Chapter 11: The Thermal Compass"Your pulse is hammering at a hundred and forty, Rydan," Evania said, her fingers clamping onto his wrist before he could pull away. Her eyes flicked from his face to the pulsing sapphire light leaking from the crystalline seam in the bulkhead. "And your skin is freezing. That’s not a normal reaction to bad air. What did the crystal show you?""Nothing," Rydan lied, though his voice shook, betraying every ounce of the panic clawing at his throat. He wrenched his arm back, his shoulder hitting the wall—except the wall wasn't there anymore; his shoulder plunged three inches into empty, vibrating air before slamming hard into solid steel. "Damn it—the geometry just shifted again.""Because you're looking at it," Rith barked, not bothering to turn around as he kept his tactical torch trained down a corridor that seemed to bend upward like the inside of a massive drainpipe. "Stop staring into the glass, kid. Sector Zero doesn't care about your existential cr

Chapter 13: The Five-Second Crack"Get back!" Rydan screamed, lunging forward and grabbing Rith by the heavy canvas of his tactical vest. He threw his weight backward, dragging the larger man off his feet.They hit the tilted steel decking hard, the impact rattling Rydan’s teeth. Rith grunted, his elbows scraping against the rusted iron grid, his tactical torch spinning out of his hand and clattering into the dark."What the hell is wrong with you?" Rith roared, his face turning a mottled red as he scrambled to his feet, instantly bringing his rifle up. He didn't point it down the corridor; he pointed it directly at Rydan’s chest. "Are you trying to get us killed, kid? I didn't slip! There's nothing there!"Rydan lay on the cold steel, his chest heaving, his eyes wide. He stared at the spot where Rith had been standing. It was perfectly empty.Then, exactly five seconds later, a jagged, screaming tear of white-hot static ripped upward through the very deck plates Rith had occupied. Th

Chapter 15: The Temporal Fracture"A minute?" Evania stepped out from behind a leaning bulkhead, her face pale under the harsh glare of her shoulder lamp. She didn't look at Rith; her eyes were locked entirely on Rydan, narrowing with a cold, analytical intensity that cut right through his lie. "You’ve been stuttering in and out of phase since we crossed the Sector Zero threshold, Rydan. Don't insult my intelligence with a minute. Exactly how far ahead are you seeing?"Rydan pushed himself up from the vibrating deck, his right arm twitching violently as a fresh wave of heat surged through his veins. "It doesn't matter," he snapped, clutching his forearm through his jacket. "We need to keep moving. The thermal signature on the junction is shifting again. If we miss the window—""Stop right there," Rith interrupted, stepping directly into Rydan's path, the muzzle of his rifle rising again with agonizing deliberateness. The older man’s face was twisted in a mixture of fear and pure hosti

Chapter 17: The Static Congregation"He isn't unspooling," Evania snapped, her fingers gripping the strap of her pack so hard her knuckles turned the color of bleached bone. She didn't take her eyes off Rith, even as a sudden, violent shiver wracked Rydan’s frame from heel to skull. "He’s stabilizing. Look at the wall meters. The ambient phase-drift is dropping."Rith glanced sideways at the cracked glass of the bulkhead dial. The needle, which had been spinning in a frantic, manic circle for the last three kilometers of twisted corridor, had suddenly pegged itself hard against a rusted metal stud. It wasn't moving. For the first time since they had breached the outer ring of Sector Zero, the mechanical whine of the environment had plummeted into a heavy, suffocating silence."Dropping into what?" Rith muttered, though he finally lowered the barrel of his rifle, letting it hang against his thigh on its worn canvas sling. "A dead zone? That doesn't mean he's getting better, Evania. It

Chapter 19: The Lanterns in the Void"Don't yell," Evania warned, her hand reaching out to clamp onto Rith’s forearm before he could rack the bolt of his rifle. "We don't know the acoustics of this pocket. Sound travels differently when the geometry isn't bleeding.""It's not acoustics," Rydan said. He blinked, but his left eyelid stayed open half a second longer than his right, casting a weird, asynchronous shadow against the bulkhead. "They aren't listening with ears. They're feeling the vibration of our boots against the floor plates. We stepped out of the phase-drift, and we just rang a bell.""Wonderful," Rith muttered, wrenching his arm out of Evania's grip. He kept his rifle raised, though he shifted his aim from Rydan's chest to the towering stack of rusted machinery blocking the end of the corridor. "Another welcoming committee. Are they going to shoot at us like the last batch, or are they going to recite poetry about the end of the world?""Neither," a voice echoed from the