Riptide

Is it just human nature to break?"*

Tosin stared ahead, unblinking, his gaze glassy and unfocused. He wasn't seeing anything outside himself-only reflecting on the cracks he had seen in others, and the flaws he had found within. He felt an unsettling truth rise in his chest, a heavy realization about people, about motives. :One moment," he thought, "we're whole, solid, clear in our purpose like a freshly polished pane of glass... and then, with a single blow, we shatter. Splinter. Some fragments still try to cling together, while others lie scattered, jagged and sharp."

For a long time, AJ had been his vision of strength, someone unbreakable. But now, after everything Tosin had uncovered, he could see the fractures in AJ-the subtle shifts that had turned a hero into a villain, a guardian into a threat. He was starting to hate himself for feeling that way, and a part of him wondered if, under different circumstances, he too would break the same way. "What is it that turns glass into shards? Is it just human nature?: