Elias didn't sleep that night.
His small quarters on the edge of the facility felt more like a coffin than a room. The metal walls pressed in around him, humming with the steady vibration of the underground generators. Normally, that hum would have been a comfort—an engineer's lullaby. But now, every sound reminded him of the ticking clock in his head.
09 years, 11 months, 17 days.
The numbers burned behind his eyelids every time he blinked. The apocalypse wasn't far away—not nearly far enough—and if he couldn't make anyone listen, then all he could do was buy time by preventing the first cracks from appearing.
That was when the Core pulsed again.
A subtle vibration in his chest, like the beat of a second heart. His vision blurred, and for a moment he wasn't in his quarters at all—he was standing inside the facility's reactor chamber. He smelled coolant vapor, heard warning klaxons, saw technicians scrambling. In the vision, sparks erupted from a containment array. Plasma arcs snapped across the floor, tearing a technician apart in an instant. The emergency shutdown failed, and the instability cascaded through the coolant lines—threatening to overload the Rift Generator prototype.
Elias staggered back against the wall, gasping. The vision faded, leaving only the echo of screams and the Core's relentless thrum.
His jaw tightened. It hasn't happened yet. But it will.
The Core wasn't just rewinding time—it was giving him glimpses. Warnings. He didn't understand why, but he didn't need to. He had a chance to prove himself right.
And he would take it.
The next morning, he reported to the engineering wing as usual. The corridors buzzed with the chatter of overworked staff, tired but optimistic. They had no idea what was coming.
He made his way to the reactor chamber, the same one from his vision. A half-dozen engineers moved between consoles, calibrating magnetic fields and running diagnostics. The massive containment coils hummed, glowing faintly blue with circulating plasma.
Elias's stomach knotted. It looked perfectly stable—now. But he knew that within hours, one of the coolant stabilizers would fracture. It wasn't enough to cause a total meltdown, but it would trigger cascading failures. Exactly what he'd seen.
"Kael!"
The sharp voice snapped him out of his thoughts.
Kade Renn, a wiry young apprentice engineer, bounded up to him. His hair was a mess, goggles skewed over one eye, and his grin was as lopsided as always.
"Thought you called in sick after yesterday's… uh… episode," Kade said with a smirk.
Elias frowned. "Episode?"
Kade mimed tapping his temple. "Y'know. Standing in front of Dr. Veyna and predicting doomsday? Whole lab's talking about it. Some people are betting on when they'll drag you out for psych eval."
Elias clenched his jaw. The kid wasn't cruel—just oblivious.
"Forget that," Elias muttered. "Where's the primary stabilizer log?"
Kade blinked. "Uh, right there." He pointed at one of the auxiliary consoles. "Why?"
Elias didn't answer. He strode over and pulled up the diagnostic readouts. Lines of data streamed across the holo-display—pressure levels, coolant flow rates, temperature gradients. On the surface, everything was normal. Too normal. The values lined up too perfectly, the kind of numbers that suggested the system was auto-correcting for a deeper problem.
He tapped into the hidden maintenance logs. That's when he saw it:
Coolant Line 47A – Microfracture detected – Auto-Seal Engaged.
Elias's pulse quickened. It had already started.
No one else would notice. Auto-seal patches were designed to mask microfractures before they spread. But he knew this wasn't a one-off. The patch would fail under stress. And when it did, the cascade would begin.
He turned to the nearest technician. "You need to shut down the reactor. Now."
The man looked up, startled. "What? Are you out of your mind? We're mid-calibration."
"Exactly," Elias said, stepping closer. "That coolant line has a microfracture. If you push the coils any further, it'll rupture. You'll lose half the chamber in seconds."
The technician's eyes narrowed. "And where'd you get that diagnosis? Those logs are sealed. You shouldn't even have clearance."
Others were watching now. Kade tugged at Elias's sleeve nervously.
"Look, Kael, maybe we should—"
"Shut it down!" Elias barked, louder than he intended. His voice echoed through the chamber. "Do you want blood on your hands?"
That did it. The lead supervisor, a broad-shouldered man with a shaved head, marched over. "Engineer Kael. Step away from the console. That's an order."
Elias's hands trembled. He saw it happening in his mind again—sparks, screams, fire. He couldn't let it happen.
The Core pulsed.
Time seemed to slow. The digital countdown flickered at the edge of his vision. But this time, another string of numbers appeared—an alternate timer, counting down only forty-three seconds.
Elias's eyes widened. It's happening now.
The stabilizer console began to beep. Warning glyphs flared red across the holo-display. Coolant pressure spiked, the auto-seal struggling to hold.
"Look!" Elias shouted, pointing at the alarms. "It's starting! Shut it down, now!"
For a single heartbeat, the room froze. The supervisor's eyes darted to the console, then back to Elias.
And then the coolant line burst.
A hiss of vapor filled the chamber as blue-white plasma arcs lashed out, searing across the floor. Engineers screamed and scrambled back. Sparks cascaded from the ceiling as the containment fields flickered.
Elias didn't hesitate. He sprinted to the emergency override panel, fingers flying across the manual shutdown sequence. His mind moved faster than his body—every step, every switch, every code already burned into his memory from the countless times he'd seen systems fail in the war.
"Kade! Stabilizer clamps, now!" he roared.
The apprentice startled, then lunged for the auxiliary controls. His hands shook, but he obeyed. Together, they forced the reactor into emergency shutdown. Coils powered down with a thunderous groan, the glow fading as the plasma stream collapsed.
Silence.
The only sound was the hiss of cooling metal and the ragged breaths of shaken engineers.
The supervisor stared at the smoldering coolant line, then back at Elias. His expression was a mixture of shock and disbelief.
"You… you knew," he said slowly.
Elias straightened, sweat dripping down his brow. "I told you. No one wants to believe me, but this is just the beginning. The Rifts are coming."
No one laughed this time. No one whispered. They only stared at him with wide, uncertain eyes.
But Elias could see it in their faces. Even now, even after he'd saved their lives—most of them still thought it was luck. A fluke. A wild guess.
It wasn't enough.
He clenched his fists, staring at the faint red countdown still hovering in his vision. I bought them minutes. But the apocalypse clock is still ticking.
And somewhere deep inside the Core, he swore he heard Ava's faint, broken voice again:
"Tick… tock… Elias…"
Elias proves himself but still isn't believed—tension escalates.