The hum was gone.
That should've comforted me. Instead, the silence felt heavier—like something watching, waiting for me to ask the wrong question.
When I told the others what I saw in Aaliah's chamber—the reflections, the voices, the lake—Chase didn't argue. He just looked tired, like he'd already expected it.
Rem didn't say anything, but she started packing gear.
And Booker… he just stared at me. There was something in his eyes I hadn't seen in a long time—fear that wasn't for himself.
Hours later, we stood at the mouth of what used to be the lower generator hall—now a hole in the earth. A perfect circle cut into bedrock, rimmed by Nexus residue that shimmered red when you didn't look directly at it. The air pulsed like a heartbeat.
Rem swept a scanner through the opening. "This isn't a natural fissure," she said. "It's pulling energy in, not pushing it out."
Chase adjusted the sensor pack on his shoulder. "She's down there," he said. "Or at least, something tied to her is."
Booker frowned. "We're chasing ghosts."
"Not ghosts," I said quietly. "Versions."
They all looked at me. I couldn't explain how I knew—just that I did. The hum might've stopped, but the pull hadn't. I could feel it like gravity under my skin.
So I jumped first.
The fall wasn't a fall. It was a slip.
Space folded inward, swallowing light and air until all that remained was rhythm—breath and heartbeat, slow, syncing with the sound of the world breathing around us.
When we hit bottom, there was no bottom—just a surface pretending to be solid, made of fractured glass and liquid shadow. My boots sank a little with every step.
Light rippled beneath it.
And I realized we weren't looking at reflections.
We were standing on them.
Each layer beneath the glass showed a different scene—different outcomes branching like veins. I saw the bunker in ruins. I saw Aaliah screaming in the chamber. I saw myself standing over her, broken, hands covered in light.
The reflections pulsed.
Each heartbeat made them flicker to new versions. Some peaceful. Some catastrophic.All real.
"What is this?" Booker whispered.
Rem knelt, hand hovering above the glass. "The Fracture Well," she said. "The point where reality and the Nexus' memory overlap. This is what happens when you carry too many futures at once."
I stared down at one version where Aaliah was alive—awake, smiling, whole. My chest tightened. "If it's all memory… could one of these be the real one?"
Rem looked at me carefully. "They're all real, Kaleb. You just haven't decided which one you're living in."
We walked deeper.
The Well widened into a cathedral of reflection—pillars made of time, air heavy with static. The walls shifted like thoughts trying to remember themselves.
Chase stopped near a wall of suspended images. Each pane shimmered with Aaliah's face at different moments—some alive, some dying, some gone completely.
"She's everywhere," he whispered. "Every version of her is bleeding into this one."
Booker stepped beside him. "So what, we pick one?"
Rem shook her head. "You can't. The moment you try, the others collapse. That's why the Nexus never chooses—it sustains possibility."
I touched the nearest reflection, and the entire chamber flickered.
Suddenly, I was standing in one of the visions.
Aaliah was alive. Awake. She smiled at me. "You came back."
I reached out, my hand shaking. "Is it really you?"
She tilted her head. "Does it matter?"
When our hands touched, her skin fractured like glass.
And the illusion shattered.
I stumbled backward into the real Well—if you could call it that. Chase and Rem grabbed me before I fell through the floor. Booker shouted something I didn't hear.
Because when I looked down, all the other versions of Aaliah were looking up.
Hundreds. Thousands. Their eyes es glowing faint red, their lips moving in perfect unison.
"You can't save all of me."
The Well trembled. Cracks formed in the glass, light bleeding through the fractures.
Rem shouted, "Kaleb, you're syncing to the field—pull out, now!"
But I couldn't. Every time one version faded, another appeared—each one closer, each one begging silently for me to choose.
"I can't leave her!" I yelled.
Chase grabbed my shoulder. "Then you'll lose her everywhere!"
The world rippled.
Time folded in on itself, dragging us through a wave of collapsing images—bunker, chamber, crater, lake, darkness. We weren't walking anymore. We were falling through decisions.
When it finally stopped, we were back at the bottom of the Well—but it was empty now. No reflections. Just a single image left floating in the air.
Aaliah—still trapped in the machine. But the glass was cracked.
Rem breathed, "That's the present. That's what's left."
The others turned to me.
"What now?" Booker asked.
I stared at the fractured image. The hum was returning—faint, patient, certain.
"We go back," I said. "To where it started."
Chase frowned. "You mean the crater?"
"No," I said quietly. "The lake."
As we climbed out of the Well, the world pulsed once—like it took a breath.
And in that pulse, I heard a voice whisper through the static:
"Rewrite it, You are The Nexus."
I paused, then I thought, "You're right."