The desert didn't whisper tonight.
It screamed.
Wind tore across the salt flats in violent sheets, carrying with it the hiss of sand against metal. Omega's engine idled low, like a predator pacing before the hunt. Ahead, the horizon shimmered—not from heat, but from something else. Something moving.
Adrian shielded his eyes against the glare. "You seeing that?"
Marcel nodded slowly. "The Mirage."
He'd heard stories—of a racer so fast their car wasn't bound by reality. The 300mph Miragewasn't a machine you chased; it was a ghost that dragged you into its world. A place where speed bent everything—light, time, even thought. And tonight, it had chosen them.
The Mirage appeared.
One second, the horizon was empty. The next, a silver streak cut across it, so fast it left a distortion in the air like a tear in glass. The air itself warped around it, waves of compressed sound cracking in its wake.
Marcel dropped Omega into gear. "Hold on."
The acceleration hit like a gunshot. The speedometer ripped past 200 in seconds. Every grain of salt beneath the tires became a bullet, hammering the undercarriage. The Mirage danced ahead—never closer, never farther—mocking them with impossible agility.
Adrian's knuckles whitened around the roll bar. "We're at 260!"
"Not enough." Marcel's jaw was set. His world narrowed to a tunnel, the Mirage's tail lights—if that's what they were—burning like twin stars at the end.
Then, the world broke.
The Mirage pulled them into its slipstream, and reality folded. The stars above stretched into long white threads. The ground blurred until it wasn't ground anymore—just a silver plane that seemed to stretch forever. Omega's engine note wasn't mechanical now; it was something living.
Adrian's voice was barely a whisper. "Where… are we?"
The Mirage was all that existed. And now it was slowing—not from mercy, but invitation.
Marcel drew closer, inch by inch, until the air between them shimmered like molten glass. And that's when he saw it: the Mirage's driver. A figure in a helmet of black chrome, its visor reflecting not Omega, not Marcel, but something else entirely. Images—flashes—Marcel couldn't understand.
Suddenly, the Mirage swerved. A wall of distorted air slammed toward them.
Marcel reacted on instinct, spinning Omega sideways in a controlled slide at over 290mph. The tires screamed against the surreal surface, and the world around them fractured like shattering ice.
They were back on the salt flats. The Mirage was gone.
Adrian exhaled like he'd been holding his breath for hours. "We didn't catch it."
Marcel didn't answer. His hands were trembling—not from fear, but from something heavier. The Mirage hadn't been a race. It had been a message.
And whatever it meant… was going to change everything.
THE END OF PART 3