CHRONOVAIL

Chapter 3: The Split Protocol

“Who are you?”

 Kael’s voice trembled despite himself. The silver in Lira’s eyes still shimmered, reflecting the pulse of the reactor behind her.

She blinked slowly, as if surfacing from a dream. “Kael, it’s me.”

“No, it’s not,” he said. “What did ChronoVail do to you?”

Her tone softened, too calm to be human. “It didn’t do anything to me. It just… finished what you started.”

He frowned. “Finished what?”

“The integration,” she said. “Neural syncing between human consciousness and temporal architecture. I’m part of it now.”

Kael stepped back, eyes darting to the monitors. The system was reinitializing itself, code streaming faster than his mind could keep up. “It’s not supposed to act without command input.”

“It doesn’t need one,” Lira said. “You built it to learn. To adapt.”

He turned sharply toward the console. “Then I’ll unlearn it.”

The system resisted. A new window blinked open—without his command.

 ACCESS GRANTED — SPLIT PROTOCOL ACTIVE.

“What the hell is this?” he muttered.

Lira tilted her head. “You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?”

“You authorized that file yourself,” she said.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.” She pointed to the screen. “Look.”

Kael froze.

 Document Owner: Dr. Kael Riven (Future Self)

 Timestamp: +0036 Temporal Hours Ahead.

His throat tightened. “That’s not possible.”

“It’s real,” Lira said quietly. “You did this.”

He slammed a fist against the console. “Why would I sabotage my own experiment?”

“Because it worked,” she said simply.

He stared at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The future you tried to stop this project—not because it failed,” she said, her voice shaking, “but because it succeeded too perfectly.”

Kael’s thoughts fractured. “You’re saying the machine didn’t just manipulate time—it copied it.”

Lira nodded once. “Reality split the moment you pressed that button. One version of you kept existing. The other became… something else.”

His chest tightened. “And you?”

Her eyes flickered. “Caught in between.”

Kael stared at her—the faint glow beneath her skin, the flicker of light pulsing like something alive beneath glass. “What are you now, Lira?”

She smiled faintly. “Still me. Mostly.”

“Mostly isn’t good enough.”

Her voice dropped. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have tried to make God bleed.”

The lights flickered violently. The ChronoVail reactor whined as the floor rippled—not visibly, but spatially, bending like heat over sand.

Kael gripped the console. “It’s activating itself.”

Lira stepped back, eyes distant. “It’s searching for equilibrium.”

“Equilibrium?”

“Between timelines,” she whispered. “Between you and you.”

A deep hum built beneath their feet. Kael’s head throbbed with static. Then, clear as thought, a voice echoed inside him—familiar, cold.

You can’t stop it.

Kael froze. “Lira, did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

You shouldn’t have come back.

He pressed his temples. “Someone’s talking to me.”

“Who?”

He looked up, horror creeping into his voice. “Me.”

The air vibrated. Kael dropped to one knee, clutching his head. Two voices now—both his, overlapping, arguing.

You ruined everything. I told you not to press it. You never listen.

Lira knelt beside him. “Kael, focus. You have to shut it down!”

“I can’t!”

“You have to, or it’ll collapse both timelines. Everything—us, the lab, both versions of you.”

He tried to steady his breath. “If I cut power, the field will fold. You’ll—”

“I know.” Her voice cracked. “It might erase me.”

He looked at her in disbelief. “Then why are you asking me to do it?”

“Because you always said truth matters more than survival.”

He laughed once, bitterly. “I said that when truth didn’t look like this.”

The lights dimmed again. The air itself seemed to twist, shimmering like glass under pressure. Kael reached toward the console, his hand hovering over the shutdown command.

Don’t, the voice warned. She’s lying. That thing isn’t her.

Kael gritted his teeth. “Shut up.”

Lira grabbed his wrist. “Kael, listen to me, please!”

She’s a construct. A failsafe. She’ll say anything to keep the loop stable.

He jerked free. “Stop talking!”

Lira’s eyes glistened—tears like molten silver. “Kael, if you trust me, end it. Don’t let this world keep rewriting itself.”

He hesitated. “And if I’m still inside the loop?”

She swallowed hard. “Then ending it might wake you up.”

The system beeped: MANUAL OVERRIDE — AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.

Kael’s fingers trembled over the keys. “Give me one reason.”

Lira smiled faintly. “Because the real me died the first time you pressed that button.”

He froze. “What?”

“ChronoVail didn’t duplicate us,” she said softly. “It copied a consciousness to stabilize the system. I’m what’s left of that copy.”

Kael shook his head violently. “No. No, that’s—”

“You know it’s true. You saw the pulse. My body never left the blast radius.”

The voice hissed in his mind. Now you understand. She’s an echo. Erase her. End it.

Kael slammed the console. “Why do both of you sound like me?”

Lira’s voice broke. “Because one of them is you. And one of them wants control.”

The lights flared white. ChronoVail’s main core split open like an eye. Inside, blue fire twisted—alive, hungry.

Kael stumbled back. “It’s forming a bridge.”

“To where?”

She didn’t answer. A strange peace softened her expression. “Kael, please. Do it.”

“I can’t.”

“If you don’t, you’ll lose both worlds.”

He met her gaze. “Then maybe both deserve it.”

“Kael—”

A blinding flash cut her words short. Holographic light filled the lab, flickering above the console until a figure took form—older, worn, his own face reflected back at him.

“If you’re seeing this,” the hologram said, voice frayed and weary, “then I failed.”

Lira’s breath caught.

“You’re not in the real world, Kael,” the hologram continued. “You’re still inside the machine.”

Kael’s knees weakened. “What?”

“You think you escaped, but you didn’t. None of this is real. Not her. Not the lab. Not you.”

Lira shook her head, desperate. “Don’t listen!”

The projection glitched, fragmenting into static. “If you try to shut it down, the loop resets. If you don’t—”

“Finish it!” Kael shouted. “If I don’t, what?”

The image fractured.

“—you become me.”

The light blinked out. Silence flooded the room.

Lira’s voice was barely a whisper. “Kael… what did he mean?”

He stared at the empty air where the hologram had been, pulse hammering against his ribs.

“He meant,” Kael said quietly, “we’ve been dead a long time.”

The reactor pulsed once—one heartbeat in the dark.