The lab wasn't buried — it was forgotten.
A facility sunk into the desert so far from anything that the land around it stopped being mapped.
It wasn't like the cities above, with their glossy tech and grand declarations.
This was old, brutal machinery.
Endgame engineering — the kind made when the world had nothing left to gamble with except its future.
Pulsing coolant veins ran along the ceiling.
Mana reactors hummed beneath the floor like the heart of something still alive.
Time folded here — literally.
Or at least, Madelina intended it to.
She stood alone at the primary console, her fingers dancing across an interface stitched together from salvaged legacy code and soul-reactive computation.
Behind her, the other five sat in silence.
They hadn't spoken for an hour.
Nothing left to say.
Even hate had a limit. They'd reached it months ago.
But the room broke its silence anyway.
"How long, Madelina?"
Liora.
Impatient, sharp, legs crossed but heel tapping.
Madeline didn't turn around. Still typing.
"There are a few final things holding us back,"
She said evenly.
"Not problems, exactly. More like divisions in direction."
She leaned back slightly, finally pausing.
The light from the monitors cast her face in pale blue.
"We can't merge with our past selves. If that's what you were hoping for. The soul threading doesn't allow double occupancy. If we try, it'll fracture — and that may trigger an anomaly that changes nothing we're hoping for. Possibly something worse."
She turned, finally facing them. Eyes tired but steady.
"So… what do you want to do? Walk among the past like ghosts? Or—"
But before any of them could answer, another voice — not hers, not any of theirs — broke the air.
Low. Male. Calm.
"Then why not just regress instead of time travel?"
Every head snapped toward the source.
He stood just inside the reinforced bulkhead — quiet, unreadable. The black coat. The stillness. The presence.
They didn't need to see his face.
They knew who he was.
Nightmare.
The one man the world wanted dead more than it wanted saved.
In an instant, energy surged.
Kyra flared her hand.
Liora rose.
Two others reached for weapons.
"Whoa, whoa."
He held up one hand lazily.
"You'll collapse the entire facility. I'm guessing you don't want your game to end before it even starts, right?"
His tone was perfectly flat. Not taunting. Not mocking.
Just calm — like a teacher correcting children about to ruin their own project.
"And it's not like you can actually do anything to me."
They didn't like hearing it.
But no one moved.
Because he was right.
The six of them — broken, scattered, desperate — were in no state to face that.
"Why are you here?"
Kyra said coldly.
"From when? What purpose do you have?"
He didn't answer immediately.
Tilted his head slightly. As if weighing what to say — or if it was even worth saying.
Then, same voice. Same calm.
"First, I'm kind of hurt. I walked in with you, and you're treating me like a monster."
No one smiled.
He didn't expect them to.
"Second… you're planning to kill me. In the past. How could I not show up?"
A brief silence followed.
"And lastly—"
"I have an offer."
His eyes — behind whatever mask or shadow obscured him — didn't blink.
"I can help you regress. Not time travel. Regression. A true merge of past and future. A soul-threaded overlay that becomes the present. Clean. Stable."
He took a step forward.
"And before any of you say something like, 'Why would we trust you?'…"
The air around him tightened.
Not with killing intent. Not with aura.
But with something far more terrifying.
Certainty.
"You don't have a choice."
They were all quiet.
The silence hung thick, not because no one had words—
but because the words wouldn't survive the moment.
Then Fiora broke it.
Her voice wasn't aggressive, just tired.
"What if you're lying?"
A pause.
"I know you just said not to ask… but we really need to know your purpose."
Nightmare didn't blink. Didn't tilt his head.
He just looked at her—or gave the feeling that he did.
Then nodded once.
"You're right,"
He said simply.
"Like I said before… you're planning to kill me in the past. How could I let that happen?"
He didn't sound offended. Didn't raise his voice.
He spoke like someone reading instructions aloud.
"But more than that… I don't like the outcome of this world either."
That silenced the room again.
