The alarms didn't sound.
That was the first clue something was wrong.
Inside the subterranean complex, everything hummed with its usual mechanical rhythm. Engineers scrolled through diagnostics. Security officers patrolled with sharp boots striking metal floors. Scientists huddled around glowing holoscreens, whispering equations under their breath.
On the surface, it looked normal.
But Elias felt it—the Core pulsing like a drumbeat in his chest, growing erratic, warning him of a disturbance.
He set down the datapad he had been pretending to read in the cafeteria and rubbed his temple. The Core's pulse wasn't just physical anymore; it vibrated in his thoughts, like a distant echo. Something was about to happen.
He scanned the room. Scientists slurped noodles from steaming cups. Soldiers laughed over a card game. No one else seemed to notice.
Of course they don't. It hasn't happened yet. But it will.
He pushed back from his seat, earning a glance from a soldier at the far table. Elias ignored him and hurried out, following the Core's strange tug.
It drew him down through service corridors, past supply depots and storage chambers, deeper into the facility where fewer personnel lingered.
The air grew cooler, the lights dimmer. Somewhere nearby, machinery thudded, the steady rotation of turbines.
Elias stopped before a sealed blast door marked Experimental Chamber 7-B. The Core inside him pulsed so hard it nearly stole his breath.
Something was on the other side.
The door was guarded by two soldiers in black tactical armor. They straightened when they saw him.
"This section's restricted," one barked. "Authorized personnel only."
Elias forced calm into his voice. "There's a problem in there. You need to open the door."
The guards exchanged a glance. One snorted. "On whose authority?"
Elias stepped closer, lowering his voice. "On the authority of survival. If you don't open it, you'll regret it."
Their hands twitched toward their rifles.
Wrong approach. Too sharp. Elias exhaled. "Fine. Call Dr. Veyna. She'll understand."
Minutes stretched before Lyra arrived, annoyance etched across her features. She wore her lab coat this time, stylus tucked behind her ear.
"Elias," she said, folding her arms. "Why am I being dragged down here?"
"Because something's happening in Chamber 7-B," Elias replied, his chest still pounding with the Core's erratic rhythm.
Her brow arched. "And you know this… how?"
He hesitated. "I just do. Please—open the door. If I'm wrong, I'll take the blame. If I'm right, you'll see it for yourself."
Lyra studied him. The guards waited, uncertain. Finally, she sighed and tapped her wrist console.
"Open it."
The blast door shuddered and lifted with a grinding groan.
Cold air rushed out, tinged with the faint metallic tang of ozone.
The chamber beyond was lined with massive containment arrays, glassy conduits glowing faintly blue. Usually they carried stable energy for experiments in particle flow.
But tonight—
One of the conduits flickered, the glow warping and twisting in impossible directions. A ripple of distortion shimmered in the air above it, like heat haze bending light.
Lyra froze. "What…?"
The ripple thickened. For a moment, Elias saw it—a crack in space itself, a hairline fracture that glowed with faint violet light.
The Core inside him throbbed in recognition. A Rift. Small. Primitive. But real.
"Close the door!" one guard shouted, panic in his voice.
"No!" Elias snapped. "If you seal it, you'll destabilize the chamber. The pressure will build and tear it wider. Keep it contained in here."
Lyra's face went pale. She stepped closer, stylus flicking over her datapad as she gathered readings. "This… this isn't possible. The energy signature is off the scale. It looks like—like a localized tear in spacetime."
Her voice trembled, but her hands moved fast, recording everything.
Elias swallowed. "Now do you believe me?"
The ripple flared. The violet crack stretched wider, humming with a sound that wasn't sound at all but a vibration in the bones.
One guard raised his rifle. "Should I shoot it?"
"No!" Lyra barked, sharper than Elias expected. "You'll just feed unstable energy into the distortion."
"Then what the hell do we do?"
Elias stepped forward, the Core guiding him. Its pulse synchronized with the Rift, each beat a counterbalance.
"I can stabilize it," he said.
Lyra stared at him. "How?"
He hesitated. The truth hovered on his lips—because I've done this before, in another timeline, when the Rifts consumed half the planet. But he couldn't tell her that. Not yet.
Instead, he placed a hand over his chest. "Because I have to."
Ignoring the guards' protests, Elias approached the conduit. The Rift pulsed like a living wound, edges writhing. The Core inside him responded, a resonance that tugged his breath away.
He raised his hand, fingers trembling, and reached toward the distortion.
The air grew thick, buzzing with static. His vision blurred.
Then—contact.
For a split second, he was everywhere and nowhere. Flashes of ruined cities. Alien skies. Beasts clawing through fire. He saw himself older, broken, fighting. He saw Lyra dying in a future that no longer existed.
Then the Core surged, and the visions shattered.
The Rift collapsed inward with a thunderclap, vanishing like a candle snuffed out.
Silence.
The glow faded from the conduits. The distortion was gone.
Elias staggered back, chest heaving. His hand burned, though there was no mark.
The guards gaped at him, one muttering, "What the hell just happened…"
Lyra's datapad beeped, filled with frantic streams of data. She stared at the screen, then at Elias.
"You… stabilized it," she whispered. "That anomaly should have expanded until containment failed. But you stopped it."
Her eyes locked on him with something new—not just curiosity, but fear.
"Who are you, Elias Kael?"
Elias didn't answer. Couldn't. The Core throbbed inside him, a reminder that this was only the beginning.
Because where there was one Rift, more would follow.
And next time, they wouldn't be so small.
The first Rift appears. Elias proves, undeniably, that he knows something no one else does—earning Lyra's shaken attention and forcing the military to reconsider.