The Faction 2.5 region was known for its stability.
Not a strong region,
but neat.
Efficient.
Submitting without being forced.
Never a disturbance.
Never a complaint.
There was never a gap between an order and its execution.
Until that day.
The day they began to feel a wave
that didn't come as an idea.
Didn't come as a word.
But felt like a pressure in their bones.
The citizens began to lose track of time.
Discussions were cut short, not because of conflict…
but because their sentences stopped in the middle.
As if the tongue refused to continue something
that no longer made sense.
The moderator repeated the narrative line,
but his voice sounded… empty.
Functional.
Like a body reading a dead person's script.
And the strangest thing—
no one resisted.
No one rebelled.
They simply stopped believing.
A central operator noted an anomaly in the social rhythm.
"There were long pauses between citizen activity.
It didn't show up in a statistical pattern.
