The moment Sienna's door clicked shut, the floor died before a sound, sharp, percussive cracking punched through the corridor like a fist through stained glass, each fracture sound announcing itself with the brittle musicality like it had been holding itself together through sheer courtesy and had, at last, been released from the obligation.
The ceiling split first in a long jagged slash that tore from the recessed lighting to the far wall, widening from hairline to finger-width in a single breath, then kept going — branching, forking, the fissures multiplying across the entire hallway ceiling like roots spreading through wet earth, each crack spawning two more, each fork spawning four, until the entire ceiling was a web of fractures so dense the original surface was barely visible between them.
