Ethan could hear his own heartbeat.It was the only sound he could recognize in the darkness.Everything else had disappeared.The machines had stopped humming. The lights had gone out. Even the old man behind him had gone completely silent.Then something breathed beneath the floor.Slowly.Deeply.Like something enormous had just awakened from a sleep that had lasted for years.Ethan turned toward the glass chamber.His father was still standing inside.The emergency lights suddenly flickered on, revealing his face again.Ethan had spent years imagining what his father might have looked like.He had imagined a hundred different faces.None of them had been right.Because the man inside the chamber looked exactly like the person Ethan remembered from the deepest part of his childhood.His dark hair was longer now, and his face looked older and thinner, but his eyes were the same.Those were the eyes Ethan had inherited.Those were the eyes he had seen in old photographs without under

Ethan stared at the countdown.00:07:42.Seven minutes.That was all the time they had.The original facility had suddenly become alive again. Machines were turning on one after another, lights were flashing across the walls, and somewhere beneath the floor, something enormous was moving upward.Ethan could feel every movement through his feet.His father stood several feet away, staring at the screens.He looked more frightened than Ethan had ever seen him.“What happens when the countdown reaches zero?” Ethan asked.His father did not answer.“Dad.”His father finally looked at him.“It arrives.”“What arrives?”“The original entity.”Ethan's eyes narrowed.“The thing that created the First Mind.”His father nodded.“Yes.”Sofia stepped closer.“And what happens when it gets here?”His father looked at her.“It will take back everything that came from it.”Ethan immediately understood.“Us.”His father nodded.“You and Sofia.”Ethan looked at the countdown.00:07:09.“We have to sto