Soren's POVThe door did not open with a groan or a hiss. It simply slid sideways, silent and smooth, as if the Fold itself had decided the time for secrets had passed.I stepped through first, baton already in hand, spatial awareness coiled tight around me. The air inside the chamber felt wrong; too cold, too still, like the space was holding its breath. Rows of machines rose around us, sleek and impossibly advanced. Tall cylinders glowed with faint blue light. Tubes pulsed in patterns I had never seen outside a laboratory that no longer existed. None of it belonged here. None of it should have survived the collapse of civilization.Caleb’s voice came from behind me, low and urgent. “Welcome to the core of the Fold. What you’re looking at was never meant for human hands.”I didn’t answer. I was already moving deeper, boots ringing on metal that felt colder than it should have been. The machines hummed with power that should not have survived the failure of civilization. My pulse kick

Soren's POVThe doors slammed shut with a final, thunderous boom that rattled the metal floor. Darkness swallowed the chamber, leaving only the faint orange glow of emergency strips flickering along the walls like dying embers. I stood there, chest heaving, Caleb’s smug smile still burning behind my eyes. Nadia’s hand was locked around mine, her knuckles white.“Three minutes,” he said quietly. “Then the universe decides for you.”I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. The words from the screen were still ringing in my ears *Do not allow Soren Whitaker to reach the Seventh Day.* My grip tightened on the knife in my other hand. The air felt wrong. Thicker. Like the walls themselves were breathing.Then it started.A low hum. The kind that vibrated in your teeth before it climbed into your bones. The emergency lights flickered once, twice, and the floor beneath my boots trembled.“Ground’s shifting,” Nadia muttered, squeezing my hand. “We need to move.”I nodded. “Spatial space.”She didn’t questio

Soren's POVThe captured infiltrator knelt in the middle of the settlement courtyard, wrists zip-tied behind his back, breathing hard. The settlement had been quiet for two days, but everything changed the moment he was dragged in by Tobin and the nurse.He looked up at me with blood on his lip and eyes that still held defiance.“You’re the one with the ability,” he said. “The spatial one. We’ve been watching for people like you.”I kept the baton in my hand. “Who sent you?”He smiled through the blood. “The organization. We existed before the apocalypse. We’ve been monitoring anyone connected to the Fold. Anyone who could open it.”Nadia stepped forward. “You’re the ones who’ve been sending messages. The one who knows how I died.”He nodded once. “We do. And we know about your regression.”I felt the words land like a blow. “What did they tell you?”“Enough to know that the man who sent you back wasn’t trying to save humanity,” he said. “He was trying to stop something much worse fro

Soren's POVThe intruder’s eyes widened when I pressed the knife harder against his throat. “We’ve been looking for you since before you died.”My stomach dropped. The words hit like a second portal ripping open. “Before I died?” I repeated, voice low and flat.He grinned through the dirt. “The reset. The one Caleb mentioned. We’ve been watching. Searching. Testing. You’re the prize, Whitaker. The man who can store things. The man who remembers the old world. We’ve been looking for you since the first timeline broke.”Nadia’s rifle was still up, but her hands weren’t steady. “What organization?”He looked at her, then back at me. “Doesn’t matter. We know what you can do. We know what you’re hiding. And we know you’re going to reach the Seventh whether you want to or not. The crack in the sky? That’s us, too. We’re the ones who started the change. And you… you’re the one who’s going to finish it.”I didn’t let him go. Not yet. “Finish what?”He just smiled wider. “The Seventh Day, Whit

Soren's POVThe screen went black. Forty-eight hours. The words from the older version of me still echoed in my head like a countdown timer I couldn’t stop. I stood frozen in the data core, knife loose in my hand, while the others stared at the empty wall. Nadia’s grip on my shoulder was the only thing keeping me from falling.“He’s dead,” I said finally. My voice came out flat, like I was reading it from a report. “That was me. But not the one who died in the first timeline. The one who made it to the end.”Caleb rubbed the back of his neck again. “Then he’s the one who sent you back. The reset. The reset was him. Trying to fix what the fold kept breaking.”Nadia stepped closer. “Soren… you’re saying the man in the chamber, the one who warned us about the Seventh, was you? From another timeline?”I nodded once. “He couldn’t beat it. Every reset he tried just made the fold more unstable. He tried to destroy it completely once. That was the last attempt. He knew it would wipe out every