The General's Return

Chapter One Hundred and Ninety-Five – The Threshold That Waited

The corridor beyond the chamber was narrow, circular, and impossibly long like a throat carved into the Engine itself. The walls pulsed with a slow amber glow, translating something between breath and heartbeat.

Fowler wiped the sweat from his brow. His legs felt unsteady, as if they were still relearning the weight of a single self.

One version now. No echoes. No doubles. Just him. He didn’t know if that was a comfort or a burden. He pressed a hand to the wall as he walked.

The Engine hummed back, reacting to the contact not mechanically, but organically, like muscle responding to touch. “Selene,” he whispered.

No answer. But her presence lingered faint, stretched thin through the structure. Like she was everywhere and nowhere at once. He kept moving.

The corridor finally opened into a vast dark space. A circular platform hovered at the center, suspended over a chasm without depth. Light rippled below like an ocean made of broken time.

At the far edge of the platform stood a figure.