Adrian snatched the phone back to his ear and redialed the unknown number before the screen could fade, his thumb moving almost on instinct as his mind raced through a dozen impossible explanations, yet the result was exactly what he feared because the call failed instantly and the device displayed an error message he had never seen before, a simple line of text that read, Source does not exist. He stared at it for a moment, feeling the familiar sensation that accompanied every encounter with the collapse, that subtle awareness that reality was bending around something it was never meant to contain, and as the message vanished from the screen he forced himself to focus because panic had never solved a single problem across three hundred and twenty-two resets.The photograph remained open beneath the call log and Adrian enlarged it again, studying every detail while morning sunlight poured through the apartment windows. The image showed the rain-soaked entrance of Helix Dynamics exactl

Adrian yanked his arm free and stumbled backward through the darkness as adrenaline surged through his body, his mind still struggling to process the impossible voice that had echoed through the underground facility because it had sounded exactly like him, not merely similar but identical in every way, and before he could demand answers the stranger grabbed his shoulder again and pulled him toward a narrow maintenance corridor that Adrian had not noticed moments earlier."Move," the stranger hissed, his voice carrying an urgency that instantly erased any thought of resistance. "If they lock onto your signal now, we're finished."The corridor door slammed shut behind them as they rushed inside, plunging them into near darkness illuminated only by thin strips of emergency lighting embedded along the walls, and Adrian followed despite every instinct warning him that blindly trusting a man wearing his face was a terrible idea because the alternative was standing still while unknown entiti

Adrian spun around so fast that his shoulder slammed into one of the nearby consoles, his pulse surging as he searched the room for the source of the voice, yet the vast chamber remained seemingly empty despite the words having sounded close enough to whisper directly into his ear. Every screen still displayed the countdown, its numbers steadily decreasing while thousands of versions of his own face remained burned into his memory, and for a moment he wondered whether exhaustion was finally catching up to him because there had to be a limit to what a human mind could endure before it began inventing impossible things.Then the voice spoke again. "You're looking in the wrong direction."Adrian's eyes narrowed. Unlike before, the sound came from somewhere ahead. One of the screens flickered, then another, then dozens more.The countdown vanished simultaneously and was replaced by a single image stretching across every display in the room.A chair; simple, metallic, positioned in the cen

Adrian staggered backward as the memory slammed into him without warning, his vision blurring while a violent pressure built behind his eyes, and for a terrifying moment the underground chamber vanished completely as another reality surged to the surface of his mind with enough force to steal his breath.He was standing beneath a night sky. Not the sky above his city, not any sky he had ever seen.Massive structures stretched across the horizon like monuments built by civilizations beyond human imagination, their surfaces glowing with rivers of silver light that flowed upward instead of down while unfamiliar stars burned above them in strange geometric formations.The memory felt real, too real. Not like a dream, not like imagination, like experience, like something he had actually lived.Then a voice echoed through the scene."You're late."The words came from somewhere behind him. Adrian turned.The memory shattered instantly. Reality crashed back into place. The underground chamber

Adrian rushed toward the nearest monitor the moment the recording vanished, his pulse hammering as frustration surged through him because after months of chasing fragments, false leads, impossible signals, and half-remembered truths, he had finally seen something real, something originating from before the collapse itself, only for the most important part to disappear before he could hear it."What did he say?"His voice echoed through the chamber. Neither the silhouette nor the duplicate answered.That silence told him more than either of them intended. They knew, both of them.The realization settled heavily in his chest. The duplicate's earlier confidence had vanished the instant the recording appeared, while the silhouette looked almost as unsettled.Whatever the missing message contained, it mattered, a lot.Adrian turned toward them. "What did he say?"The duplicate folded his arms. For the first time since arriving, he looked genuinely conflicted. The silhouette remained silent