ZERO NEXUS

The sirens screamed first.

Then the lights went out.

Lena dropped the mop as the hallway plunged into darkness, her heart thudding louder than the alarms now roaring from overhead. Red emergency lights flickered to life, washing the long corridor in crimson — like blood dripping down metal walls.

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

She had just finished cleaning the lab’s observation room. It was past midnight. Everyone had gone home hours ago, except for two security guards who barely looked up from their terminals.

But now, shouting echoed through the compound. Boots slammed against the floors. Gunfire cracked in the distance.

The entire underground facility was under attack.

Lena’s breath caught. She pressed herself against the wall, her body trembling.

Stay calm. Stay small. Hide.

That’s what she always did.

She was nobody here. Just the janitor. A ghost who scrubbed floors and emptied trash and kept her eyes down. No one talked to her. No one noticed her. And that had always felt safe.

Until now.

A soldier ran past the hall entrance, his body armor slick with sweat and soot. He didn’t see her.

A second later, a deep explosion shook the floor, knocking Lena to her knees. The ceiling above groaned as dust rained down.

She scrambled to her feet, panic bubbling in her throat. The screaming was getting closer.

Without thinking, she ran.

She turned down a side corridor — the restricted wing. She wasn’t supposed to be here, but she didn’t care. She had to get out, had to find a way upstairs, out of the chaos—

The floor ahead cracked.

Lena skidded to a stop as the lights above her buzzed, flickered… then popped. Smoke curled through the ceiling vents.

And then… silence.

Everything stopped.

Even her breathing.

The air grew cold.

And then the door beside her—the one with three red locks she had never dared to look at too long—clicked.

Unlocked.

She stared.

It opened with a slow mechanical hiss, revealing a sterile white room.

Inside stood a small bed. And on that bed was a boy.

Ten, maybe eleven. Pale skin. Shaved head. Wires and monitors clinging to his body like vines. His eyes were closed, chest rising in slow, even breaths.

She blinked. Her heart slammed in her chest.

This… this was the one they whispered about.

The “project.”

The reason for the locked doors.

The Zero Child.

She stepped forward without meaning to, pulled by something she couldn’t explain. A deep hum filled her ears, like the sound of a storm buried under the ground.

Then his eyes snapped open.

Bright. Glowing. Like a sky she’d never seen.

And the world around her broke.

Literally.

The ceiling above shattered — not physically, but like glass. Cracks spiderwebbed through the air itself. Reality bent and twisted. The hallway behind her blinked — vanishing for a split second — then returned, but reversed. A chair hovered, frozen mid-air, before crashing down again.

Lena couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe.

Time itself… was glitching.

The boy looked at her, head tilted slightly. His lips parted.

“Anchor,” he whispered.

The floor split open with a deafening roar.

Lena fell.

Six Hours Earlier

Somewhere above the surface, in a crumbling city long forgotten by the world, a man named Kai Voss cleaned blood off his hands with a stolen rag.

He didn’t know who the guy he’d killed was. Didn’t ask.

Didn’t care.

He had information. That’s all that mattered.

Kai stood at the edge of a broken rooftop, wind slicing through his worn jacket. Below, the city stretched like a graveyard — cracked buildings, rusted rails, forgotten cars. And in the far distance… the buried entrance to Blacksite Twelve.

He’d tracked it for years.

The facility where it all started. Where “Project Zero” was kept under lock and blood-soaked key. Where they trained him once. Used him.

Then threw him away.

But now he knew something they didn’t:

The reset was close.

The boy would wake up soon.

And Kai would be the one waiting.

He grabbed his rifle, checked the blade on his belt, and started moving.

Tonight, everything ended.

Now

Lena screamed as her back hit cold steel. The fall hadn’t killed her. That was the first shock.

The second was that she hadn’t moved.

The hallway was gone. The boy was gone.

She stood in the same place—but the air felt wrong. The red lights were frozen mid-blink. A drop of water hung in the air, unmoving. A guard halfway through a scream stood completely still like a statue.

Time… was paused.

Then the boy stepped forward from behind her.

She gasped. “How—what is this?”

He didn’t answer. He looked older suddenly. Or maybe… not human at all.

“You touched the current,” he said. “Now it follows you.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“You’re not supposed to exist here yet.” He tilted his head again. “But maybe that’s why it works.”

“What is this place?” she asked, her voice cracking. “What are you?”

“I’m the clock,” the boy said simply. “And you’re the hand.”

Lena blinked, tears welling up. “I don’t understand.”

Before he could answer, the world roared back to life.

The drop fell. The lights flickered. The hallway behind her exploded.

And standing in the smoke was a man with a gun.

Kai.

His eyes locked onto Lena first. Then the boy.

“Sh*t.”

Gunfire rang out.

Kai grabbed them both and pulled them into the side corridor, shielding them with his body. The boy didn’t flinch. Lena screamed again, clutching her ears as the air cracked.

“Who are you?” she shouted.

“Later!” Kai barked. “Can you walk?”

She nodded shakily.

“Then move!”

They ran. Bullets chased them. One grazed Kai’s arm. He didn’t even grunt.

Lena stumbled, but Kai grabbed her, dragging her down a stairwell.

Sirens wailed. Time flickered again — stairwells shifting, repeating, snapping back.

“This place is unstable,” the boy said calmly, as if commenting on the weather.

“No sh*t,” Kai growled.

They burst into an underground chamber. It looked like a storage bay, except half the room was cracked like an eggshell — a direct hit from the earlier explosion.

“Extraction team’s late,” Kai muttered, checking a device on his wrist. “I knew this was a trap.”

“You work here?” Lena asked, backing away from him.

“I used to.”

The boy looked between them.

“She’s the anchor. That’s why you’re still alive.”

Kai paused. His jaw clenched. “What?”

“You were supposed to die in this timeline.”

Lena gasped. “What do you mean?”

Before the boy could answer, the walls trembled.

And then he walked in.

Commander Ryloth.

Tall. Cold. Metal armor shaped like a shark’s spine.

“Kai,” he said, voice calm. “Still rescuing ghosts.”

Kai raised his gun. “You always were a coward.”

“And you were always the failure.”

Ryloth turned to Lena.

“She doesn’t know, does she?”

“Back off,” Kai growled.

“You didn’t tell her why she was made? Why she’s the only one who can hold the Zero Child together?”

Lena stepped back. “What… what is he talking about?”

Kai looked at her, pain in his eyes.

“Don’t listen to him.”

But she could tell — something in Kai’s face… he knew something.

Ryloth smirked. “You never told her what the Anchor really is.”

Kai fired.

Ryloth vanished into smoke.

A drone dropped from the ceiling — red lights flaring.

Kai turned, yanked Lena behind him. “Hold the boy.”

Lena clutched the child’s hand, even as her body shook.

Kai’s blade sliced through the drone, sparks raining down.

Then silence.

The boy spoke.

“We have six days.”

“To what?” Lena whispered.

He looked at her with glowing eyes.

“Until everything ends.”