"I want to change the past, too. The decisions I made. The way everything turned out. I have ways to do it. You have the path that leads there. So—"
He lifted one hand slightly, palm turned.
"You change the world how you want. I'll change my life how I want. It's a win-win. That way, we don't have to kill each other."
A long pause. Then—
"So. What do you say?"
Madelina, who had been silent the whole time, finally spoke.
Her voice was low. Not cautious. Focused.
"How are you going to do it?"
The other five turned, stunned. Their faces all shifted at once.
Liora stood up.
"Are you seriously going to—?!"
But before she could finish, Madelina raised one hand without looking back.
A quiet signal.
Stay quiet.
Then she folded her arms, eyes never leaving Nightmare.
"Convince me,"
She said.
"And I'll accept."
Nightmare didn't smile.
He just nodded — once — and began walking.
The others flinched but didn't move.
They could all feel it. Every step he took made the lab feel smaller.
He reached a chair beside the central terminal.
Removed the long coat.
The way he folded it — calm, precise — was strange to witness. As if he'd done it a thousand times.
Underneath was a simple black shirt and dark pants. Clean. Sharp. Quietly formal.
Then he reached for the mask.
A pause.
He took it off.
No dramatic reveal. Just off.
And in that moment, the silence shattered.
They saw the face.
Black hair. Crimson eyes. Too young. Too clean. Too real.
Not the face of a villain.
The face of a boy they used to know.
Serica couldn't speak at first. She just… stared.
"Y-Y… You're—Westen?"
She stammered.
He looked at her.
Expression unreadable.
"Hey, um… Serica. How've you been?"
He greeted her like someone recognizing an old classmate whose name slipped their mind for a second.
Then, as if none of this meant anything, he rolled up his sleeves and sat in the chair.
The others were still frozen. Not just from the reveal — but from how casual he was about it.
Westen — Nightmare — didn't explain.
He turned to Madelina.
"So what we're going to do is simple."
He said it flatly, like he was laying out logistics for a package drop.
"When the time machine activates, we all kill ourselves."
He let that settle.
"That way, the space-time tunnel can refine our soul properly."
A beat.
"Let me explain."
And then he did.
"All of us are capable of surviving time travel physically. Our rank gives us strong consciousness — a kind of natural anchor."
"But that's a problem. That strength protects us… from the thing we need to enter."
"When we die, that natural defense collapses. The tunnel can then stretch our bodies and souls across time."
He tapped the side of the console.
"Our bodies disappear. But the soul wavelength matches our past selves."
"Not entirely, of course — we keep our future memories — but enough to merge."
"Now, soul merge. The hardest problem… is also the easiest."
He looked directly at Madelina.
"We don't need to do anything. The world will handle it."
"Because the laws of this world don't allow two identical souls to exist at the same time."
He leaned back slightly.
"So? Miss Smartest Human Alive. Does it make sense?"
Madelina didn't answer. Not immediately.
She was already calculating. Reconstructing his theory mid-air.
Her hands moved slightly at her sides — a reflex.
Before she could speak, a fragile voice cut across the room.
"Westen… is that really you?"
Serica.
There were tears in her eyes now.
Westen looked at her. The pause was short. Clinical.
"Westen, huh…"
He looked at the floor for a second.
"Yeah. That's what people used to call me… 35 years ago."
He looked back up.
"So, yeah. Guess that's me."
His voice had no weight. No nostalgia. No resentment.
Just confirmation.
Serica stepped forward.
"Where were you?" she said, louder. Almost a scream.
"Why—"
He sighed.
Still calm. Still Westen.
"Let's not go too deep into the past."
He gestured around the lab.
"Though, ironically, we're about to."
He looked at her — just briefly. But this time with a trace of something gentler. Not kindness. Not regret. Just… detachment that took time to earn.
"The past is past. I moved on. I hope you can too."
He turned back to Madelina.
"We're about to enter a new arc in our lives. Would be nice if we didn't carry the old one in our teeth."
A breath. One last glance.
"Now… Miss Madelina, please continue with your evaluation."
-To Be Continued