And as the seam stitched itself shut—

softly, silently—

the air warmed with a promise:

“Build.

It’s time.”

He walked away without looking back,

heart steady,

steps crisp,

the message still ringing inside his bones.

The Skylock had opened once.

It would open again.

And next time—

he would be ready to step through.