The hum of the accelerator was deafening, vibrating through my bones like a storm trapped in steel.
We'd been running simulations for months, but nothing compared to standing here—at the edge of humanity's greatest gamble. A black coil of machinery wound around the underground chamber, pulsing with faint blue light, like the heartbeat of a sleeping god.
I shouldn't have been here. Technicians weren't allowed this close during activation, but protocol never meant much to me.
If the Quantum Bridge Project worked, humanity would finally pierce the veil of parallel dimensions. If it failed… well, there were worse ways to die than in the name of discovery.
"Dr. Kieran," the intercom crackled, "final sequence initiating in thirty seconds."
I exhaled slowly, my gloved hands tightening around the railing. The machine roared to life, arcs of energy snapping like chained lightning. Reality itself seemed to warp at the center of the chamber—air bending, light stretching into impossible colors.
For a moment, I thought I saw something watching from inside that distortion. Not a reflection. Not a hallucination. Something… aware.
The floor lurched. Screams erupted over the comms.
A blinding flash swallowed me whole—every nerve in my body lit with fire, then silence.
---
When I opened my eyes, I wasn't in the laboratory.
The ceiling above me was metallic, ribbed with glowing veins of circuitry. My chest rose and fell, but the rhythm was wrong—mechanical, too precise. My hands trembled as I raised them into view.
Not hands.
Chrome fingers flexed, each joint whirring with microscopic gears. Reflections of red optics stared back at me in the polished surface.
My breath caught. Except… I wasn't breathing.
I wasn't human anymore.
And somewhere, deep in the back of my mind, a voice that was not my own whispered:
"Welcome back, Subject-09."