Kael didn't mean to open it.
One moment he was running through the ruins of a city that had disappeared and reappeared mid-chaos; the next, a subtle pulse in his chest made his glyph flare like molten silver. The world around him began to bend — buildings stretched impossibly tall, streets folded, and the air itself seemed to ripple like water.
A crack appeared in the empty street ahead, jagged and glowing with a pale blue light. Kael hesitated, sensing it was not a natural fracture. The whispers in his head crescendoed: "Step through… step through…"
He glanced at Aria, who was crouched behind a half-collapsed wall, eyes wide. "Kael, don't!" she shouted, her voice trembling with something between fear and awe.
Kael's hands were already moving, almost of their own volition. A foot crossed the threshold of the light — and gravity seemed to shiver. Colors inverted. The sounds of the collapsing city warped into a low, vibrating hum.
Then he stepped fully into the door — and found himself standing on a different Earth.
It was like a photograph left out in the sun: familiar, yet distorted. The skyline was intact, but the buildings were fractured, floating at angles that defied physics. The sky was a dull, sickly green, clouds circling in reverse, and the air carried the faint metallic tang of ozone. Kael could hear echoes — not voices, exactly, but reverberations of conversations that hadn't happened yet.
"Where… are we?" Aria whispered behind him, her voice barely audible over the hum of the world.
Kael didn't answer. He felt a presence, something ancient, waiting. The glyph on his chest burned hot enough to sear through his shirt. He realized with a sudden, chilling clarity:
This world… isn't just another Earth. It's a Nexus node. And someone—or something—knows we're here.