So the next time you feel the groaning in your own bedrock—the stress of expectation, the fault lines of a secret—remember Zachary. And remember that once the cracks appear, you cannot fill them. You can only walk the grid they create, and hope you don't fall through.

And Zachary Vane was never seen again. Today, the Zachary Cracks are a geological wonder and a local religion.

The rock did not explode. It unzipped .

The gas pocket vented silently through these microscopic wounds. The groaning stopped forever.